One of the recurring issues that demands my attention (and causes me a bit of grief too) is the knotty issue of 'worship'. The grief element is due to the fact that a goodly number of people seem to think that 'worship' is the music bit and so they speak of the 'worship time' in the service. "We had a great time of worship during the service," they say, meaning they enjoyed the music bit.
Recently, whilst discussing this I brought up the issue of 'liturgy' only to be told that "We don't do that sort of things, we leave that to you high church types."
Well, here's what I told them.
Liturgy (leitourgia) is best regarded (from the Greek) as 'the work the people do' and it refers to the act of duty that is expected, nay demanded, from us. It is the act of worship and this encompasses the singywotsitstuff, talkywotsitstuff, the readingswotweread, the praying and Godbothering and the preachystuff too. It is not a rampant fast section or the slow bit where we do the worship, it is the whole shebang from the welcome to the last Amen.
We don't do worship to bless us but to bless God.
Good worship isn't what happens when we're entertained but when our services are a fragrant aroma in God's nostrils.
Pax
6 comments:
"Good worship isn't what happens when we're entertained" says it all for me.
Anyone watching, listening etc to an act of worship is a spectator.
Being fully involved at every stage is in my mind what constitutes a true 'act of worship'
We are either members of the body of the church or we are onlookers.
Good one, especially the bit about being entertained. Isn't our whole life supposed to be worship.
I've been in the role of worship director at my church for the past year, and this has been a huge issue for me. I don't even really know how we got to this point that people have such a truncated understanding of what worship is, but I've been trying to do what I can to rebuild a biblical view of worship. I appreciate your thoughts here, Vic. I've blogged on this before too.
My professor at Birmingham, J. G. Davies (one of the most important authorities on the liturgy and its setting, in the late-'60s-'70s) always used to ask, of the eucharist, "Is it something we do for Him, or something He does for us?" I don't think he actually made up his mind, other than knowing that it was the central act of worship. You don't have to be Anglo-Catholic to be "eucharistocentric".
The Eucharist is one of my favourite subjects and the
manner in which we do it varies from 1662 through to CW and the reasons we do it are many and wonderful.
A great topic with so many right answers and still more testing questions.
V
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