Here’s
Justin:
Having people attend a
worship service as the primary way of doing church communicates that being a
Christian is about passively attending to someone else’s ministry efforts.
There has to be a pastor, who presents the information to be absorbed. There
has to be a worship leader, who directs the praise of the church. There is
little room for any involvement by the average person, save for trivial
roles such as ushering, the occasional prayer or scripture reading, and, of
course, paying for everything.
I don’t
disagree. Yet I know one particular church that abolished its Sunday worship
service – moving instead to small group structures - and within a couple of
years there wasn’t much of a church remaining.
Many
friends complain about worship services, often using similar words to
Justin’s. They say they get their spiritual nourishment mainly from their
prayer group, their Bible study fellowship, their quiet time, or whatever.
Anything but Sunday worship.
I don’t
think it’s just that our worship is so passive (for the congregation). I
know that many – including me – don’t want too much “audience
participation”. Just yesterday in church our worship leader asked us to
reflect for a few minutes on Isaiah 9:2 (“The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light…”). Then he said: “Turn to your neighbour and say
what the Holy Spirit has revealed to you about that verse.”
I turned
to my neighbour and told him my mind had been wandering all over the place
for the previous couple of minutes. “That’s very honest,” he said, then
added, “Me too.”
Yet we
keep turning up on Sunday, and I think it’s more than habit. I suspect that
in our increasingly fragmented and insular society, people want community.
And we want to worship God together in community. However imperfectly.
Sunday after Sunday.
December 22nd, 2003
