What would it do for our lives if we celebrated more often? Celebration is how we identify, symbolize, and dramatize our values. Values are our stance on what is important in life. We celebrate what we value. Celebration is related to praise, and praise is what we do to express appreciation for everything and everyone that we enjoy. CS Lewis says it like this, “I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.”

How often do we go about valuing the experience of things such as friendship, love, service, fortitude, kindness, courage, thoughtfulness, sacrifice, and excellence without ever celebrating the moment, the messenger, or the mode by which the moment happened? What would it look like to dramatize the value by celebrating it? Sort of like a birthday party. I have always loved celebrating birthdays, my own and others, because birthdays are living dramas of appreciation. Celebrating is part and parcel of being the church. But so often we move on—from one thing to the next, from one sermon to the next, from one insight to the next, from one gathering to the next, from one new disciple to the next—without ever pausing. What’s getting in our way of slowing down, acknowledging the good, and having a party? We’ve forgotten to celebrate.

Celebrate generosity, love, courage, wisdom, service, risk, sacrifice, others-centeredness, patience, commitment, peace-making, compassion, mentorship, goodness, leadership development, hospitality, vulnerability, growth, orientation to action, curiosity, humility, kindness, and so on. What could the dramatization look like? Maybe like a birthday party or maybe like an acknowledgement? The result will be a sense wholeness, being known, and being emotionally seen.

Presently, we are only gathering in homes and around screens. What happens in homes is different than what happens corporately on Sunday mornings, but not less than, and vice versa. It is the content that matters, not the container (building or homes). Most often, in “church,” our values are hidden by our lack of celebration. Celebration builds culture, and culture shapes lives. So when we all gather again on the Lord’s Day, let us remember to celebrate—but don’t wait till then.