C.S. Lewis was no fan of change within worship services. He wrote, “Every service is a structure of acts and words through which we receive a sacrament, or repent, or supplicate, or adore. And it enables us to do these things best—if you like it, it ‘works’ best—when, through long familiarity, we don’t have to think about it.…But every novelty prevents this. It fixes our attention on the service itself…” He goes on to quote an unnamed source that said, “I wish they’d remember that the charge to Peter was Feed my sheep; not Try experiments on my rats, or even Teach my performing dogs new tricks.” (The Joyful Christian, pp. 80-81)
Personally, though I highly esteem Lewis as a thinker and a writer, I don’t agree with his views on familiarity in worship. I find that familiarity often breeds unthinking repetition. It becomes too easy to “go through the motions,” without being aware of what we’re doing or why. We say things without even thinking what they mean. We sing without being aware of who we’re singing to (is it a song of encouragement to my brothers or a song of worship to God?). We instinctively reach for our checkbook while sipping the homogenized grape juice from the plastic cup.
I think that we need change at times if only to make us aware of what we’re doing. My high school choir director used to say, “A rut is just a grave with both ends knocked out.” We need to be conscious of the forms of what we’re doing and the meanings behind those forms.
What do you find to be true? Is change a distraction or a call to awareness? Is routine an aid to worship or a hindrance to our worshiping with our minds as well as our actions?
[Edit: Changed the title of the post; had used “spontaneity,” which really didn’t fit]
I agree. Liturgy (well-thought out liturgy) has immense value, but when our worship becomes mindless repetition, we need to change something. That’s not to say we need to change for the sake of change—we need to be intentional about it, and everything else we do.
—bms
I think our problem is that our brotherhood has rejected both liturgy AND spontaneity, in favor of a Order of Worship that gets all the approved acts taken care of in an orderly fashion.
There is no sense of being in the presence of the Risen Lord, of gathering as a group into the throne room of the One True God for celebration and praise and mourning and petition.
We live by the world’s schedule rather than our own calendar (even though Israel had her own calendar that sought to keep her life within the rhythms of God’s work – we’d rather order our lives according to the clock in Times Square and our bosses’ calendar), and we run our club meetings by the world’s business meeting template rather than developing and practicing meaningful rhythms that actually lift our eyes to see our Maker among us.
Okay… my rant is done.
I think the small group setting is perfect for the kind of spontaneity and creativity you’re discussing (and that 1 Cor 14 describes). Despite protestations to the contrary, I think the size and shape and location (which creates the shape) of our modern assemblies is pretty foreign to the early church. We haven’t “restored” the ancient pattern.
Being a progressive, though, that doesn’t trouble me. I believe the early church was EARLY, not perfect. I don’t think the church was ever intended or expected to look perfect or to have one perfect form – if it was, there’d be a NT Leviticus revealed to set it all up. The apostles were exercising their inspired creativity with the Jesus they walked with and learned from as their pattern. They were improvising.
For a people who’d spent their entire lives practicing liturgies (whether Jewish or pagan), spontaneity was the order of the day.
For a people who’ve spent their entire lives doing what they feel like, or merely going through an Order of Worship, I believe there’s greater value in liturgy than you’ve allowed.
I remember at one church where we were members, during a service, the preacher arranged so that he spoke about the sacrifice of Jesus, then the bread was served. Then he spoke about the resurrection, then the fruit of the vine was served. Last he spoke of Christ’s sacrifice, and of our daily sacrifice for Him, and the collection was made. While my husband was in the office afterwards helping count the contribution, a dear older lady came by shaking her head and said, “I don’t know whether I am coming or going. That was a most unusual service.” During my husband’s ministry, sometimes he would plan a more spontaneous service. Some would like it, others not so much. As the saying goes (paraphrased), “You can please some of the people most of the time, some not very many times, but never all the people all of the time.” If we are pleasing the Lord, that is the important thing, so we need to be careful that we aren’t just pleasing ourselves.
Nick, I remember one lady who really watched the clock, and when 12 noon came, up she rose and walked out. It didn’t matter that the preacher was not the one who had caused the “overrun,” but all the announcements, four songs (all verses) and two rather lengthy (wordy) prayers might have been the cause. My husband worked hard on his sermons, agonizing up to the last minute that what he had to say was what God would want, then cut the last few paragraphs if he saw the time drawing near the “normal” finish time knowing people would start squirming to “get out.” How sad when I think of the early Christians in America who were together for the entire day, enjoying worship to God and fellowship. Today one, maybe two hours, Sunday morning and we have “done our duty” for the week.
What does it mean to be God-pleasing in this context? (BTW, nothing I’m writing here is exactly definitive – I hope everyone will hear it more in the sense of participation in a conversation. I’m not staking out territory so much as trying to sketch out what I think I believe.)
In our regular assembly at HHCoC, I know that we pray between 3-5 times something like, “Father, we hope you are pleased by the services of this hour.” Opening Prayer, Lord’s Supper Prayer, and Offering Prayer at least (maybe during the Call To Worship and TWICE – once during the bread and once during the cup – during the Lord’s Supper Prayer). But if we mean to please God, shouldn’t we get some idea of what He wants?
I think that how we answer that question needs to take into account the offering made by His Son – the one with whom the Lord is well-pleased. I still struggle with the narrative of God as the audience for our performance – I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard that kind of language used to describe our assembled worship, and I do not believe it is language worthy of the New Testament. God is not up in his luxury box watching our desperate efforts down here on the field to please him. “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
In a sense, nothing we can do can “please God” – Jesus did that in his life and in his submission to death (ironically the same event that addresses God’s displeasure as well). I think we have this unchallenged assumption that when we gather for worship, God is sitting like an Olympic figure-skating or gymnastics judge, and we’re hoping for a 9.9 score because we know Jesus scored a 10, we’ll never get to that level, but anything less than a 9.9 is a failure. I believe that image needs to be discussed and challenged and discarded.
Not because God isn’t interested in our worship, but because that isn’t how He is interested in it. Psalm 115 discourages idolatry and encourages worship of YHWH on the grounds that we become like what we worship (115:8). God-pleasing worship, then, is worship that makes us more like Him. For Christians, then, God-pleasing worship is not something we perform for Jesus, but rather something given to us BY Jesus as an opportunity to become more like Him who sits at our table with us. I think that – not adhering to a list of approved acts, or a seeker-sensitive manual, not even an ancient liturgy – is the kind of worship that pleases God.
Jeanne, I have experienced exactly what you describe. During my impromptu apprenticeship, my preaching mentor had a heart attack, and so our congregation asked me to preach in his stead for several months. I’ve written lessons, and prayed just like you described, and because of that one person who I watched walk out more than once because the world’s clock said it was time to leave, I succumbed to the pressure to skip my last point and get to the invitation.
We assemble with a different group of saints now, and my mentor has mended well (even though he eventually moved back to west Texas for his health), but those moments are still extremely powerful in my mind.
The “this is the way we’ve always done it” mindset is just as bad if not worse than redundant liturgy. I read alot of liturgy along with my personal praying and reading and love it!
Great post Bro!
At some point in the not-too-distant future, I’d like to write about something that we discuss in the anthropology class I teach, event orientation vs. time orientation.
Most cultures of the world are event oriented: you go and do whatever it is you are there to do, no matter how much time it takes. You don’t start until everyone is there, you don’t end until everything is done.
In the States, we are time oriented. We start at 11, we end at 12. Then on to the next thing. We’re not exclusively time oriented, of course. There are professions like agriculture (and construction?) that are more task based than time based.
Grace and peace,
Tim Archer
We are too good at compartmentalizing our time. Church goes here, vacation goes here, work goes here, etc… We need to break out of this mold we’ve created.
I agree with Paula and I would add that when every aspect of our life becomes a way of participating in God’s mission then worship will take care of itself, we will… enjoy the right amount of “spontaneity” that comes from the overflow of God’s Spirit dwelling in us, the degree of planning and/or liturgy employed will bring praise to God and edification to ourselves, and most importantly God will be glorified while we are further blessed by God.
Grace and peace,
Rex
When someone so rudely gets up in the middle of service every time it goes a little longer – is that not something the elders should speak to them about? We have great elders here, but sometimes I’m worried that they’re a little too afraid of confrontation. Then again, it’s always easier to tell someone else what they should be doing.
I had a discussion with someone recently about worship. This person is bothered by things such as clapping or raising hands. And because of people like that, others in the congregation are uncomfortable doing it because it bothers someone else – someone they love and therefore don’t want to hurt.
Anyway, for this person I was talking to, the conclusion of the matter seemed to be that worship wasn’t about how we FEEL, it’s only about whether or not God is pleased. But I have to wonder – if we don’t feel the Spirit moving within us, if we don’t allow our emotions to interact with our intellect as we publicly and communally worship our Creator – is that pleasing to God?
To me, worship is more meaningful when I can be spontaneous – but that doesn’t mean I’m going to walk up to the front and lead a prayer without previous permission or any other wild spontaneous action my imagination can come up with. For me, spontaneous is being able to clap along with a song that moves me; or when I look around during singing or communion and catch someone’s eye and smile; when I hear a particularly significant statement made during prayer or sermon and utter an “Amen.” And I don’t have to have a big change made in our “worship order” every week to feel like we’re being spontaneous.
Well, just a couple thoughts without technical jargon or theological support. :)
i am pleased to be with a congregation that has some spontaneity, that occasionally goes long, and while some grumble or rush out after the closing prayer, the leaders don’t try to limit our time together, which is so minimal anyway
Lisa,
Unfortunately the person you have talked with has been schooled in the “cognitive offering unto God” of worship. That is, they think the sole purpose of worship is to legalistically perform the ‘acts’ of worship so that God is pleased. Not only do they miss those places in scripture where God states that such sacrificial offerings is not the end goal he is after but they also miss the horizontal aspect of worship whereby our worship, in addition to bringing praise and glory to God (verticle), ought edify each other (which one clearly sees both the vertical and horizontal aspects of worship.
That is not too say that such things as clapping, raising of hands, and other contemporary worship postures/responses are appropriate or inappropriate. However, the idea that worship is only about offering a cognitive and legalistic sacrifice to God is actually quite unbiblical. Unfortunately, with a few woefully inappropriate proof-texts from scripture, what is actually unbiblical can be made to appear quite biblical.
Grace and peace,
Rex
Unfortunately, I see too much of the self-serving “worship assemblies as “drive-thru” churches. I know some people go in and come out simply to appease their family members or their own conscience. This is truly sad and too much like “LUKE-WARM” worship to me. I have a hard time swallowing it, myself. I much prefer passion and variety; I know God is pleased when His Children rejoice in His presence and are forever grateful to Him for all He has done and continues to do for us. Assemblies happened when people stood in awe of God’s powerful works and even feared Him; the assembly was passionate about prayer and adoration for God and about loving our brothers and sisters. God, forgive me for my impatience with my brothers and sisters; I just wish the church was there already.