This morning at Embry Hills, we continue what we started last week—a five Sunday look at the Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations, which happens to be the title of a recent, very popular book by United Methodist Bishop Robert Schnase. And, as we look week by week at the five fruits that Bishop Schnase mentions, we do so within the framework of some of Jesus’ words from the Gospel of John. “You did not choose me, but I chose you. And, I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.”

We’re talking about what it means for followers of Jesus to bear lasting fruit in obedience to him.

Last week, we considered the first of the five practices of fruitful congregations, what Bishop Schnase calls radical hospitality. And, just so everyone will be up to speed, here’s a brief refresher on what Bishop Schnase shares.

Radical hospitality is characterized by openness and adaptability. And, that means that congregations that are radically hospitable demonstrate a willingness to change their behaviors to accommodate the needs and to receive the talents of newcomers. Apparently, a few folks want to take Bishop Schnase to the shed for that comment. And so, we’ve created the Bishop Schnase Shed, where people can contend with what Bishop Schnase shares. So, if you don’t like what Bishop Schnase shares, take him to the Bishop Schnase Shed.

Welcoming new people is one thing. But, being willing to forsake our ways for the sake of newcomers turns out to be a bit disquieting for some.

Well, no worries. Not to be foolishly consistent, but today’s conversation about passionate worship might also be a bit disquieting for some. Welcome to the Gospel, where we are routinely disquieted by what God has to say. The Word disquiets me on a right regular basis. It’s like one wise person has said—the truth will set you free, but first it will make you mad.

So, today, passionate worship. I like the way Bishop Schnase defines worship. “Worship, he says, describes those times [when] we gather deliberately seeking an encounter with God in Christ.” Let me say that again. Worship refers to the times when we gather to deliberately to seek an encounter with God.

Now, we don’t have time today to trace the remarkable history of the concept of encounter from its origins until today. But, suffice to say that there is no such thing as an encounter without change. To encounter another human being, to encounter another living creature, to encounter a real situation, not to mention to encounter the Holy God, will inevitably mean that we are rendered different than we ever were before. I realize that it makes us want to take the Bible to the Schnase shed, but encounter and change go hand in hand. And now, Bishop Schnase shares with us that worship is the gathering which we deliberately seek out, in order to encounter God. Now, don’t take my word on it. Just ask Isaiah and Paul.

Isaiah went to the temple one day. And, he had an encounter with God. And, of course, Isaiah was never the same again. He was fundamentally altered by this encounter with the Divine. And, in his letter to the Romans, Paul speaks of our spiritual worship in terms of transformation. “Don’t be conformed to convention,” he says, but be transformed—there’s that word again—“be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” Get out of that herd.

So, worship involves our willingness to seek out and to be transformed by the One who is our Creator and who will not leave us alone.

And, that’s the truth that leaps out in any conversation about Christian worship. The God whom worship is the Holy One who will not leave us alone. And, for the life of me, I cannot imagine why that’s not Great News.

God will not leave us the way we are or have most always been. That’s why Bishop Schnase shares that God uses worship to transform lives.

God will not leave us alone to deal with or to be overcome or conquered by our wounds and our hurts. That’s why Bishop Schnase shares that God uses worship to heal our wounds.

God will not leave us alone in the wreckage of our broken dreams and shattered expectations. God uses worship to renew our hope.

God will not leave us alone standing at an important crossroads and uncertain as to which path to follow. God uses worship to shape our decisions.

God will not leave us alone in our old patterns and in our everyday thinking. God uses worship to provoke change.

God will not leave us alone in our isolation. God uses worship to inspire compassion.

God will not leave us alone, period. God uses worship to draw close to us and to connect us to one another and to the world.

That all strikes me as abundant good news.

But, if God is going to use worship to transform our lives, to heal our wounds, to renew our hope, to shape our decisions, to provoke change, to inspire compassion, and to connect us to one another, we are going to have to demonstrate the same two qualities that sometimes make us want to take Bishop Schnase to the Bishop Schase Shed for sharing what he did about radical hospitality. If God is going to use worship to deal with us, then we are of necessity going to be open and adaptable.

That’s why worship is so dangerous. Because, every time we enter these doors, we run the hopeful risk of encountering or being encountered by God and by the life and ministry of Jesus. And, something’s going to happen. That’s why one person has said that ushers in churches that worship passionately need to equip people for the danger they are going to experience in showing up with a sense of anticipation and expectancy. Listen to what she says.

Why do people in churches seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour…? Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are the children playing on the floor with their chemistry set, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets.

Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake some day and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.

When we walk through these doors, invoking the name of Jesus and asking God for anything, we stir up a mighty batch of TNT. Because, the history of worship in any tradition is the history of people being encountered by the Holy God and being made new and being reworked and being reimagined and being transformed.

What about us? Are we tourists on a tour of worship? Or, are we those who, like Isaiah and Paul, open ourselves to God and adapt ourselves to whatever it is that Jesus may like to do with us and allow his spirit to blow us wherever it will?

And, in maddening fashion, it turns out that worship is just another word for radical hospitality. Worship is the place where we demonstrate radical hospitality to God, showing reckless openness and supple adaptability, willing to change our behaviors in order to receive the God who made us and who will never leave us alone.