Worship and the Whole Church

[from chapter 4 of Whole Church: Leading from Fragmentation to Engagement by Mel Lawrenz, Leadership Network and Jossey-Bass, 2009.]

When Eugene Peterson responded to a question about spiritual formation by pointing to a life of worship and prayer–faithfully and obediently followed as a lifestyle–he was pointing to two noble and ennobling human activities that, by design, are to be steady and repetitious (in the best sense of the word). They are patterns that have a compounding effect.

So let’s linger on the issue of worship. Many have written in recent years about transformational worship. The proposition offered here is this: the pattern of public worship is transformational insofar as it is an authentic engagement with God. That may sound obvious, but since we are entirely capable of “doing worship” in ways that come no where close to God, or come close but are hesitant to engage, we have to commit to the work of creative and deep thinking about our planning for worship.

But let’s get concrete so we don’t just linger in the theory. We know that worship in the local church, at it’s worst, can be lifeless, rote, vacuous, cliche (an insult to both divine and human nature), selfish, prejudicial, exploitative, manipulative, dehumanizing, or idolatrous. In other words, “false worship”–an expression that should strike fear into us. No wonder churches are capable of displaying as much fragmentation as any other human association. We are capable of taking our highest moment–the worship encounter–and turn it into an isolating experience.

Worship is dangerous. Just think of the apostle Paul telling the church in Corinth that their gatherings were so destructive that it would probably be better if they didn’t meet (1 Cor. 11:17). Imagine putting an announcement in a church bulletin that said: “Due to the fact that we are doing more harm than good, we will no longer be gathering for worship, effective immediately.” Of course, churches don’t need  to close themselves down–people take care of that on their own. They walk away, leaving a core that is very happy living as one extended dysfunctional family.

We can do better. And it won’t be better necessarily by working harder or acquiring a new model of worship. What needs to happen is for us as church leaders to have a vision for engagement with God in worship and to be committed to that absolutely. Again, let’s get concrete. Engagement with God in worship looks like…

• a song, In Christ Alone, that marches people through a progression of spiritual truth, carried on a tune that is singable and consistent with the tone of the meaning of the words
• a prayer offered by a young woman who has a gift of faith and who flourishes in prayer, who is aware of leading the congregation, but far more aware of the presence of God
• a pastor explaining the offering as an act of worship because it is an act of honoring God, with an ancient biblical history
• a sermon that engages because it brings God’s supply (the word of truth) into contact with real human need (including practical application), leaving people with a sense that they heard from God, not just from a speaker
• a personal word from an ex-cop who at one time despaired of his life, but who found Christ at the low point of his depression
• a “gathering time” before the worship service which is 10 minutes of singing, helping people ramp up to their engagement with God
• a led prayer at the end of a worship service with quiet moments for people to open themselves to God before leaving and reentering the rush of normal life
• a time of communion where extra time is alloted to allow for more meditation
• a sense of anticipation because there is usually one creative element in the worship time that could be almost anything (a personal story, a video message or illustration, an interview with a missionary, a dramatic sketch)

Creativity in worship is important, although that does not mean a major production. Some of the most creative elements are very simple. More important is engagement. Does every element of worship seek to connect divine supply and human need? And is that the motive of the people leading?

WORSHIP AS A WHOLE CHURCH PATTERN

Worship has always been and will always be one of the most significant points of engagement between God and his people. Today’s ongoing experimentations with worship mean that we know we still have to find a communal way to engage with God that is true and faithful. Our drive to worship is clear: from the beginning of history to the end, from walking with God in Eden to the vision of all creation worshiping Christ in John’s Apocalypse. There is such a drive to adore, to glorify, to exalt, to venerate, to revere–we die if we don’t.

As a practical matter and as principle, church leaders need to be on the same page about why they worship, how they worship, and what their expectations of worship are. We need to develop a common worship mindset and keep reinforcing it. To be a Whole Church, we have to see the act of worship as a prime time when the people of the church are pulled together–although we have to be honest that worship is so personal, so powerful, and so important, individuals will always have mixed opinions about what their leaders in worship are doing for them or to them.

THE PURPOSES OF WORSHIP

Here are three of the dynamics of worship: purposes, practices, and effects. We may be most aware of the effects (or non-effects) since we are very human and we tend to think nothing matters more than our experience. But the best way to promote authentic worship is to begin at a higher level.

Worship can be a powerfully cohesive force in a church, and between churches, if we understand and commit to the non-negotiable biblical principles of worship. Two ideas emerge: worship as “bowing,” and worship as “serving.” Rooted as they are in biblical theology, these two principles can be conceived as God’s invitation to engage.

“Bowing” or “bending the knee” (gonupeteo, from gonu, knee) refers to the characteristic posture of a servant before a master. Solomon at the temple, Daniel in prayer, the whole assembly in the days of Hezekiah’s revival–they all bent the knee, or bowed, before God in worship. One of the best things a worship leader or pastor can do for a church is to continually characterize all the practices of worship as acts of submission. Worship promotes the Whole Church because all worshipers are rehearsing the truth that we are less than the God we bow before, and more than the animals who don’t know how to bow.

Archbishop William Temple defined worship in this way:

Worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by his holiness; the nourishment of mind with his truth; the purifying of imagination by his beauty; the opening of the heart to his love; the surrender of will to his purpose—and all this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all original sin.

That’s worth writing down and reading frequently, and the operative term is “submission,” which is the meaning of bowing or bending the knee.

Singing is submission (praise that looks up); prayer is submission (bringing cares and confession to God on high); listening to a sermon is submission (putting the structures of our lives under the authority of Scripture); the public reading of Scripture is submission (receiving the counsels of God); offering is submission (bringing gifts to the gift-giving God). There are hundreds of ways a leader can signal a congregation that they are submitting to God in everything that is done in worship. And if that lifetime pattern is set and the mindset developed, then worship will transform.

The other main biblical word for worship is “service” (latreuo and leitourgos in the New Testament). In the Old Testament the priestly pattern of worship was the service of the altar. The New Testament acknowledges that (Hebrews 8:5; 9:1, 6, 9, 14; 10:2; 12:28; 13:10), but then goes beyond to show that the service of God is a seven-day-a-week opportunity (as in Rom. 12:1 “to offer your bodies as living sacrifices… you spiritual act of worship”).

How many of our problems with worship would be mitigated if we remembered that we don’t worship for our sakes, but as a pattern of honor to God? Don’t slide over this point. We all know that, given human nature, church congregations will always tend to measure the validity of worship by its effect on us. Cultures based on commercialism will even (unconsciously) view worship as a product. But the core of mature believers in a church really can be called to a higher standard. We can challenge people on this point: don’t we believe that rehearsing submission to God with all of our beings is the life-transforming pattern we need. Let joy and enthusiasm happen when they will. The “a-ha moments” of learning from God may happen days or weeks or even longer after a given worship experience.

So instead of asking: “are we worshiping yet?” (and then proceeding to have an argument about what kind of music is true worship, and what the content of the message should be), the better question is: “would God say that he was worshiped in this place today?”

Does it matter to God if the song we sing is 200 years or 2 years or 2 days old? Would God call a gathering “true worship” if the clothing of the worshipers was more formal or more comfortable? And what about our state of mind? Is God only worshiped when we have a certain mental or emotional state in the act of worship? What does that have to do with the service of God and submission to God? If our subjective experience was the true measure of worship, then a grieving man whose father just died on Tuesday could not worship, the teenage girl who is coming down with the flu, the music instructor who is distracted by the fact that the worship guitarist doesn’t have his guitar tuned perfectly, believers who gather in secret places because of persecution and who dare not sing above a hush, believers who dare not gather with more than two or three people at a time.

Dare we say that people only “truly” worship when certain criteria are met? Isn’t it God who should say: “I was worshiped by that person in that place today”?

THE PRACTICES OF WORSHIP

Worship must be rooted in principle, but it is a real act, a real engagement with God in every worship “practice.” Despite the conspicuous differences in the way different churches worship, this core body of practices are the worship instincts of the Whole Church. They typically include: reading and explaining the Scriptures, prayer, praise, communion, baptism, offering. You can be sitting in a 500 year old Anglican chapel with a small organ, old hymnals, and a stone baptistry, or under the spreading bows of an acacia tree in the 100 degree weather of Southern Sudan where young men with guitars who don’t have all their strings are leading worship. You can go back in time to the early church meeting in homes, to the Wesleyan class meetings, to a “home church” meeting in a barn in the heart of China. We do what comes by instinct when we gather: read the Word, talk about it, pray, praise, and a few other things.

I am astonished and moved whenever I go to some Christian gathering very different from my own and I watch the mystery of corporate worship unfold–the praise, the word, the sacrament, the testimony–and I think, “I am part of this. I get to be part of this thing that connects believers all over the world.” The prayer of the Koreans overwhelms me. The exposition of the Scottish preacher challenges me. The celebration of the African-American congregation loosens my spirit.

Now of course some churches add other creative elements, and some never physically take an offering in the gathering or do baptism in another setting. But the core practices are stable enough that we know that worship is one of the key dynamics of the Whole Church, and we must not let that be taken away by our our own mistakes in the past.

Why does it matter that there are these core practices?

1. It encourages and emboldens us to be committed to worship when we see this incredible movement of God around the world and over the centuries. Only God could cause hundreds of millions of people  each week to gather to pray, read Scripture, submit to Word-based direction, and do other core worship practices. We can be cynical or discouraged when we focus on the differences and the flaws. But the big story of the day is that God is being worshiped.

2. Understanding core practices should make us commit to quality, honesty, and authenticity when we carry them out. A prayer in a worship gathering should be taken very seriously–prepared in mind and heart. Every sermon holds the potential of having a transforming effect in someone’s life, and in most people’s lives it is the long pattern of being taught that makes the difference.

3. Core practices of worship combined with the intentional purposes of submission and service give worship an objectivity. We do worship when we serve God in this way, not just when a certain effect happens in us. Worship will change us, but only if we make it not about us, but about God. This must be said again and again because it is just so difficult for us (leaders and non-leaders) to get it: worship is about God, not primarily about us. When we believe that, then there will be effects in our lives.

THE EFFECTS OF WORSHIP

Then there are the effects of worship. If people have a mindset of submission and service and faithfully and creatively carry out the practices of worship, there will be effects. This is our experience: the illumination of the mind, the response of the emotions, a challenge to the will. We tend to think first about our experience and we will even judge the validity of worship by discerning the effects, but that is to start at the end. Worship is not validated by our experience. Our best chance at transformative worship is if it is rooted in an engagement with God (submitting and serving), practiced as a regular pattern, and then the effects are experienced.