Matt's second post - Worship and Confession

In class we spoke about what is needed to be able to give a confession, and what was needed to be able to hear a confession. According to Richard Foster and St. Alphonsus Liguori, both sides "required" several qualities. As I sat there and thought about it, I realized how much I totally disagreed with Foster and Liguori. I don't believe that you need sorrow or the determination to avoid sin to be able to confess a sin. What does "determination to avoid sin" mean anyways? Yes I am a Christian trying not to sin, but I still am going to do it. Just as if I were not a Christian. I could be the worst person in the world and still just happen to decide one day that I want to confess some sins.....maybe even just for fun. Maybe this would not be considered a "true" confessions of one's sins, but guess what....it's still a confession! I am guessing what Foster actually means is that you need to aquire these qualities to confess to be able to grow spiritually in Christ. Foster also noted how certain qualities were needed to listen to a confession. One of these was the authority to forgive. When I read this I thought to myself, my goodness what is this guy thinking? A person hearing a confession has to have the authority to forgive? HELLO, we all already have the authority to forgive one another. I mean, I could steal some guy's wallet and confess my sin to a person 10 years later but I still believe that this person would be able to forgive me for my sin even though it was not their wallet that I stole. Maybe not a forgiveness on a personal level, but I still believe that we all have the authority to forgive each other for the sins we have committed against humanity.
Often when we hear the word "worship", the first thing to come to mind is a band playing Christian music or a choir singing hymns. In class, it was also noted that the word Worship was not actually a verb, but a noun. After hearing that, I had some questions. Like, if it is not an action, why do we have "worship services", and why do we say that we must worship the lord? (which we must, just showing the action side of it). So why can't the statement "to worship" also mean the action of praising God?
So far in this post I have blasted against Foster's Celebration of Discipline, but it was really a great book. It definitely opened my eyes to a lot of the different disciplines that are needed to be followed, and how to follow them. It was so in-depth, yet so easy to understand, and to follow. To me it is a little surprising that it was actually written in 1978. In fact, during our group discussion time, one member was a little upset over the fact that since the book was written in 1978 (and it was popular then), nothing has really changed (discipline wise) in our churches. Even so, we all found it to be an excellent book, and a great help with our spiritual lives.
We also watched a short video that showed how worship has become like a material industry. Personally, I thought the video to be dead on. I find that churches are so formal and repetative these days. People are losing interest in going to church, and are starting to think of it as a waste of time. I recently had visited a Spanish Church in Kitchener and though it was small, it was filled with people yelling out their praises for the Lord. It suddenly struck me that this is how church should be. We should be yelling out to Him and telling Him how much we love Him, not just sitting in a pew for an hour in pure silence.
Personally, I have found this weeks group time to be one of the best so far. There was adaquate time to reflect on what we had discussed, and turned out to be one of the more in-depth discussions so far. The Celebration of Discipline was an amazing book, and I will definitely be reading it again in the future.