Where is your liturgical flab?

The liturgies we celebrate every week are, at their core, a spiritual exercise whose primary goal is to praise God.  One of the many benefits of this exercise is the deepening of our faith, which is critical to our health as members of the Body of Christ.  Just as we exercise our physical bodies so that we can be prepared for the rigors and fun of daily life, we must also exercise our spiritual bodies - we must exercise the Body of Christ in worship so that we are prepared for the rigors and fun that is serving our Lord. 

To exercise our physical bodies, we focus on different muscle groups so that the body can be strong and all parts work well together.  We must take the same care with our spiritual bodies when it pertains to worship.  Our worship is incomplete without prayers of intercession to balance our praise of creation.  It is incomplete without the lament of our pain and brokenness to balance our joy in resurrection and wholeness in Christ. 

Perhaps our greatest sin as worship planners and leaders is a lackadaisical and careless approach to the design and execution of our liturgies.  Just as a poorly designed and executed exercise routine can lead to a flabby body and even injury, a lackadaisical and careless approach to worship can lead to a flabby liturgy and could even injure the Body of Christ by not providing a complete picture of our Lord and our faith.  

Where is your liturgical flab?  If we are honest with each other, we must all admit that we have some.  Is it the preaching or the music?  The reading of the scriptures?  Or can it be found in less definable places, like hospitality?

What will you do this week to begin to burn your liturgical flab away?