I’m picking up from last week when Pam, Katherine and I were mardling about prayer and especially why don’t we pray that much in our services. If you didn’t get to read last week’s Mardle, take a read here.
There is one more tension that we need to focus on when it comes to thinking about why we gather, as a congregation, week-in-week-out for worship.
Gospel narrative vs The Spontaneous
The third aspect of Sunday gatherings that I want us to think about is something very close to many charismatics’ hearts! In fact, for some charismatics, spontaneity (i.e. “don’t plan anything”), is almost the height of spirituality! Often I’ve heard people say “today we want to leave space so we can be led by the Holy Spirit”. Yet I want to push back quite strongly on this.
Firstly, the Bible is a Spirit-inspired book (do I hear an Amen?)! Yet in it are some highly stylized sections that were definitely not spontaneously written! Take for example the opening chapter of Genesis (a beautiful poem about Creation) or Song of Songs (an evocative love story/poem). Scripture should show and remind us that spontaneity is not the pinnacle of spirituality. Secondly, when we zoom in on the Psalms of Ascent (Psalms 120-134), we have an ordered collection of Psalms that were sung at a precise moment each year. This was a 15-song hymn book, which was sung literally in order! Thirdly, the Bible is filled (and I mean filled) with congregational (or collective) prayers, creeds (simple statements of belief) and songs. My observation is that we prize spontaneity way more than scripture does (gulp)! Now, I’m not saying there is not a place for spontaneity (see 1 Cor 14), I’m just trying to help us see that maybe we’ve overhyped it and probably more for cultural reasons (we want to be more ‘surfer dude’ than ‘school headmaster/mistress’) than for good theological reasons!
If spontaneity is not the driver for our gathering then what should be? My suggestion is, and this lines up with the thrust of the Reformation (think Martin Luther and John Calvin), that when we gather together, our worship should be gospel-shaped. It should have a narrative. It should have a start, middle and end that leads us on a journey that tells the gospel story. What do I mean by that? One way of communicating this is to say that every Sunday we should be reminding each other (because worship is congregational) that it is God who calls us (we would never have reached out to him unless he had first called us; salvation is his initiative!), God cleanses us (we could never have purified ourselves. It is only the death of Christ that purifies us from our sins!), God speaks to us through Scripture and communion (these are his ordinary means of grace by which we hear God speaking into our lives!) and then God sends us into the world as missionaries (to bear witness to God’s initiative, purifying and speaking activity!)
If we take this gospel-narrative approach to Sundays, suddenly congregational prayers become much more relevant. When we think of God calling us, what is our response? Prayers of gratitude. When we think of God’s cleansing activity, what is our response? Prayers of confession and prayers confirming God’s grace and mercy! When we look to Scripture and Communion to hear/see God’s speaking, it leads to congregational prayers of dependency, and gladness! Finally, when we think of God sending us, our prayers become prayers of petition and dependency. Prayer gets naturally woven into what we do because prayer is a natural response to God’s activity!
Do you see… a gospel narrative shapes our responses because it rightly leads us to only ever be responding to the great movements of God in redemption (he calls, he cleanses, he speaks and he sends). We’re always (rightly) on the back foot as we are stunned and surprised, week-in-week-out, at the greatness and God’s redemption plan… for us! And so we respond in prayer.
Now, I’m imagining Katherine at this point chipping in and saying … “hmm, ok, that’s great Adam (she is always very polite and encouraging) but how does that answer Pam’s original question: Why don’t we pray that much?” For my response to Katherine, you’ll have to wait another week… sorry!
Got a mardle question? Drop me a note at mardle@wearekingsgate.org
