I got a couple of responses to this weeks’ post that reflected the same idea: worship should be neither member-focused nor seeker-focused; worship should be God focused.
In a sense, I agree. All of life should be God focused. God should be at the center of everything we do. As Paul said, “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Colossians 3:17)
For some, this is especially true about our assemblies. I’ve been calling them worship services, largely out of habit. Using Scripture alone, it’s hard to say that the main purpose of our assemblies is worship. Our should I say the unique purpose. We sing songs of praise, but one of the main purposes of our singing is to speak to one another and build one another up. Sermons should glorify God, but they are obviously directed at people. God doesn’t need to be preached to. Oppositely, prayers are directed to God, yet these are corporate, public prayers. At times we even speak to one another in our prayers. (as did Jesus in John 11:41-42).
We have made the Lord’s Supper about “me and God,” but the New Testament portrays it as a corporate time. We break bread together. We wait for one another. We do it with an awareness of the gathered body, or we do it wrong.
I think the answer lies in seeing worship as being focused not on one element, but three. To borrow David Mike Breen’s terminology (from Building A Discipling Culture), it’s Upward, Inward, and Outward. We need all three facets. Complete, holistic worship reaches up to God, in to the church, and out to the nonbeliever. Like the three-legged stool, our assembly collapses if we completely remove any of the three.
Up to God. In to the Church. Out to the believer.
One thing we get wrong is calling the cracker and juice at the noon worship
the Lords Supper when all of us down South know its Dinner around noon and Supper late in the day.
My concerns center on the implications of our focus. It seems that when we focus on outsiders we want to pick and choose elements or tendencies from our society that will be conducive to lessening the transition as we include new members and want them to feel welcomed and accepted. Again, our tendency is to be accommodating to society.
When we focus on insiders, we seem to focus on teaching and admonishing each other. Thus we have to continually find new thoughts and/or new foci in teaching. This gives the appearance that we make ourselves the focus of our efforts– for good or ill.
When we focus on God, I meant that we would eventually place ourselves and others in what seems to be a more appropriate location. There are a number of texts that discuss the purpose of praise and of present oneself before the Lord in the Psalms.
I guess the question, Harland, is if the New Testament connects Christian assembly with the worship described in the Psalms.
I want to flesh out a bit how I see our different foci being applied; what you describe is definitely not what I envision.
Thanks for the interaction.