🙌It's the Friday Call to Worship!🙌

If you were born in southern America in the 1980's, and if your parents took advantage of every summer Vacation Bible School in your hometown, you can probably finish the following lines without thinking twice:

"God is good..." (All the time!) "All the time..." (God is good!)

Recently, I heard worship leaders shout these lines to a huge crowd, and all responded in unison. So did I. I didn't even realize I was doing it. And that got me thinking. How many automated responses come from me each day? This piqued my interest as I've been reading James K. Smith's, "You Are What You Love." Smith incites readers to understand culture as liturgy, encouraging us to take a "liturgical audit" of our lives.

The word "liturgy" gets fuzzy for me, so I did some research. To spare you a Greek word study and church history lesson, I'll summarize "liturgy" as the format for a corporate worship service. It's knowing what to expect when you walk in on a Sunday morning and how your church carries out basic church traditions. The purpose of liturgy is to make connecting to Christ easy, rhythmic and natural. Just like my kids click into "learning mode" when they go into their classrooms and naturally gather around the table when the placemats are set out, liturgies are habitual cues for connection.

Smith suggests our "everyday liturgies" are the most powerful shapers of our identities and desires. Whether it's scrolling social media first thing in the morning, putting three fingers up to recite the Girl Scout oath every Wednesday afternoon (I still know it), or giving thanks before you eat each meal... Could the liturgical practices of both pre-determined and defaulted rituals be shaping who we are and how we love?

I didn't have to reach for the answer when I heard the pre-recorded prompt this week. God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good. It might be silly, but, even now, when bad things happen there's a deep knowing in me that God stays good. A childhood liturgy shaped my soul. God is good, all the time. And all the time, God is good. He is truly so, so good for creating us with hearts that can be shaped (and re-shaped).

Attune your heart to His, and sing "So So Good" by Phil Wickham, Brandon Lake, and Elevation Worship.