Desiring the Kingdom (): Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Cultural Liturgies Book 1)

by James K. A. Smith

The practices of Christian worship function as the altar of Christian formation, the heart and soul, the center of gravity of the task of discipleship. But the energy and formative power of gathered worship is extended and amplified in the “chapels” around the cathedral—in the different gatherings and practices of Christian communities and friends who together intentionally pursue a life formed by the Spirit, engaged in formative practices that are bent on making us the kind of people who desire the kingdom. If, in a certain sense, the altar is not enough—a sense in which just liturgical practices are insufficient counter-measures to secular liturgies—there is also a sense in which extraliturgical practices will have diminished formative power (or worse, could themselves become practices aimed at quite a distorted picture of the kingdom) if they are not tethered to and nourished by the practices of Christian worship.