The Work of the People
Thursday, October 8, 2009 at 5:00AM Contemporary worship services, someone has said, can look like a rock concert followed by a stand-up comedian. This is true sometimes, but even when it's not, it can sometimes look like the real work takes place on stage, while those sitting in rows are the audience. You can say that God is the audience, but sometimes it looks like the audience is sitting in the pews.
One of the benefits of liturgy is that liturgy can work against this dynamic. Liturgy comes from Greek the Greek word λειτουργία. The etymology is a little unclear, but it can mean something like "the work of the people."
As one article says:
Many congregations have rediscovered that public worship is not a presentation by a select few, but rather an activity and effort of the entire congregation. In those settings where once a minister presided and a choir responded, now all worshippers join to participate in prayer, singing, ministering and speaking. The members of these congregations are affirming that worship is what they do together, not what they have done for them. For these congregations worship is active, not passive. It is the "work of the people."
In theory, the center of attention is drawn away from the worship leader and toward the content of the liturgy. It matters less that the pastor or worship leader is a charismatic figure, because the focus is not on that person, but on the gospel.
One more note: I have appreciated the times that worship leaders are at the back of the room and not on stage. It's not wrong to do otherwise, but it does send a powerful statement that they are part of the congregation. They may be leading the congregation, but they are not the center of attention. The corporate worship then remains the work of the people.
Reader Comments (6)
I had the opportunity to play with Gord Johnson ( St. Benedicts Table in Winnipeg ), it was fascinating because he led from sitting in the center of the gathering, in the midst of the community. The idea of making yourself small, that God may be big. To often from a worship perspective it's the other way around. Anyways, Gord's leading, or not leading, had a profound effect on me. It's was, I think the only time that I really felt apart of the worship...it was communal.
Darryl,I've really appreciated these posts on liturgy. Thanks!
I appreciate your comment about having a liturgical service that communicates God's indwelling the midst of the people. However, I find it strange that you identify the locus of the issue in the liturgical/contemporary divide. God no more lives on the table up front in a liturgical service than God does on the stage of a contemporary one. I suspect that there are as many liturgical services worshipping the God that dwells between the candles and the offering plates as the God who lives between the drummer and the guitarist.
Lewis:"God no more lives on the table up front in a liturgical service than God does on the stage of a contemporary one."I absolutely agree. I just think we need to be aware of the dangers we face in both kinds of services. In contemporary ones, we're in danger of becoming an audience at a rock concert if we're not careful. In liturgical ones, it is possible to focus too much on the liturgy rather than that to which the liturgy points.In theory - and maybe not as much in reality - liturgy points away from the charisma of the worship leader. How this works out in reality is a different thing.
This is tension that I feel because I relate to modern-sounding music but I find it difficult when I sense that my being in a worship service is something akin to a spectator sport.
I come from a non-liturgical heritage (although I might contend that our worship heritage is not so non-liturgical as we might think - it doesn't cease to be liturgy just because its set to music) and so am a bit handicapped in this dialog, but I think the core issue is not what we do, particularly, but why we do it. I also have a real aversion to the worship leader syndrome that I have seen in many church environments, but worship itself is a lovely thing when done from valid motives. I suspect the same is true with liturgy. If liturgy or worship are unaccompanied by teaching and discipleship, both become rapidly empty, because those engaged on them become reliant on the process, not the reason for it. But it seems to me that used correctly, liturgy is memory of and focus on godly things, which is to mind very scriptural (See Psalm 119:11, Philippians 4:8, Ephesians 5:19). The problem comes when either the emotion of worship, or the repetition of liturgy, become a substitute for faith.