Worship in Any Church

I just wrote an entry this week (on Monday I think) about Worship in the Simple Church.  Today I'm thinking about worship in general and wanted to write down a few more thoughts.  These are things that come to mind as I prepare for a service, or visit a church, and I rarely take them out and examine them - let alone in front of others.

A few years ago, okay maybe 10 or more because it was while studying at RWC as an undergrad, I went to one of the Mr. Dr. Berry's lectures related to Church music, it's history, etc.   I can still see in my mind's eye the pictures of the shape of church buildings as they changed.  From the upper room, homes, and temple courts used by the early Church, to the basilica/cathedral style used to this day by most of the Catholic Church, to the preacher-audience set-up (or now worship team/drama team/dance crew/preacher-audience) that set the standard for Protestant/Evangelical churches to this day...

One major difference that stuck in my head was the difference between the typical Catholic church building and the typical Protestant church building.  At the center of the Catholic church is the table and the priest -- and the building itself is a physical representation of the Body of Christ - with the table right at the heart.  Arms go out from the sides and the body extends from head to foot (where the exits are, I guess).  If I understand correctly, the Eucharist is the center of Catholic worship, and so it is represented fully in the physical set-up of the church building.

The Reformation brought an emphasis on the written Word of God and it's power to release people from what was seen as a works-based theology to a theology of grace--'salvation by faith through grace.'   The preaching office of the Church became primary, since it was through preaching that people were brought to repentance and an understanding of the gospel message.  This emphasis continued throughout the revival movements in America -- and the tent meetings where music was the 'pre-game show' to draw in the crowd and warm them up to hear the 'main event' -- the revival message.  (Reminds me of most of our family camp services to this day!)

I'll go on one more step in this hack-job of Christian worship history  :) 

It seems the charismatic movement, or the praise & worship movement some might call it, brought us to another step that changed our buildings (in the Evangelical churches) once again.  We need a bigger platform (or even, gasp!, 'stage') to fit the drum set that we finally got our congregation to agree to (after a few families left).   We can't put on our Christmas play unless there's more room and a decent back stage. 

There's at least two little 'movements' that affected these kinds of changes - and I mean the changes in physical structure (larger platforms and arrangement of seats so that people are closer, can see better, or so that the acoustics work better for concerts and plays).  One, perhaps the strongest, is the 'attractional church' movement (it's not really a movement, but I'm running out of vocabulary).  What I mean is something many writers have talked about in the last several years--an attractional church is one whose primary outreach strategy is to make the church, its people, its programs and its worship services as attractive as possible so that people will want to come.  It's the 'come to us' posture of evangelism.   The other 'movement' is the more charismatic or pentacostal element that affected the kinds of music we use today in most churches.  These are simpler, more intimate songs of praise and adoration which flowed out of churches where people believe that God speaks today through individuals who are prophetically gifted, who may sing and pray in the Spirit, and who write songs that are expressions of that kind of gift and/or invite others to sing creatively, in the moment, a personal song of praise to God.   How many of our churches which sing these songs actually use them in this way?  Hmm...

And if we don't, or if a church has a theology that runs counter to the idea of 'singing in the Spirit' -- should we wonder at all that some have a preference for hymns?  :)

So, back to buildings, I wanted to share a paragraph from James F. White's An Introduction to Christian Worship: 

    "The relationships between architecture and what Christians do when they worship are complex.  Church architecture not only reflects the ways Christians worship but it also shapes worship or, not uncommonly, misshapes it.  Architecture reflects Christian worship by providing the setting and shelter needed by a community to carry out its worship together.  This is perhaps obvious--not even a football crowd will sit still in below-zero weather.  Bu, at the same time that architecture is accommodating worship, it is also, in a subtle and inconspicious way, shaping that same worship.  In the first place, the building helps define the meaning of worship for those gathered inside it.  Try to preach against triumphalism in a baroque church!  Try to teach the priesthood of all believers with a deep Gothic chancel never occupied by any but ordained clergy!  Second, the building dictates the possibilities open to us in our forms and styles of worship.  We may want good congregational song, but do the acoustics swallow up each sound so that all seem mute?  Or do we have to give up any hope of movement by the congregation because everyone is neatly filed away in pews?  We soon realize that architecture presents both opportuniites and limitations, some possibilities opened and others closed.  We could worship with difficulty without buildings; often we worship with difficulty because of them."

[For most of my readers who probably have less experience in the Eastern Orthodox Church than in the Catholic Church whose buildings were described earlier--the Orthodox Church in Ukraine never uses pews or seats of any kind except for a bench or two along the side for people with extreme cases of sickness or fatigue.   Talk about allowing for movement!]   

So, something to think about...What do our worship spaces say about our beliefs?  What are we putting first in our gatherings?  What are we allowing and what are we limiting?

I was talking about simple/organic church last time - which is usually something done in the home - what does a home gathering allow and what does it limit?

Comments

[JDM-GBG]

Piggybacking off of my previous comments in the other entry, when it comes to home gatherings...

Home gatherings limit (based on individual personalities) the use of music & song -- people can be very inhibited about singing in a group of 8-10 or so.

They also limit other liturgical activities like responsive readings, for the same reasons... it's fine in a group of 50 or more (and it's better still with a crowd numbering in the hundreds or thousands). But with only a handful of people in a small room, it "feels silly".

Finally, they limit the options for age-appropriate worship & teaching. Suppose your home group has a young couple with a toddler & preschooler, a middle-aged couple with three older kids (9, 14, and 17), an "empty-nest" older couple with grown children, a young single woman in her 20's, and an 83-year-old widow. How do you provide the reverent worship and corporate prayer that the adults want, while keeping the youngest children from getting bored & restless? How do you construct a teaching lesson on, er, "purity" for the teens and the single lady, without embarrassing the widow or making the 9-year-old snicker?

I actually have a lot of positives to offer too, the things that a home gathering would allow... and as it happens, many of them I think help to cancel out the negatives I listed above. But I'm curious to hear other input first. (And also, my lunch hour is up and I have to get back to work... (-: )

[Fritz]

Hi Julie.

I think we're entering an era of downsizing for the church, a downsizing which is healthy and normal.

We're no longer in a society where to be successful you are expected to be an upstanding member of a church. The people who dominate our society no longer feel they have to go to church. And that's OK. It's harder for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom.

We no longer need the big buildings, massive cathedrals etc. to please the rich people who come to church. We instead can focus on what we do in our lives as Christians, not on having events to raise money to fix the roof or tune the organ.

The art that was created during the time when the best and brightest writers and musicians were working for the church can live on. I have participated in very small and intimate churches where we use elaborate hymns and beautiful liturgies. And no one felt uncomfortable.

There are still places in the Southern U.S. where Christendom is still alive and well. But the church elsewhere is embarking on an exciting adventure where we will return to our roots of being made up of small, revolutionary, and subversive groups which turn the world upside down by meeting people's needs.

[JDM-GBG]

OK, I promised some positives. (-:

The big one is the opportunity for "life on life" as the phrase goes... really sharing what's going on in your life, not just the activities or the circumstances but how it's affecting you. In a traditional western Sunday gathering, you get maybe 10 minutes of just-chatting time before & after the service, with a press of people all around you... not really conducive to a profound opening up.

Another opportunity that goes with that, is to exercise charitable listening. Don't pay attention to someone else so you can think of something clever or wise to offer in response. Don't listen just to wait for a chance to steer the conversation to something more interesting to you. Don't pay attention because he/she is a fascinating and engaging speaker. Pay attention simply because it's another human being sharing what's on his/her heart and mind.

It's this second benefit which is, IMO, an opportunity to nullify the problems with the disparate age/demographic gaps that I mentioned in the last comment. The young single woman probably can't relate to (and may not care all that much about) a parenting issue that the middle-aged couple is facing... but if it's on their hearts and they need to talk about it, she can patiently listen and offer encouragement anyway. The 9-year-old may sit quietly and sullenly by himself until one of the elders asks him about school or a hobby or a TV show, to get him talking about something that interests him.. and if they really listen and express interest in knowing more about it, suddenly he's engaged and happy.

Such opportunities are pretty much absent from a traditional church, especially a larger one. People tend to be corralled automatically with others of the same age (children's church, youth group, seniors, etc.) and perhaps even further divided by other demographics (male/female, married/single, etc.). In limiting ourselves to only associate with "those like us" we miss out on a lot of wonderful opportunities to learn and grow.

[Julie]

Thank you for continuing to wrestle with this topic! I like what you've said here, and it's exactly what I've noticed in groups with people who don't naturally come together . . . We have a group in Rivne right now that started primarily among older retired neighbors. Now there are a few teenages and a few young adults. It benefits them greatly to learn patience via listening, etc - just as you've said...

I'm reading a book called "Organic Church" (Neil Cole) right now, and one of the things he talks about it starting a church among an 'oikos' - It's a Greek word for family, but it can also mean a natural social group - A guy and his friends, a family and the friends of their family, etc. The concept is helpful when you are grappling with the small church/house church idea -- That it doesn't have to start, and may never start, but breaking up an existing regular church. But instead, the gospel is designed to break through into the 'oikos' (think of all the 'and his whole household' passages in Acts) and start right there among a group of people who are already connected...