Worship Wonderings

Worship…how we worship, why we worship, who gathers to worship, Children Worship & Wonder and the One in whom we worship all hold my attention lately.

A benign comment triggered this reflective process. It triggered because I’ve heard this same comment from many people in different places and times. The comment made was in regards to the Children Worship & Wonder program, but could easily translate to adult worship gatherings.

“It’s just the same stories told over and over. My kids get bored with it.”

This is a true statement and I can certainly understand the conundrum from which these parents speak. It occurs to me, perhaps, that we are looking at the issue from a disadvantaged perspective. The Bible, from which all our Worship & Wonder stories are drawn, as well as adult worship, is an ancient text of the stories of God’s people which covers the entirety of our faith history. These stories are told and retold to educate and celebrate how God encounters humankind throughout the ages, then and now. We tell and retell them, and yet there are always new insights to help us live as people of faith, as a people who still expect to encounter a living God.

When we consider worship from the disadvantaged perspective, whether it is for the children or for ourselves, we see our time together as entertainment…we see the stories as a ‘one-and-done’ kind of thing…we see our worship time as something that is doled out or given to us…and this leaves us with a sort of expectation…expectations to be entertained or to see and hear something that will hold our attention. Our faith stories become irrelevant, because they are tired and overused. And if our faith stories are irrelevant, then we must no longer expect to encounter the living God in our ordinary lives. Our worship becomes monotonous and meaningless.

John Calvin taught that the ultimate purpose of Christian worship is union with God (Introduction to Christian Worship by James F. White). When we gather as a people of faith, whether adult or child, for the purpose of Christian worship we seek a union with God… and carry with that the expectation of encountering God through our efforts together. Dare we hope that God might also encounter us during this time together of intentional union? If this is truly what we hope to accomplish when we gather each week, then the expectations of being entertained could also be God’s expectations of us. I daresay that is an expectation I, personally, may not be able to fulfill.

Each week it is the same stories told over and over…and if we tend to get bored with it all, we must share that responsibility. If our goal as a body of worshipers is union with God, then the assumption here is that each shall meet one another in this encounter…Creation encounters Creator. If that is the case, we already know God is present. The question, then, becomes, where are we? If we are awaiting entertainment or hoping to hear a new story, perhaps our perspective needs to shift to the question of what we bring into this encounter. The new story is our story to tell, stories of the ways in which we encounter the living God in this world. If we are bored, could it be because we are waiting on something to come to us, rather than bringing ourselves forward to encounter that which is already here? Could there be a living God waiting for moments of union with us, a creation once declared, ‘Very Good?’ Could God be the one sitting still, watching and waiting to hear a new story from us? Waiting to be entertained? Or, perhaps, waiting to be encountered?

I wonder about these things. I wonder what you might wonder?
 

Blessings,
Tracy