Liturgy and Praxis

What do you do when you plan your Sunday worship meeting? How much time goes into the planning?  What are the elements that must be included in worship?  Elements like prayer, singing, offering, Scripture, etc.

What are the options that we choose from when planning worship and where did they come from?  What are our traditions and are they still relevant and viable? I feel I need not only ask where did these traditions come from but where have they gone? Have we lost something? If so, should we reclaim them? Or should we have a party that they’re gone?

Another question to consider.  Where does ritual fit in worship? And what are our rituals?  What does it mean that people...

...dance in worship

...sit in silence in worship...kneel in worship

...shake hands or don’t shake hands in worship

And most important how or what do these things communicate about God?

When I began this blog I spoke about how difficult it can be to define worship.  Well, welcome to the intriguing world of praxis (praxis--simply defined: practical application or exercise of your belief system--habitual or established practices of faith).

Why we do what we do in worship is an important question to understand before one tries to determine what should or should not be a part of a corporate worship service.

For example, when we read Scripture in the Army, we do it simply and from wherever we choose within the chapel.  Some of our Christian brothers and sisters will process the  Bible into the congregation and read the gospels there as a sign that God is in the midst of them.  Others read it from a particular podium at the front of the chapel.

So back to my question, how do you determine what to include or what to change in worship? Perhaps the better question, how do we evaluate elements of worship? Permit me to give a helpful suggestion.

Let’s use the element of offering.  Begin by asking the question: “what does it mean to take the offering--why do we do it?”  How do we do it so that it honors God and communicates to Him what that meaning is?  Here is how we determine the answer:

Offering 

• where did it come from historically?
• what does it mean theologically?
• how is it embodied practically?

Having done this we should then understand “how” to do offering and can determine    how to make this better for people and to clear up any confusion; to help them understand offering better and more fully; to help them engage in it more deeply.  They can articulate what it means when we do what we do when it comes to offering.

It is no small thing to plan corporate worship and it should not be taken lightly.  Nor should one make personal preference the driving force in the planning of worship.

(As an aside: your understanding of the best/right way to worship is probably determined by where in history you believe that the church got worship right.  This becomes your point of reference.)

Not only are there elements of worship to consider (preaching, offering, prayer, etc.), there are some basic components into which these elements fall.  

Basics of Worship:

• space--shapes worship and determines what can be done (physically) in worship 
• time--how long should the service be--how much time is allocated for prayer..for God’s Word...for preaching...for singing, etc.
• sound -- we have spoken sounds--we have sung sounds--we have instrumental sounds--and we have silence all of which are resources for worship
• God’s Word--how do you read--do you read--how much time is given it--who reads it and when is it read
• Prayer--different kinds: lament, praise, thanksgiving, intercession, petition--how do they all fit?
• table--the Lord’s Supper (communion)--how is it celebrated?--in the Army we identify this component as holiness received and expressed without the physical elements being used

We have all of these various elements and components of worship.  With each the tendency is to start to think, ‘I like this better than that.’  (This is why words for worship can become so polarizing. For example, most notably, the words ‘contemporary’ and ‘traditional.’ When someone uses one or the other they almost always imply that one is better than the other.)

Lester Ruth, a historian of Christian worship, suggests three neutral categories for worship: 1^st category: What story is told?  Is it the story of the individual receiving the salvation of Christ and then becoming a christian? Or is it the story of God -- God who creates, redeems, and sustains throughout history of which the peoples stories are a small part. And which story takes precedent? Notice that no style is implied here.

2^nd category: Around what primary event is worship organized? There are 3 organizing principals:  1) is it reading and preaching of the Word? 2) is it organized around table (Communion)? 3) is it organized around music?

3^rd Category: Is it congregational or is it connectional. If congregational, most of the resources come from within the church and it does not see itself as part of a denominational body or even as part of the Christian denomination around the world. The connectional church is much more  intentional about using denomination resources, ecumenical resources.  For instance, if its ‘World Day of Prayer’, the connectional church is going to honor that and participate while the congregational church might not know that it is that day. How do you see your congregation’s worship related to another congregation’s worship? This does not imply a style it but helps to understand how worship is organized and structured.

Friends, I know that this has been a rather lengthy blog and if you’re still reading, YEAH!    Bless you!  As you see, we are starting to plumb the depths of worship in a pragmatic and thoughtful way for the purpose of increasing the depth of experience for our congregations and ourselves.  

So let me leave you with a thought from Frederick Buechner: “The sacred moments, the moments of miracle, are often the everyday moments, the moments which, if we do not look with more than our eyes or listen with more than our ears reveal only...a gardener, a stranger coming down the road behind us, a meal like any other meal. But if we look with our hearts, if we listen with all our being and imagination.. what we may see is Jesus himself.”