Reclaiming the "Why" of Worship
As we plan to return to weekly Sunday services in the fall, what lessons will we bring with us from this past year without regular worship on Sunday mornings? For my part, I learned that “church” is not equal to worship—but at the same time, we still need worship, even more than ever.
Before COVID we were asking one hour on Sunday to accomplish nearly all of the church's work. The Sunday service was our main opportunity for evangelism, Bible study, discipleship, hospitality, children's ministry, prayer, and community fellowship. Many churches have used worship as a tool to accomplish some other end: a glossy show to impress “the unchurched” or a way to teach doctrine or make a political point. In reality, this kind of worship served more to display our wealth and status than to glorify God.
For all that we asked of worship, we failed to confront the racist structures that kept our churches segregated or the hate and fear that kept us from extending God's love fully to everyone made in God's image.
Whether the music came from organ or guitars, we turned it up loud enough to drown out the ancient prophet's voice: “I hate, I despise your festivals… Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:21–24).
COVID dashed all that. So did the death of George Floyd and Daniel Prude. And the 2020 election and its aftermath. We couldn't meet in person, we couldn't sing. We didn't have the skills or technology to make ourselves look good online. Deprived of our drug, we found ourselves in the clarity of a life-or-death situation.
To survive as a church we had to find another way.
We had to let go of some of the worldly goals for which we had pressed worship into service. And for the essential aspects of the church's life, we had to develop other methods to keep them growing. We discovered we could do discipleship in small groups. We could reach our community evangelistically and draw on the creative gifts of our congregation through social media posts and videos. We learned we had to reach out to people one by one to maintain community.
Not everything worked, and not everything lasted. But by God's grace here we are, actually thriving as a church. “Church” no longer means “Sunday service.” It means small groups, youth groups, children's ministry, Bible quizzing, prayer walks, Crisis Response Team, and so many other components.
We do not just meet God during ecstatic times of worship: “Whatever you did to the least of these,” Jesus says, “you do it to me” (Matthew 25:40)—so we can seek the face of Christ through actively loving our neighbor, especially those least regarded by our society.
So where does this leave worship, then? Well, we still need worship because we need God. As valuable as all those other activities are, God still has more for us. Though many aspects of worship are rooted in human culture, the heart of worship is a gift to us from God. Worship is a living encounter with the risen Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, together in community. In worship we tell the truth about who God is and who we are, as it says in Psalm 95:6–7: “O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.”
Building on this fundamental relationship between God and his people, in worship we “stand on the promises of God,” as the old hymn says. Jesus promised, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” (Matthew 18:19), and “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).
So like the earliest Christians we gather to share in the presence of the risen Christ. They met on Sunday mornings because it was on Sunday that Christ had appeared to the apostles. On Sunday Christ joined two disciples on the road to Emmaus and “was made known to them in the breaking of the bread” (Luke 24:35), and so from the first days of Christianity, Jesus-followers have shared bread and wine in the faith that the risen Christ will also be made known to them in a special way through this act of sharing.
God is “enthroned on the praises” of his people (Psalm 22:3)—so we sing, shout, dance, and play his praise. “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (James 4:8), and “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10)—so we pray together and seek to hear the Spirit's voice. “The Word of God is living and active” (Hebrews 4:12), and “This is my comfort in my distress, that your promise gives me life” (Psalm 119:50)—so we read the Bible together and listen for its message of good news through Spirit-anointed preachers as well as through testimonies, songs, and prayers.
We do not worship because it is a duty or a burden, or as a way to get something done. We worship because the loving God who created this world of beauty and power and made us in his image is working through Christ to restore us from our fallen state and give us life in place of death. Through worship, the Spirit empowers us to bring Christ's love to every corner of God's world.
In gratitude and thanksgiving for all that God is and all he has done, we worship to bless the name of the Lord. We lift up his name as holy, as Jesus says in the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:9). In our worship we join with the whole company of heavenly beings and our ancestors in the faith who join us in a new song around the throne (Rev. 7).
And as those of us who have been coming to our weekly Wednesday night communion services can tell you, God shows up. God has poured out healing from physical and mental illness, deliverance from spiritual torment, and words of wisdom and prophetic insight. I have regularly come to the service discouraged and left with a sense of new life.
Worship is not our only task as a church, nor is it the only place we encounter Christ. Indeed, “church” should never again be taken to mean “Sunday morning worship.” But still, “like the deer panting for streams of water” (Psalm 42), so our own souls long for God, and God longs to draw us near. God says to us as the lover in Song of Songs (2:14), “let me see your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely.” Like every growing thing, we need access to our source of life. Christ has promised to be present with us, and where Christ is present, he is there in all the fullness of his power: the power to give new life, to transform broken relationships and power structures, to restore hope, to create community across every kind of division.
So please don't miss a chance to sit at the table with Jesus and hear him say, “I have called you friends because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father” (John 15:15). Come and enter the water and hear the Father say, “You are my child, whom I love, and I am very pleased with you” (Mark 1:11).
Come Wednesdays, come Sundays—“Come, let us worship and bow down.”