Wow, where should I start?
Some would suggest that it is a spirit of freedom in worship, where worshipers are encouraged to respond to the promptings of the Spirit and worship the triune God in complete liberty. Others have countered that it is the loss of formal liturgy, that magnificent order of things which has guided the church for centuries, connecting today’s church to its history and tradition.
Some might suggest that it is the loss of truly corporate worship. They decry the fact that every age group is divided and long for a return to where young and old worship side by side, learning from and appreciating each other.
And still others have suggested that the one thing missing from our worship gathering is the loss of true community. Living in the suburbs and driving in to mega-churches has led, they believe, to a lack of truly knowing and thus meeting the needs of the others in our midst.
Could it possibly be that all the above are right? Possibly. Of course, what one believes is missing has everything to do with what one believes is important in worship.
When I consider worship, I always hearken back to Jesus’ words: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). It might help us to briefly explore what is meant by each of these, since I think they speak to this issue of what we consider to be missing.
With all your heart: In our culture, we tend to think of romantic images regarding the heart. However, in Jesus’ day, the heart referred not to emotions but to our will, the ability to make choices. This can also be referred to as volition.
With all your soul: This is where the wellspring of emotions was considered to be located.
With all your mind: The ability to remember and to make sense of things, perceiving their significance for our lives.
With all your strength: Obviously involving the physical body.
If you examine most churches, you’ll find that they tend to specialize in doing one of these items. Some are great at focusing on the intellect, offering really strong biblical preaching which pushes the worshipers to think seriously about God and his role in the world.
Some are great at helping us worship with our emotions, offering services that are full of elements (worship music, altar calls, preaching that tugs at the heart) that speak to our souls (emotions).
Still others do a phenomenal job of incorporating items that help the worshiper to worship with her whole body. Using experiences that incorporate multiple senses allows those present to worship with their whole bodies.
And still other worship gatherings focus on the volitional aspect, challenging congregants on a weekly basis to truly consider what God is asking of them as they relate to the world and then pushing them to engage in those activities.
And while each of these is good and needed, could it be that what is really missing from our churches is the ability to love God with all four of the required elements: our hearts, souls, minds, and strength? What would happen if churches understood the need, as the late theologian Robert Weber used to describe, for convergence, where all four of these issues come together in powerful ways?
It seems to me that if we were to find ways to involve all four elements, then our worship gatherings would be missing a lot less than they are now, regardless of what you consider to be missing. In fact, could it be that if we were truly faithful to Jesus’ command, that worship would no longer be seen as a gathering but as a way of life that is so powerful in its message to the world around us that others would be compelled by the power of our witness?
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We’re missing options that can be led by non-professionals.
I tend to agree with those who’ve observed that though the Protestant Reformation theologically liberated the laity, we have yet to be functionally empowered. If anything, the proliferation of mega-churches has signaled we prefer high-quality experiences delivered by exceptionally gifted paid staff more than interdependent participation. We pay for the right to lean into worship as if we were arena skybox observers, should we so choose…our choice being the operative value.
This seems a far cry from a vision of worship where each person brings something from their gift set to share with others who are followers of Jesus. Quality is measured against the best entertainment production standards mankind has ever witnessed rather than the percentage of people who offer their best. Where’s the widow’s mite in this mix? How can everyone bring something for strengthening the church (1 Corinthians 14:26) when our gathering strategies involve thousands of people trying to move in and out of the sanctuary in 75-minute windows?
Here’s one way I make sense of how our values rank. What are we most urgent about protecting when it comes to worship? Very few of us tolerate amateur hour if we have options. The quality of the experience is more important than being part of a fellowship where people depend on our contributions. Such a value wanders dangerously from biblical priorities. In the name of programmatic excellence, we abandon the Ephesians 4 picture of God’s people being built up as active servants making a difference in our collective growth, maturity, unity, and love.
I think we’re missing opportunities to contribute where the stakes are high—where it matters whether we deliver. When our very attendance is optional as long as our dollars keep flowing, we’re not acting like body parts whose health affects the whole. Therein lies our current structural flaw. Our worship experiences are made to fit nicely within America’s consumer culture. Assumptions that guide our decisions are seldom challenged. We shop around until we find a church that fits our already established lifestyles, comforted by the microscopically flawed observation that our Lord didn’t tell everyone with money to sell everything to follow him. Surely our starting points are acceptable givens…and we’re terribly busy. Church needs to fit our overly burdened lives by making things easier for us.
Against this cultural current, I think we miss being in relationships of obligation with others who want to glorify God no matter what the cost. We’re being formed into soft spectators when we’re called to join Paul as ambassadors of Christ who do whatever it takes to make the one true God famous. And guess what? We will not get there as long as nametag relationships are acceptable.
For this journey, size matters. Perhaps we should re-norm the central weekly experiences of our church life together from large-group celebration and teaching to small-group sharing and worship. Resources available for such living room gatherings have never been more abundant than they are now. Small groups have the flexibility to practice disciplines together that require space, time, and loving transparency.
I am not disputing how exciting and valuable it is when thousands converge for worship and instruction. It enriches our vision when we see ourselves as the people of God, grandly assembled as confessors of Jesus. But—to parallel the pattern of Old Testament feasts—we have permission to celebrate this status less often than weekly.
We have not, however, been excused from doing life together under the obligation of the Great Commandment. The sense of urgency for this agenda is missing as we gather to worship.
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This is a confession of a mind-wandering TV-holic: I find most of what we do in worship gatherings boring (see, I said it). I know your response: Well, when was worshiping God supposed to be entertaining? And why in the world would your boredom be the criteria for a good worship service?
I heard the story about a man who was really into Jesus, was passionate about Jesus, but confessed that he was bored stiff by worship at his church. The passionate follower of Jesus was asked if he would be willing to die for Jesus, if he believed enough that he would die for his beliefs. After thinking and pausing, he responded that he would, that he thought he would be willing die for his love of Jesus. The inquisitor then said, “You mean you’re willing to die for Jesus but not be bored for him?”
Snap (wait, is that now lame to say?). The point of the story is to show the inconsistency in this person’s commitment and to make a point that we shouldn’t make being entertained the criteria for good worship.
I guess I agree, but in a digitally saturated context, boredom and death are somewhat synonymous. What I mean is, in a culture like ours, we are used to being creators—creating things on our social networking sites, creating things by interacting with them. We create and interact to construct meaning. There was a time when the church’s job was simply to give people meaning, and the people in the pews simply swallowed the church’s pill. But this perspective no longer holds. The church is now not the only meaning-creating, pill-popping show in town (to push the analogy too far). In late modernity, meaning has become liquefied, allowing us to create, construct, and rework meaning for ourselves (of course, this has its risks and negatives).
The problem with 9 out of 10 worship gatherings isn’t that they’re necessarily boring; the problem is that they become boring because the worship gatherings don’t invite people to make meaning, to be involved in something meaningful in the worship gathering.
Now, you might say this is just cultural accommodation. Maybe. But theology and ministry have always been a dialogue with culture. But there is also a theological rationale. To confess God as trinity and the Spirit’s continued work calling us into the redemptive work of the Son and creating work of the Father is for us to ourselves participate with God in the process of creation, of wrestling with our humanity and with our God, to live into questions like, What is lifetime, and why do we live it? or Who is this God? What’s missing in worship gatherings is the opportunity to create meaning, to construct theological means.
But how do you do this without it falling into some kind of subjective chaos? In our little church, we are trying to make the prayers of the people the place were the whole congregation is invited to create meaning and do theological reflection. We create this meaning by engaging and seeking God in each other’s narratives of joy and suffering. So we invite anyone to come forward and share their prayers with the congregation, and together we pray. But they are not invited to simply provide a prayer request, like you would provide a list of the needed ingredients for a recipe. Rather, they are invited to share these prayer requests in narrative form. It is one thing to say, “I pray for people without jobs.” It is quite another to say, “I pray for people without jobs because my brother lost his job, and the hurt in his eyes hurts me, and his kids…I worry about his kids.”
In narrative shape, we all are pulled into constructing theological meaning, seeking the action of God next to the stories of suffering and joy. And in the end I think this is what our worship gatherings are missing: an understanding of where God is present and how God moves in our process of creating meaning together. (For more on this, see The Promise of Despair).
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