Something to think about

I’ve been thinking about what we call worship services. We usually use this term to refer to the body of believers coming together (at least) once a week to sit in pews or rows of chairs facing the front and to engage in a variety of activities -- mainly singing songs of worship to God, praying for one another and for the world, hearing God’s Word proclaimed to us. We usually have some sort of organized fellowship, such as the passing of the peace, or the greeting of visitors. Sometimes there is “special” music sung by the choir or a soloist.

Throughout the Old Testament, God through his prophets calls the people to realize that sacrifices aren’t the true worship He is seeking. True worship is remaining faithful to God. What if we, not unlike the ancient Israelites, have misconstrued the meaning of “worship service”?

Now before I continue, let me say that I think it’s very important for the Body of believers to gather together and to do what we normally do on Sunday mornings in church. But we have treated this as the end rather than as a means to an end.

At their basic meanings, Worship means giving worth to someone or something. Service is a helpful act done for another’s benefit. Neither of these terms are self-serving. So, what if our services were actually service to others -- feeding the hungry, giving a drink to the thirsty, extending hospitality to the stranger, clothing the naked, taking care of the sick, visiting the imprisoned? What if it’s providing hope for the inner city youth or teaching English to foreigners? I think these qualify as acts of worship.

We as Protestants have been quick to measure our true Christianity by our level of church attendance. Good Christians are the ones who attend every week. (Then there are those with the “Sunday School pins” for perfect attendance.) Really good Christians come on Sunday nights, and super Christians (the truly devoted ones) come on Wednesday night. Anyone who comes to church even more than that is truly committed. We’ve been equating busyness with devotedness. On the other hand, the Easter and Christmas Christians are just “nominal,” which is our way of saying that they think they’re Christians but they really aren’t.

The word for “preaching” in Greek is more like “proclaiming”. We don’t have to “proclaim” the Word to the church (please don’t misunderstand me here). We primarily need to proclaim the message to those who have not heard it. What better way than through our actions -- through our service?

So what if we as a Church became Easter and Christmas Christians? What if on Sundays, instead of having a traditional worship service (this pains me to even write this hypothetically because it’s so antithetical from how I’ve grown up), we instead worshiped by serving? What if we emphasized coming together as a Body of believers for purposes of performing services to others and of becoming educated in the Word? We would still hold up the importance of the church as the body of believers. But our ecclesiology would take a different shape. It wouldn’t be about Sunday School at 9:30 and church at 11:00 every Sunday morning. It wouldn’t be our schedule or our building. It would be about the people called by God to worship him by proclaiming the Kingdom of God to the world through words and actions while continuing to grow in Christlikeness through means of discipleship.

OK, I admit that I’m not quite ready to give up traditional Sunday morning worship services. But what if we saw Sunday not as our one-time Christian duty for the week, but as preparation for the week. When we place the announcements at the end of the service, for example, we are mentioning the various ways in which we can put into practice what we just heard…ways which during the week we can give ourselves in acts of service and worship.

The disciples who talked with Jesus on the road to Emmaus on that first Easter didn’t end by saying, “Wow, that was great. I can hardly wait until next Sunday to talk to Jesus again.” After the Scriptures were opened to them, and in breaking bread together with Jesus their eyes were opened, they went at once to tell the others about the living Lord. They put their worship into action.