Today, we’re kicking off a three-way conversation (oooh, something new!) between Pam, Katherine and me, about prayer. This will take a few weeks as there is so much to squeeze out of their excellent questions. So Pam asks, “why don’t we pray in the church services very often?”
Like Jesus on so many occasions, I want to not directly answer this question but a related one. However, don’t worry I will get back to Pam’s actual question later.
Pam, your question touches on something really profound and vital, essentially why do God’s people gather week-in-week-out for congregational worship? If you’ve been a Christian for more than five minutes you will have an answer to this question. It might not be fleshed out and it might sound more like, “I really like it when we do … and I’m less bothered by…”. Add to this the impact of global trends (fads?) in Christianity and it’s understandable why this has become a bit of a muddle. However, until we are clear on the answer to this question we won’t be able to answer Pam’s actual question about prayer. So why should God’s people gather week-in-week-out for congregational worship?
I think Pam’s question forces us to address a number of tensions that don’t often get voiced but are at play almost every time God’s people gather for worship:
A big vision of worship vs a small vision of worship
I’m being provocative! However, I want you to think about what your instinctive response is when you hear the word ‘worship’. If it’s songs, worship bands (worship leaders) and words projected on a big screen, then I want to suggest that you have a very modern and small vision of worship. Historically when the church gathers, everything they do together is worship (that’s why we call our Sunday meetings ‘services’ as we are serving God through our gathering together in worship). So a much bigger vision of worship is one where we worship from the opening prayer to the closing benediction (that’s just a technical term for the closing prayer). How? By reading the Bible, preaching the Bible, praying the Bible (or biblically saturated prayers), declaring biblical truths through creeds, singing songs that are saturated with … you guessed it, the Bible and lastly, seeing the Bible (or gospel message) enacted in the breaking of bread and drinking of wine in communion. This, I would suggest, is a much bigger and richer vision of worship! We are then people who are allowing the life-giving (Matt 4:4), illuminating (Ps 119:105) and convicting (Heb 4:12) word of God to saturate every moment of our gathering together and not just when someone gets up to preach. It’s allowing God’s word to have the first and last word on everything. It’s ensuring that the God we are claiming to worship is actually the God of scripture because we’re allowing scripture to describe who He is!
Honestly, I think this bigger vision needs to grip our hearts much deeper and stronger, otherwise, we will end up with a dehydrated and shrivelled vision of worship which in turn will lead to a dehydrated and shrivelled vision and practice of prayer.
Congregational vs Consumerism
The second aspect of Sunday worship is the fact that we’ve been called to congregational worship. Not consumerism. Not attendance. No, it’s a call to congregational worship. What this means is that in everything we do we are looking both horizontally and vertically. Take for example the start of the Lord’s prayer “Our Father” (Matt 6:9). Here we have congregational worship enacted. “Our” speaks of the collective. “Our” speaks of togetherness and linking arms (however hopefully not singing Kumbaya!) However, the very next word grabs our attention and makes us look vertically at the God of heaven. “Father” raises our eyes above the ebb and flow of this world to the God of heaven who in his love and mercy has revealed himself to us as … “Father”. These two words capture the essence of congregational worship! As a result, I want to suggest that our gatherings need to be filled with readings, prayers, creeds, preaching and of course, communion, which helps us look sideways and then vertically and then sideways again and then… you’ve guessed it … vertically.
My observation is that we need to work much harder on this type of congregational worship because we’ve been soaked in consumerism that leads us to ask “what am I getting out of this” and not “how am I encouraging my brothers and sisters and how are we together bringing glory and honour to God”. I know of a church that has a regular Sunday gathering of over 1,000 people who have deliberately chosen to not have a big band on stage because they want people to hear one another sing (and I’m guessing not everyone is in tune … like me!). Why? Because it is a very powerful way of reinforcing a congregational identity. I’m not suggesting we should follow suit, but what I am challenging all of us with is getting used to thinking in this two-direction manner (sideways and then upwards).
This impacts our understanding of prayer. Congregational prayer is two-directional as well! Historically this has been supported by call and response type of prayers. Let me give you an example from… you guessed it… Scripture! Psalm 136 has 26 verses that work as a repeating call-and-response loop. It looks like this:
Caller: Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good
Response: His love endures forever
This is repeated 26 times! When someone says I don’t like modern choruses because they’re too repetitive, I sometimes want to take them to Psalm 136 (and then I stop myself). Why this call-and-response style? One of the reasons is to ingrain into the imagination of God’s people that it is impossible to really give thanks to the Lord and to know his goodness without other people (yes I did just say that!). Another reason is to show that prayer, song and poetry are congregational. We engage with it together. We participate in it together. We literally push air out of our lungs and across our vocal cords to make sounds … together.
I want to suggest that this congregational way of praying is something we as a church need to learn and grow in… and yes, Anglicans, with the beautiful poetry of the common book of prayer have got a 500-year jump on us!
We’ll pick this mardle up next week… Thanks, Pam and Katherine for kicking off such a great conversation. Oh, and by the way, Paul Smith asked a very quick Mardle question: ‘Why are all the mardle questions from ladies?’ I don’t know?! However, the easiest way of changing that is for some of you men to jump in and kick off some mardles. I look forward to receiving an email from you: mardle@wearekingsgate.org