Worship themes: Participatory (PT 2)
We’re continuing our discussion of the themes that need to be present when we design worship services for God’s people. These themes are woven in church throughout our time together, like threads in a cloth. You may not see these threads, but they are are there holding the whole service together.
We’ve covered the themes of Trinitarian worship, the major redemptive moments in the New and Old Testaments, the role of covenants in worship, and the fact that Jesus is the center and facilitator of our worship. (Read the previous article here)
In previous articles, I have covered the theme of dialogical worship (link here) as well as the theme of modeling formative practices (link here). Let’s continue by talking about the theme of communal and participatory worship.
Communal and participatory
Communal
When Jesus was asked to summarize how to honor God’s will, he responded, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40)
In this passage, Jesus summarized the entirety of God’s will and commands into our vertical relationship with God, and into our horizontal relationships with each other. The word “you” is a communal word. It refers to a group of people. Jesus is creating two categories for worship.
People to God (vertical)
God to people (horizontal)
This is easy to miss in our western world and culture where individualism and autonomy are subconscious, but deeply precious values. Modern worship can easily become a time when a room full of individuals are not paying attention to each other, but are engaged in their own personal time with God. While personal engagement with God is beautiful, it is not the primary goal of the gathering of believers.
The Church is often referred to as the body of Christ. This word is intentionally used because it is intended to keep us from becoming selfish and self-focused. Each part of the body is designed to be working for the good of the whole body. Individualism in worship was one of Paul’s concerns with the Corinthian church.
“Corporate Worship is what happens when the body of Christ assembles to hear with ONE HEART and speak with ONE VOICE the words, praises, prayers, petitions, and thanks to God!”
Constance Cherry- The Worship Architect
Participatory
All of the language of the Bible points to the fact that worship is something that we do, not something that is done for us. For example, the Hebrew word “shachah” and the Greek word “proskeneo” mean to “bow down”. It is a physical expression of humility and adoration. “Leitrourgia” means “to work”. It’s where we get our word liturgy from. It implies that we have something to do and to bring to God as an act of worship. The word fellowship in Greek is “koinonia” which means “partnership and participation”. We are joining together in order to be part of something.
A great danger for our worship gatherings is for them to become a place to spectate rather than to participate.
When we go back to the story in Exodus about Mount Sinai, we find that the Israelite people wanted someone to engage with God for them. Whether it is from fear of not being good enough to meet with God, or out of laziness and desire to have a religious “service” provided for us to consume, the danger is always real.
God made each person to become a priest; someone capable of engaging God in worship and in leading others in worship.
Paul expected that there would be multiple people and multiple gifts used during the worship in the local church.
“What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up. (1 Corinthians 14:26)
What this looks like practically will depend largely on your church background and theology, but the underlying principal is that everyone should be engaged in the service in a way that both brings glory to God and builds up his family.
Considerations for worship:
Things we do together:
Music: This is probably the easiest place to start, since most of our congregations are already singing together. However, there are some simple ways to increase participation. Check out this article.
Corporate prayer: Prayers written for worship and spoken by God’s people have a long history in worship gatherings. The Hebrew people used the book of Psalms to help them pray together. So did Jesus. Jesus himself gave his disciples what we call “the Lord’s Prayer” as a memorized template for prayer. Here is an article with some of my most used prayers from the Book of Common Prayer and the Worship Sourcebook.
Additionally I want to emphasize that providing time for people to pray for each other individually is incredibly powerful and important. Some churches do this by inviting people to come forward at the end of a service, or by providing an area to go to for prayer. Another consideration may be to provide a few prompts on what to pray for, then asking people to take a moment in the service and to pray with those around them.
Scripture reading: Reading scripture out loud together is one of the hallmarks of the worship for God’s people. Scripture reading can be incorporated in so many ways into the service, including calls to worship or in between songs as a way of explaining what was sung or is about to be sung. Scripture is essential for helping people express worship by using the very words that God has given us. We then return his words back to him. Again, I highly suggest the Worship Sourcebook to help you find scriptures that fit certain sections of the worship service. Another great resource is the book Praying in Public. This book is by Pat Quinn and Kevin DeYoung. The authors include lists of scriptures that can be used to help people express adoration, confession, and supplication.
Creeds: Creeds were designed by God’s people to help their churches learn, know, and defend what they stood for. Creeds were like a pledge of allegiance, where a group of people declared what they believed and what they stood for. These creeds were great reminders that the basic truths about God and what he has done for us are foundational to our lives. We never move beyond them, but we continually build on them.
Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again. ( I sometimes add “Christ is reigning” in between risen and coming again.)
The Apostles creed (I also tend to change a few words like catholic for universal, and descended to the dead instead of hell) Here is a sermon series that I taught which unpacked the Apostles’ creed.
Discussion and dialogue: This may run against the format of the way our services are designed, but an incredibly effective way to increase participation and retention is by providing questions for people to take time and discuss among themselves. We have occasionally done this by having a short 10 minute discussion time to unpack 1-2 questions based on themes that were covered in the sermon.
Things we “stop” doing together:
There are expressions of worship that are based on stopping doing something.
Silence and reflection: We live in a busy world. Chances are, if we don’t carve out time for people to stop and be quiet during our services, they won’t do it themselves. Once people begin to experience the ways the God enters into our silence, it can help build a hunger for doing it during their own time of personal worship.
By this point, hopefully I have illustrated the importance of communal participatory worship. We’re almost done with our discussion of themes for transformative worship. Let’s move on to wholistic/multisensory worship, and the importance of clarity and Accessibility in worship.
