Month: May 2013

The flow of worship at the church I pastor follows a pattern by which we rehearse the gospel message. We are confronted with God, we confess our sin, we receive his grace, and we celebrate our new and renewed lives. Week after week we do this.

And this worship is not meant to be passive. We invite participation in a number of ways – through song and corporate prayers and creeds. This participation reaches a climax at the end of the service where we are invited to ‘participate’ in the Lord’s Supper.

As important as all the other elements of worship are, they all nevertheless lead us to this final act of participation. The rest of worship presents Christ to us. At the table, we take him by an act of faith to ourselves. The rest of worship exposes what a life of faith looks like. At the table, we take hold of the One who can enable us to live that life. And at times, the rest of worship exposes our sin. At the table, we have the opportunity to repent of our false saviors and take hold of the True.

So, in a sense, all of worship prepares us to respond to Jesus at the table. As we worship this morning, listen, sing, pray, and attend to all with the knowledge that you will, at the end, join in communion with the one who makes it all real.

I’ve probably lost possible readers over the years by calling this blog by its rather gray title. Who wants to hang around someone, or something, that is all somber and dull? I gave my contact info to someone this week and they looked, read the URL of the blog, and gave something of a puzzled chuckle. Years ago a friend, a friend who had never been to the blog, but only knew of it, cautioned me that posting stuff about my (he presumed) depression on-line probably was not a good idea.

There have been plenty who have suggested I change the title.

But I never will.

I give an explanation for the blog’s name in the tab above labeled “It’s Ironic“. Navigate there if you like.

I bring this up now because recently Justin Taylor posted a brief survey of books which give guidance to people engaged in pastoral ministry. Of the six books mentioned, two are fiction. Of these, he writes:

Every pastor would also profit from carefully pondering Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country and Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead. Why fiction? In both books, the protagonist is a pastor, and you will learn how Christian life and ministry work on the inside amid the untidy details of life lived.

Both books are superb reading for any, not just pastors. Stephen Kumalo in Cry, the Beloved Country quickly became my hero, a model of nobility and innocence and faithfulness and compassion and grace. If he happened also to be ‘somber and rather dull, no doubt’ as Paton describes him, so be it. He is a model I’m proud to honor in my blog’s title.

Christian worship is far too often judged for its immediate effects and not its long term value. Surely things such as the quality of the sermon, the selection of songs, and even length do matter, but I wonder if we often ponder enough the vital transformative power of regular participation in worship. Is there not something in the character of the liturgy itself with power to integrate itself into our own perceptions and to form and shape our own rhythms of experience? I cannot really recall any of the sermons of my childhood. I cannot reflect any of the hundreds of thousands of words spoken or songs sung. Nevertheless, I am certain that the character of my life and or my thoughts and of my desires has been shaped and directed by those weekly routines of song and word and prayer and, in my case, quarterly sacramental participation.

I cannot PROVE the value and I cannot point to academic comparative studies substantuating my claims, but I sense this is true.

Joking with a newly married couple the other day, they spoke of something they had now done ‘twice’ which had become for them, therefore, a tradition and needed to be kept up. Clearly there are aspects of family life that through repetition and priority form the members of that family into certain shapes and develop within them certain attitudes and passions. As family tradition and ritual can do that, so can regular participation in Christian worship.

A fellow pastor lamented to me recently the low commitment to worship evidenced by members of his congregation. I know the temptation to treat worship lightly. On a Sunday I had ‘off’ a few weeks ago, I faced the desire to just kick off my shoes and sit quietly at home for a Sunday. In nearly thirty years of pastoring, I’ve heard my share of ‘reasons’ for missing worship on Sunday far less substantive than I would have had. But I wonder what sustained and regular absence does to us. I wonder what we lose.

Criticism of sermons is painful, but a part of the job. Complaints about music I take to heart but despair of satisfying. I do want worship to have an immediate positive impact upon all who participate. I do want worshipers to drive home with their hearts full of the power of the gospel and the greatness of God. And yet, I think the real, lasting, deep, and abiding value of worship is in its regularity. It is a discipline that shapes us.

Psalm 84
1 How lovely is your dwelling place,
O LORD of hosts!
2 My soul longs, yes, faints
for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and flesh sing for joy
to the living God.
3 Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O LORD of hosts,
my King and my God.
4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house,
ever singing your praise! Selah