“And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” – Hebrews 10:24, 25 New Revised Standard Version of the Bible
I wish that I had a dollar for every book about church “revitalization” that’s available for purchase. There must be a million of them. From Rick Warren’s “Purpose-Driven Church” to “I Refuse to Lead a Dying Church!” by Paul Nixon (actually, one of my favorites) to Gay Reese’s currently popular “Unbinding the Gospel” series, they fill the bookshelves of both brick-and-mortar Christian stores and their online, virtual counterparts.
While I have benefited from reading many of these books, and will no doubt continue to do so, there is a certain frustration that comes from reading all of this. It sometimes feels like I’m on this never-ending search to find the right “formula” for how to energize our church so that we not only satisfy the “Worship wants” of long-time attenders as well as to create worship that appeals to people who rarely, if ever, entered into a church before!
One author asserts the claim that ONLY contemporary worship services will allow for a church to grow, and more than that, is vitally important if we are just going to keep the church doors open! At the same time, another author states categorically that what people are REALLY longing for is worship firmly rooted in the ancient worship practices of the early church and that if we’d purchase some incense and candles and start chanting our attendance would grow exponentially. Another church revitalization “expert” says that the largest growing demographic (just slightly above 20-somethings) is seniors above age 65, so traditional worship as we’ve been doing it since the 1960’s is just where we ought to stay and we really only need to stick to what we know and hang on until the “storm” is over. What’s a pastor to do?
Recently, as I watched an NFL game on TV, one of the commentators made the inevitable and somewhat trite suggestion that what a particular team needed to do was to “get back to the basics.” However, as I’ve thought about that comment, I’ve been drawn to the consideration of just what the “basics” are when it comes to Christian worship. Are churches, especially in view of the continuing decline of attendance and participation in “church” as a whole, gotten so wrapped up in developing a sophisticated “playbook” that we’ve forgotten the basics? Is that why “church” attendance across the religious spectrum in a continual decline year after year?
I don’t mean to say that we should stop thinking about the cultural context in which we have to exist as church, with the concomitant realities of what it takes to reach people today with the gospel. And, I’ll continue to plunk down some shillings for some of the latest church “growth” books. However, aren’t the basics of Christian worship really rather simple? Have we put too many “layers” on what we are called to do and be as church?
The verse from the letter to the Hebrews, quoted in the opening lines of this article, basically says that we should gather in order to provoke [Greek: Paroxusmos], which can be translated as, stimulate or incite; which means to stir, encourage, or urge on; prompt to action. In other words, we should regularly gather together to stimulate and encourage one another to love; to love God with everything we are and have, to love ourselves in a self-nurturing God-like way, and to love others to the same extent that we show proper love to ourselves.
How we do all of that is clearly going to be influenced by our faith tradition and the culture in which we live as filtered through our own life experiences. But, could it be that we have put too much into what constitutes or makes up what we want worship to be? Do we put on too many layers on top of the basics? Have we complicated the “playbook” so that we lose or forget those basics? What do YOU think about our worship? Are we keeping focused on the basics, or have we spent too much time on non-essentials? And how do we worship in view of the realities of living in our culture in our particular time in history? How do we “speak” the language of the gospels in such a way that they can be understood in today’s world?
These are all important questions that we must ask ourselves as disciples of the source of good news, Jesus Christ. What do you think? If you’d like to respond to this article, please do so. I’d love to hear from you.
