In James B. Torrance’s book, Worship, Community & The Triune God of Grace, we discover three models of worship: Unitarian, Existential, and Trinitarian. Today we look at the Existential model.
Is the fundamental issue in “worship” the “experience” of worship, the reaching of a certain level of focus, and the achievement of immediacy?
1. The heart of worship is contemporary immediacy of experiencing God’s presence.
2. The work of Christ is the foundation of this immediacy of experiencing God.
3. The person of Christ, the incarnation of Christ, and the ongoing ministry of Christ are not emphasized.
4. The focus is on the blessings that come to us through Christ, not the personal presence of Christ.
5. The God-humanward movement is God’s gracious work, but the human-Godward movement is ours.
He uses Bultmann and the early Barth as primary examples of this model of worship.