Gathering the Fragments
Worship is the substance of life within a church body. It gives meaning and purpose to the individual disciple, as well as the community as a whole. But assuming that worship is more inclusive than just a weekly corporate event, what shape might worship take?
Worship is the cleansing of toxins in the Body of Christ, creating a semi-permeable membrane that holds tightly to the essential DNA of Christ; his message, his lifestyle, his resurrection, but filters out the lies of the world and the Evil One.
Worship is the evaluation of God in the presence of a community; publicly affirming that God is good and is the center of the community’s identity. The nature and function of that worship will always be centered on God, but its shape and expression will be wildly diverse.
The Church is built on the trillion cells of local churches scattered throughout time and space. Each local community of faith must find worship not only as an event, but as a way of life. Throughout the week, each follower of Christ is attentive to the guidance of Christ in prayer and in Scripture, and then gathering with other disciples to discern collectively what the Lord might be saying to them, as well as to collectively express heartfelt devotion to him.
Romans 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
The Apostle Paul saw worship as participating in the life of the next age. At the apex of time, Paul conceived of the Church as God’s new humanity, and believed that Christians in worship was the realization of God’s eschatological work, where worshippers can actively participate in the new aeon to come. Under the influence of this new age, the worshipping Christian will be transformed; a complete metamorphosis of thinking, willing, and conduct. This change is external (lives) but springs forth from the internal (renewing of one’s mind). As children of God, the mind is no more ruled by the present world but by the will of God…
…And God’s will is to be discerned by the community, and becomes one of the centering practices of the Church. Paul is mysterious about the process of communal discernment, but denotes the adjectives (good, pleasing, and perfect) that sum up the transformed life of a Christian community that focuses on worshipping God and discerning his will together.
Implied in this text and other Scriptures is that while the Christian is engaged in worship and discernment all week long, it culminates in the gathering of the community. Each person having been listening and responding in worshipful action to the direction and inspiration of the Lord throughout the week then brings their discoveries to the common worship event to share. In this all parts build up the body, edifying and strengthening the whole.
Learning God’s will happens when the lives of a community of believers meet together to share the fragments of God they’ve discovered throughout the week – instead of creating a culture of consumerism (where each person comes to receive the latest and greatest spiritual resource) each person brings a new picture of the Gospel and listens for what God is whispering to the group.
What group couldn’t try this? I can imagine a house church making this their weekly practice, but I can also see organizing an event with hundreds gathered together to listen to God and share what they’re hearing. Â World Cafe is a good model of this practice.
The Anabaptists had a saying,
“We don’t want to get rid of the clergy…we want to get rid of the laity!”
Learning to worship in community and to discern God’s will in community can be a project in dismantling passivity in the church – and inviting each follower of Jesus to be a “priest” of God to the world…
1 Peter 2:9 …For you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.
