Two things that stick out in my mind in response to the last two posts (thoughts are probably scattered and I may want a take-back or two later):
(1) It is sometimes a mistake to draw marked lines between service and abiding in Christ. While it's true that in our human limitations and performance-based mentality that comes from not completely understanding grace, we dig into service with a spirit that isn't abiding in Christ (like Martha), that is simply doing. Martha chose to work when she had the option of sitting with Jesus, but what does abiding in Him look like when Jesus is working? I don't think it's as simple as you abide, and then at a different time, you serve. I think if we ever really got abiding in Christ right, abiding would be something that was going on all of the time, and certainly a lot of that time would be spent pouring out service in love for the people that Christ loves and died for. Perfect communion with Him would be happening as we responded to his Spirit in us, in meditation AND in service. We wouldn't say that Jesus was dwelling with God when he was on the mountain praying, but not when he was healing people or speaking truth. Jesus was dwelling with God during all of that, I think. I know that often praying, fasting, creating, meditating, or sitting in silent solitude may indeed be ways to jump start our abiding in Him, but in the ideal, the abiding would happen during every part of life. I'm not downplaying the importance or the power of the spiritual disciplines that Miles outlines above, but I am saying we shouldn't limit our definition of what sitting at Jesus' feet means by sticking too closely to the literal specifics of the Mary and Martha story. Sitting at Jesus' feet is a worthy goal. Sometimes sitting at his feet means sitting on the floor of Mary and Martha's sitting room, but Jesus' feet also walked long dusty roads, visited sick and dying people (and the dead), and dangled from the cross. One very frustrating thing to me about some of the Christian community is promotion of the segmentation of our lives, and of our spiritual lives.
(2) The previous post ends with a statement about mission being dependent on "our own relationship with Christ." Pronouns can get confusing, but I'd like to applaud that sentiment while emphasizing the plural state of the word OUR and deemphasizing the OWN part of it that generally implies individual ownership. God passionately loves individuals and works through them, but I think the American church doesn't make enough of how God uses and works through peoples/communities/groups, and the need for communities to abide in Him and to be close to Him as a group. Much of the Old Testament spends energy describing Israel's relationship with God (good or bad) and how passionate God is about that. He picks broken, sin-riddled individuals to care for his relationship with Israel, and ultimately the world, (David, each OT prophet...) and regardless of how much they mess up, God's eye is on the ball of bringing about his kingdom to "the nations." There are certainly plenty of stories in the Old Testament and the New of faithful or unfaithful remarkable people, but it's comforting that there is never a story of one person's lack of intimacy with God ruining something that God wanted to do. It is good and right for individuals to seek to bask in God's beautiful character, to accept God's pursuit and love and teaching. But God created us to need each other, to support each other, to reveal God's character to each other. I think God's heart breaks at the tragically impotent way that we so often try to go for the abundant life that He offers by ourselves. The relationship of the people of God with Christ, which can be different than the sum of the individual Christians' relationships with God, seems to be a big thing that contributes to the welfare of God's kingdom coming on earth as it is in heaven.

I think I agree with most of what you are saying here, and I think Christians do comparmentalize their lives too much, but I also think the distinction between service and abiding is important. The key is that a person CANNOT ABIDE WITHOUT SERVING, but a person CAN DEFINITELY SERVE WITHOUT ABIDING. The logic of this suggests that serving is not the same as abiding, and our goal must be to abide first and serve second. People sometimes fear that this acts as an excuse to serve less, which should not be the case. You bring up a good point about Christ actively caring for the people around him and that if we hope to abide in Him, we also need to role up our sleeves and get our hands dirty. But thousands of secular organizations and unbelievers serve in the world without abiding in Christ and our goals, motives, and rewards must be different. We can't confuse our (collective AND individual) genuine communion with God with performing good works, because I would argue scripture tells us, no matter how much "good" we do, our efforts will be fruitless for God's purposes. I know this isn't what you were saying and I don't want you to think that's how I read your comment, I just wanted to clarify why I think "non-service related," worship and spiritual disciplines should be a Christian's first concern if they want God to produce fruit in their lives and their subsequent service. Show me a Christian who truely developes these areas of their walk and I will show you a Christian who is serving and loving their community more honestly and more effectively than we can imagine.

I agree with a lot of what you say here. Abiding should be first priority, there are certainly plenty of people who are serving who aren't abiding, and our human efforts are not sufficient to bring about God's kingdom. I am though suspicious of this hierarchy of these two hand-in-glove aspects of following Jesus.
As true as it is that someone who truly develops the spiritual discipline area of his walk will be driven to serve, I would offer that someone who is truly pouring out in service as a response to the way that Jesus commands us to feed His sheep will be driven to prayer, intimacy with Him, etc. I once started reading a book about evangelism and I thought it offered very practical advice about diving in (in this case to evangelism, but I think the principle applies to this discussion): Prayer and action are required. If you are someone to whom prayer is more natural and you pour out in prayer for people who need a relationship with God, you will be driven to act; if you are someone to whom acting comes more easily and you pour out in action, you will be driven to your knees.
I'm just not sure that scripture supports the prioritization of personal worship over serving others. (Confession: perhaps this comes from my own prejudice of being a very undisciplined person.)
I agree that a person can serve without abiding, and that a person cannot truly abide without serving. I don't understand why this logically dictates that one must make the top priority the part of abiding that is not serving. Shouldn't all of the necessary parts be equally important? Doesn't it make sense that different people would put together the pieces in different orders?
I would say that scripture indicates that serving our fellow people is imperative to participating in God's bringing about His kingdom, and to truly loving and understanding God, along with, not second to prayer, study of scripture, and other kinds of worship. In my own prayer life of seeking to know what God would have me do, I've traveled this circle over and over:
"Father, what would you have me do to be obedient?"
"Love me; know me; sit at my feet."
"Father, how can I love you, know you, and sit at your feet?"
"Obey my commands; feed my sheep." And so on.
I wholeheartedly agree with everything that you write about the insufficiency of depending only or primarily on service as our response/means of sitting at Jesus' feet. Scripture does tell us that our efforts alone will be fruitless. Scripture also seems to say that a crucial element of God's heart is to embrace the forsaken, to take care of the marginalized (us included). I just think that creating the hierarchy of non-service related worship as the FIRST concern is a little contrived and unnecessarily prescribing a specific order to put together elements that are mutually imperative to intimacy with Christ. I think they are both crucial. Since we'll never completely get any kind of worship perfectly right, we shouldn't try to get one done first and foremost.
I think that lots of us prioritize getting one or the other done first, to the detriment of the Lord's goal for us to enjoy truly abiding in Jesus. There are certainly seasons of life, or in the life of a community, in which one kind of worship takes precedence appropriately over another. But in general I am afraid that too many individuals sacrifice certain kinds of worship for the sake of some type consistently, because we mistakenly see one as more important, or the prerequisite to the other.

Just so you know, I haven't read these comments yet, but I wanted to comment on "Selah". Nobody knows what it means, but pausing when reading the psalms is a good idea, so for a created meaning ... it's a good one in my opinion.

It might be helpful to bring up specific instances of service. I'd like to bring up one. On Tuesdays and Saturdays Naomi goes to work, and I watch Sam. By choice, I go to sleep late some Mondays and Fridays. I usually wake up when Sam wakes up (because he gets up early), and I feed him breakfast, change his diaper, play with him, and eventually get to showering and then time in intentional "abiding" (the disciplines). During those earlier hours of the morning, I am not existentially aware that I am abiding in Christ, or serving him. But I believe that to a degree I am most of the time. I am willingly serving my son out of a heart in which Christ lives by the Spirit. The abiding question becomes complicated, because I don't believe God comes and goes, but my "existential awareness" of abiding/resting in him does come and go depending on my dedication NOT necessarily to service, but usually my dedication to the disciplines. Now, I know that some of the service Elizabeth may be getting at is likely in reference to mercy ministry (ministry used broadly), but for me, I am sure that my calling on those days (Tuesday and Saturday) is to serve my son whether or not I have had time for the disciplines. For me I think problems DO arise when I declare that I am abiding without ever intentionally abiding through the disciplines (of which I am not including service, but a case can be made that service is among the disciplines).
Also, in this case, I am acting as an individual believer primarily. Nobody in that instance is helping me to raise my son, but I guess more broadly (not just looking at Tuesday and Saturday) Naomi and I are both serving Sam as well as our friends and the body of Christ more broadly are serving him.
What's MY conclusion: Abiding should be intentional action on the part of the believer by the power of the Holy Spirit. Abiding is a command. Service is AMONG the disciplines of the Christian faith.
I think another aspect here is that Elizabeth's argument is attempting to be more holistic, whereas Miles' argument is attempting to be pragmatic. In my opinion, I think there is a time and place for both. Not to be postmodernly inclusive and politically correct, but I think a blog discussion is the place to be both.
Did this make any sense? I welcome comments.

I've been thinking ... service is a spiritual gift ... not a discipline ...