DESIGNING WORSHIP: FORMATIONAL WORSHIP (2B)
In the previous article, we began to discuss what I call formational worship design. Here is the summary of what is included in formational worship design.
Formational worship helps people to:
Remember and retell the story of the king and his kingdom.
Be re-formed into the image of the king and his kingdom.
Be sent out as part of the story of the king and his kingdom.
We talked about how the stories that we believe have the power to shape our lives and behavior. Then we unpacked the major story of the Bible and how it is about the one true king and his kingdom. We looked at the major chapters in this story, particularly in regard to Jesus as king.
If we are to help create environments for people to experience transformation, it’s crucial to make sure we’re telling the right story to correct all the false or partially true stories we believe. However, telling the story is not enough. Here’s why.
Information on its own does not lead to transformation.
There’s an old phrase that says, “The longest journey you will make in your life is from your head to your heart.” This statement perfectly encapsulates the concept that it is possible to know all the right things, yet live completely differently because your heart doesn’t agree with your head. I’ve heard others call this, “the gap in our discipleship”. We’re educated far beyond our obedience. So how do we help our people begin to change to become more like Jesus?
This approach to worship is part of a much larger discussion about spiritual formation, and this approach needs to include more than just Sunday. Let me try to simplify it for the purposes of worship planning for Sunday morning.
Our lives are driven by loves and desires. Our actions are simply responses to a deep desire that lives inside of us. This deep desire may include such things as a desire for meaning, purpose, value, safety, and satisfaction.
Our loves and desires have been misdirected by false stories. We then go looking for ways to fulfill those desires. The families we grow up in, the culture we’re surrounded by, and the world we live in, each tell us stories about how to find and attain our desires.
Those loves and desires have turned into habits. We then take action on those stories and try to gain meaning, value, safety, and satisfaction. The more we take the same actions to get what we desire, the more these actions take hold of our hearts, minds, and bodies. Our actions become wired into us and we subconsciously live them out as habits. Our habits make up our lives.
Those habits do not honor God or help us look and live like Jesus. When we live out false stories through our habits, our lives don’t look like what Jesus preached in the sermon on the mount in Matthew 5. We are anxious, angry, greedy, unfaithful, selfish, and prideful. Our lives crumble and fall apart like houses built on foundations of sand when things go bad around us. To summarize….
We become our habits!
I love how James K.A. Smith says it in his book, “You Are What You Love”.
“Worship is the arena in which God recalibrates our hearts, reforms our desires, and rehabilitates our loves. Worship isn’t just something we do; it is where God does something to us.”
To simplify it even more, the things we do, do something to us. God uses the things we do in worship, to do something within us.
Worship is where we learn new habits that reinforce a true story; one which radically reshapes the loves of our heart.
If this is true, then what habits should we be engaged in, and how do these habits reshape us? While there are any number of habits we could include on this list, I’ll include 7 that I believe to be crucial.
7 habits that help transform us in worship
Celebration:
Definition: “Celebration is a way of engaging in actions that orient the spirit toward worship, praise, and thanksgiving. Delighting in all the attentions and never-changing presence of the Trinity fuels celebration.” Adele Calhoun: “Spiritual Disciplines Handbook”.
How celebration reshapes our heart: We have a tendency to forget God, his actions, and his presence. We get used to thinking of ourselves as the center of the universe. Celebration takes our eyes off of ourselves and focuses on the unequalled power, beauty, and love of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. It reminds us of the great treasure we have in him and the blessings he has given us. Instead of thinking about what we have lost, or don’t have and think we should, celebration is a reminder that Jesus is our king and our savior.
Considerations for worship: How well does your church celebrate during worship? Why do you think that might be? What expressions of celebration are you comfortable with? What expressions are you uncomfortable with? What expressions of celebration do you see as you study scripture?
Confession and examination:
Definition: Confession means admitting, “attachment to idolatrous relationships and self-serving goals and agendas for success, money, power, ego, productivity and image” and desiring “whole hearted attachment to and trust in God alone.” Adele Calhoun: “Spiritual Disciplines Handbook”.
How it reshapes the heart: This practice directly undercuts pride and self-sufficiency. It forces us to remember that our sin was so bad, God had to send his son Jesus to deal with it through Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. It is a chance to look at how we try to replace God with people and things (idols) in order to find meaning, value, and safety. Unconfessed sin often leads to people having areas of their lives that stay un-surrendered to Jesus. Confessing our sin brings it into the light and allows us to ask for help in overcoming habitual sin in our lives. We also experience comfort when we realize that we are not the only ones confessing that we are sinful and need God’s help. When a community collectively expresses its need for grace, it becomes a place that is better able to show grace to each other.
Considerations for worship: How often does confession take place in your time of worship? How might you integrate times of confession into a worship service? Have you considered the historic public confessions like the one that starts, “Almighty God, we confess that we have sinned against you” that is used in some backgrounds? What are the benefits of group confession? What concerns would you have? How do you see confession of sin expressed in the Bible?
Meditation:
Definition: Meditation is intentionally focusing our attention and our affection on God’s word for the purpose of knowing him, hearing his voice, and delighting in his will and ways. Nic Cook
How it reshapes the heart: Our hearts don’t listen well. They are regularly demanding attention and action. Our world is more than happy to provide distraction and noise. This practice of meditation forces our hearts to learn to be quiet and to turn our affections away from ourselves and toward God. We learn to know the voice of the good shepherd and discern the lies and the distractions of the evil one.
Considerations for worship: When was the last time you had space in a worship service to quietly listen for the voice of God? Why do you think many congregations don’t create this space? Do you believe that people can hear the voice of God? What are some of your favorite verses or attributes of God to spend time thinking about?
Communion:
Definition: Having a meal with God and his people. During this meal, we recognize his presence with us, his sacrifice for us, and our need for him to sustain us. We look forward to his return and the great banquet in the new kingdom. Nic Cook
How it reshapes the heart: Food is almost always associated with our bodies and our relationships. We are used to being able to provide for our own physical needs. We don’t often rely on God for physical sustenance. However, just like food is vital to our bodies, Christ is vital to our souls. We are reminded in communion that what bread does for our bodies, Christ does for our entire being. Our souls need Jesus like our bodies need food, water, and air. We are reminded of our need for Jesus during communion. Food is also associated with relationships. The people with whom we sit at a table are often those we love and like. Our world is divided on who is in and who is out. However, in the church, the communion table is surrounded by everyone who calls Jesus “king”. We are not allowed to discriminate or disassociate from God’s family. Lastly, we are in the presence of Jesus himself in a special way during communion. The sacrifice of Jesus allows those who where once sinners to be in his presence now, as saints.
Considerations for worship: How often does your church take communion together? What is the theology behind that practice? What is the mood like during communion? What do you think the mood was like at the first communion with Jesus? What do you think the mood of communion was like after the resurrection? How might you emphasize the communal/relational nature of communion? How might you draw attention to the foreshadowing to the banquet in eternity? What words might you say each time you take communion together to help people remember the multiple meanings in communion?
Corporate prayer:
Definition: “Corporate prayer is simply praying together as a body of Christ in agreement. It is cooperation with God to bring about his plan.” Campus Crusade for Christ.
How it reshapes our heart: We live in a very individualistic society. We need to be reminded that we are part of a larger story and a larger community than ourselves. This story spans centuries behind us and possibly centuries into the future. Praying together has the ability to help us connect with others as our voices and our desires are expressed out loud during worship. There are things our hearts don’t know to say or don’t like to say. Having a thoughtful written prayer spoken together gives us the vocabulary to say to God what needs to be said. There are times when our hearts don’t want to pray, but having others pray out loud on our behalf reminds us that God hears their prayers even when we struggle to speak.
Considerations for worship: What benefits of corporate prayer can you think of? Do you see or have any objections that might arise if you were to introduce it to a worship service? How would you explain this form of prayer to someone who might not understand it or prefer it?
Giving:
Definition: Joyfully partnering with God in his kingdom work by sacrificially setting aside time, money, and talents to be given away to others. Nic Cook
How it reshapes our heart: Jesus was constantly teaching about the hold that money and possessions have on the human heart. We tend to define ourselves by our possessions, or try to ease our fears with our possessions. The acquisition of money can become a distraction or replacement for following God. Jesus told us that it is incredibly hard to enter the kingdom when we love money. Giving helps us develop a love for God and his kingdom. It helps us learn to trust in him and his provision. It helps us become excited about God’s kingdom when we watch how people’s lives are changed by our giving. We become less attached to things and more attached to God.
Considerations: Think about how offering is done during your time of worship. How is the giving tied directly to the kingdom? How might you tell stories of impact because of sacrificial giving? If money was a constant subject of teaching for Jesus, does his example make us take teaching about it seriously? How has giving made a difference in your own life? Do you have giving stories that glorify Jesus?
Witnessing:
Definition: “To witness means modeling and telling of the difference Jesus has made in one’s life.” Adele Calhoun
How it reshapes our heart: We often see ourselves as the hero and central character of our story. Learning to see how our story fits into the larger story of God combats our selfishness and enlarges our picture of God’s goodness, love, and faithfulness to us and to all of creation. We often struggle with the fear of man, and don’t want others to think badly of us. Telling the story of how a good, loving God has sought us out, rescued us, and is reshaping us into the character of Jesus, takes the pressure off of portraying ourselves well. Additionally, learning to tell our story in front of other believers gives us a chance to grow in confidence and lessen the fear of sharing that story with those who don’t know Christ. This also has the effect of drawing a community together when they hear both the shared struggles and the way God is moving in the lives of their brothers and sisters in Christ.
Considerations: How might you create a culture during worship of individuals sharing both how God has saved them, and how he is continuing to save them? What tools might you need to help people begin to think through when telling their story? When was the last time that you shared with someone your own story of God’s work in your life?
Final considerations
This is not a Catholic/Denominational thing. It’s a Christian thing.
Depending on a church’s theological and historical background, some will hear the use of corporate confession, or prayers, or creeds, and have a negative reaction to them. That’s understandable, because there is always a danger in ritual of it being either not biblical, or being dry and inauthentic. Other times, a particular practice can be associated with a bad experience at a previous church. However, there is a rich history of the early Christians continuing to use the written Psalms as a model for their prayers and they would say them together. Jesus himself taught a model prayer to be said together in worship. Paul wrote a creedal statement to be used in worship in Colossians 1. We must be careful to not disregard a form of worship simply because of its abuse or because it feels foreign or uncomfortable.
Regularly explain the “why”.
Anything that we do on a regular basis has the danger of becoming a heartless ritual. What keeps us from mindlessly going through the motions is to regularly remind people “why” we’re doing what we do in worship. If you feel like you’re overexplaining, you’re probably getting it right.
Habits help us surrender, but only Jesus transforms.
Lastly, it must always be said that we simply don’t have the power to transform ourselves or anyone else. Only the Holy Spirit can do that. These practices simply create opportunities for people to pay attention to God and to surrender themselves so that God can do in us what only he can do.
