you are the message, originally uploaded by jonnybaker.

as part of the week we taught at lancaster seminary the students created a worship experience. it was around a passge from 1 thessalonians 1 – not an easy one! we only had around an hour we spent planning but somehow pulled together a really amazing worship experience. the central idea in the passage is that the apostles imitate christ, the macedonians have imitated the apostles, and now the thessalonians are imitating them. it's like a chain of modeling. but it is effective because in the end if it is real it will be visible in peoples lives. i guess it's like leslie newbigin's idea of the hermeneutic of the congregation, or like christ's simple words – if you love one another people will know you are my disciples. so taking this idea the central ritual involved people coming up and looking in a mirror which had an icon of christ on and of paul, the idea being to see how we might reflect christ. as people walked back to their seat they passed another mirror with the words you are the message written on – simple but very powerful. that line is from the message translation of the passage…