Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works

It has been about six weeks since I have finished this book and I am still not sure how to write about it.

The general thrust of the book, that discipleship must be rooted in practice (liturgy) not just knowledge, I think is helpful and hard to counter. And I think it is important for Christians to really interact with the philosophical work at the beginning (even if it is a bit rough going at times.)

The second half is oriented not in the theory, but in the working out of the theory (although I am hesitant to call it practical because that seems a bit too trite).

My problem with the book is not really the book itself, but my own ability to make sense of the book. I am low church, not reformed, a part of a mega-church, with an intellectual (and introverted) bent. The coherence of Smith's vision makes theoretical sense to me, but practically in my background I am struggling with how that would really work out. I think I get his points about the Sunday morning worship but I am not influential in my church body so I can't really do anything about our worship (I would love it to be more focused on the sacraments, but that isn't going to happen soon.) I get his points about focusing catechesis on practice not knowledge (and when I teach my nieces and soon my daughter I will really try to make that the central place.) But my world is not as coherent and unified as Smith's vision of the world. So I am at a bit of a loss. I will try to read the first book in the series later this summer and re-read this again sometime in the fall and see if it makes more sense to me then.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/imagining-the-kingdom/ ‎