The vagaries and vicissitudes of small church life….
The church: Divinely inspired and human in its life
I like those two words. Vagaries refers to unpredictability, vicissitudes refers to change. These two words are descriptive of the nature of organizations, even those who ostensibly have divine origins. The church is God’s creation, but local congregations are a product of human beings attempting to partner with God to faithfully express this glorious spiritual reality called the church. The body of Christ is spread thorough out the world, existing in a single room gathering of a dozen or so all the way to the world’s largest church, in Korea with 700,000 plus members.
The church – ‘what is it?’
But after you throw the whole thing in a pot and boil it down to its essential ingredients what do you find? Is the church principally about a preacher? Is it principally about a great worship leader? Does its vitality reside in the capability of one or two or three leaders? No, that cannot be true. “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” (I Cor. 12:27) And for that to become something actual and real it must take have expression in a local gathering. It comes down to a body of people, no matter what size, who love each other, and who seek to demonstrate in as many ways as possible the glories of Jesus Christ, and His gospel. Romans 12:5 makes this observation: so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. We are members of one another – this language is really quite extraordinary. It speaks of our connection to one another as if we were like a arm or a leg to one another. This interconnectedness is a statement of spiritual truth, but too often it is a truth that is not existential truth. God declares it to be the case, but we do not experience it as true. Why?
The church is organic, and must be ‘cultivated’
In the Garden of Eden God uses two words to describe part of Adam’s responsibility: The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it (Gen. 2:15) Those two words ‘work’ and ‘keep’ are used in combination again only in reference to the sanctuary. Specifically of the Levites in describing their duties. By the time we get to the N.T. God reveals that the new temple is the people of God, and we are priests in that temple (Rev. 1:5-6 – To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood 6and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.(See also 1 Peter 2:9; 1 Cor. 3:16; Ephesians 2:21) Those words ‘work’ and ‘keep’ can be applied to every believer in the local church. We are called upon to care for and cultivate in God’s temple.
That’s theological. Now listen to the practical application of that truth: – if you do not regularly and routinely seek to live out that connectedness it will seem as though it is not true. That means making time for one another. It seems to me that having a rich life with others in a church community is similar to having a rich life with God (hint: It is required by the nature of personhood). If you expect to know God by coming to church on Sunday and then spending very little time with Him throughout the rest of the week you will be frustrated, or more likely you will pretend. The same is true about Christian Community. It exists as potential (because Christ has opened the door for a whole different level of relationship), but without intentionality, attention and time it simply exists as a vague, sort of ‘out there’ thing. It reminds me of people singing ‘give peace a chance’ – its a great idea, but peace requires more than a song. Christian community requires more than the desire for it. It means that I will make myself available for relationships. I will not constantly ruminate ‘how come no one invited me over?’ or all the other waiting and longing for attention maneuvers human beings tend to make regarding relationships. Be forewarned – in a few weeks I will be preaching on the relationship between maturity and Christian community. Now for something different….
Worship
I am concerned about our worship. For most of the twenty-one years we have been a church this has been one of our strengths as a congregation. I believe we have faltered in the past few years. I want to take responsibility for that. There is an old saying that goes ‘if you want to cook an omelet you need to break some eggs.’ However sometimes the omelet ends up looking rather messy. Over the past two years we’ve tried some new things in worship, and not all of those experiments have turned out the way I wanted them to turn out. I don’t really believe that blame is all that helpful, but if you need to blame someone – please blame me. I am the pastor, and I am responsible for worship, pastoral care, the preaching and teaching of the church. (even if I don’t necessarily do all of it).
When an area of church life isn’t going well, its rather like a slow leak in a tire. You don’t really know your in trouble until it goes flat. I think our worship needs several things. And please read carefully what I have to say about this: One, we need to pray for worship. Its easy to criticize this thing or that thing. Its easy to complain about style or volume levels, or whatever. Moses dealt with an unrelenting pattern of complaint from people who had witnessed some of the greatest miracles and mighty acts of God recorded in all of scripture. (See Exodus 5:20-21; 6:9-12; 14:11-12; 15:24; 17:1-7, 32). But worship is a spiritual offering. Good worship, whatever the style, is worship in which the Spirit of God is active and free to move and work among the people (principally because the people gathered welcome the Spirit and earnestly desire His presence). Good worship is worship that glorifies Jesus Christ, and lifts Him up. Good worship comes from hearts that are filled with the good things which God has deposited in us. It is easy to be distracted if the worship style gets in the way, or unfamiliarity with the songs gets in the way – but at the end of the day we cannot allow these distractions to take us away from how central worship is to our life as a congregation. Open your heart and listen to Peter’s words: 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ…9you are a chosen race, a royal a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. ,
Getting back to the heart of worship
There is a worship song, which we have sung for years – ‘The Heart of Worship‘ by Matt Redman. “The song dates back to the late 1990s, born from a period of apathy within Matt’s home church, Soul Survivor, in Watford, England. Despite the country’s overall contribution to the current worship revival, Redman’s congregation was struggling to find meaning in its musical outpouring at the time.
“There was a dynamic missing, so the pastor did a pretty brave thing,” he recalls. “He decided to get rid of the sound system and band for a season, and we gathered together with just our voices. His point was that we’d lost our way in worship, and the way to get back to the heart would be to strip everything away.”
Reminding his church family to be producers in worship, not just consumers, the pastor, Mike Pilavachi, asked, “When you come through the doors on a Sunday, what are you bringing as your offering to God?”
Matt says the question initially led to some embarrassing silence, but eventually people broke into a cappella songs and heartfelt prayers, encountering God in a fresh way.
“Before long, we reintroduced the musicians and sound system, as we’d gained a new perspective that worship is all about Jesus, and He commands a response in the depths of our souls no matter what the circumstance and setting. ‘The Heart of Worship’ simply describes what occurred.”
When the music fades, all is stripped away, and I simply come / Longing just to bring something that’s of worth that will bless your heart… / I’m coming back to the heart of worship, and it’s all about You, Jesus” (From an article on Crosswalk.com – Song Story: Matt Redman’s “The Heart of Worship”)
Through out the summer months we are attempting to simplify and get back to the heart of worship. We are self-consciously de-emphasizing the accompaniment and focusing on singing. We are very carefully choosing songs that we know are familiar and looking to renew the simple act of singing as a congregation. This, by the way does not make it worship. However, I do think we need to restore a level of confidence in the church when it comes to worship – but just improving the level of participation doesn’t solve the problem of weak worship. That is a spiritual. Worship that is full of the life of God involves full on participation, but it is more than that. It involves brothers and sisters coming together in a spirit of gratitude, praise and adoration to worship the One who is so deserving, so beautiful and so worthy! Expectation of the One whom we adore is vital. Anticipation of the Spirit’s presence is vital. If you follow my thoughts here what I am saying is the condition of the worshiper coming to worship has so much to do with the outcome.
Owning worship
The second thing, if you haven’t caught on is this – we need to see worship and its importance as our individual responsibility. God will honor our hearts in this. He will respond quickly to the tender hearted obedience of the church. If we as a body decide – ‘we are going to have great corporate worship‘ then I believe God will honor that intention and meet us in our faith. I acknowledge that we haven’t been consistent as a worship team in leading in worship. But as much as it depends upon me I promise you that we are committed to renewing our Sunday corporate worship.
Send in your requests….
I invite you LOG folks to send Ben an email (benjaminjstamper@gmail.com) with your favorite worship songs. We want to sing the music that people want to sing, music that lifts and blesses while at the same time exalting and bringing glory to God. I really think that one of the things we need to do is encourage each other to take a certain degree of ownership in the worship.
The simplicity of the essential
There really are a simple set of things which make our life together as a church glorious. Acts 2:42-47 deliniate them: 42And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. Before I mention the four things that are spoken of here let me say a word about Luke’s choice of wording here: The word ‘devotion’ is a Greek word which means to be ’steadfastly attentive unto, to give unremitting care to a thing’. It is different than passion, which is wonderful and very important, but lets face it – passion ebbs and flows. Devotion is more like a discipline of the mind. The early church was characterized by ‘a steadfast attention’ to apostolic teaching. The people were committed to placing themselves under the teaching of the Word. They were faithful to fellowship. They made time for each other, and they opened their homes to one another. They broke bread together. This either refers to the regular practice of the Lord’s Table (and worship) or to sharing meals regularly. I think that this is likely a reference to Eucharistic worship – and so I take this to mean the people were committed to their times of corporate worship, which centered around the Lord’s table. And finally they were faithful in their commitment to prayer, and especially prayer together. These are not difficult conceptually. Steadfast commitment to be under apostolic teaching, faithfulness in sharing our lives, in worshiping together and in praying together. Can we do this? Well let me say that many of us have done this – even if we have faltered from time to time. But we must aim for this to be the norm for all of us. The church must be renewed again, and again. It doesn’t reach renewal stasis and then stay there. Spiritual entropy is a reality. If we do not regularly, and personally renew our commitment to the life of the church then it slowly, over time things begin to unravel. And when I say the ‘life of the church’ I’m really talking about the life of God in the church.
Do you know how fragile a local church is? I heard just a few days ago this statistic: 1500 pastors leave the ministry every month. That’s 1500 churches being impacted every month. How many of those churches don’t make it? Remember that only 40 years after the resurrection of Jesus churches were struggling. Nearly every congregation has serious problems – from the craziness in the Corinthian church, to the lukewarmness of the Laodician church. Why are churches fragile? Because we are fragile. The life of a congregation flows from its genuine connection to Jesus. Our connections to one another are a principal means by which we experience the life of God. May Christ inspire us to roll up our sleeves and cultivate and care for this holy temple which is the church.
July 22nd, 2009 at 9:48 am
Hey all my dear friends at Lamb of God-
This article hits me right at the heart of the ministry’s Tina, my wife, and I am involved in now. After years of being involved in and leading worship “teams”, the problems and solutions mentioned in this article are absolutely accurate. I have taught this concept, using the same bible references from Acts. It’s to bad only 5 people showed up, and only 1 or 2 out of about 20 people involved in worship ever showed up.
The whole issue on praying, learning, and growing together as a body or group of worship leaders along with those involved is a foreign and forgotten principle way to often. This shows greatly in the integrity of the worship, the songs, (including both the styles and lyrical content), and the presence of the Holy Spirit to build us up together and bless the time together. It seems to be, sadly, more about egos and entertainment so much of the time. Or, it’s a job that is quickly put together and given little attention to or devotion from a biblical perspective. However, when it is, the results are truly amazinging as we have seen it’s effects in the lives of those involved, and in the church as a whole.
Thanks Scott. Especially since my first experiences with being involved with worship, playing drums and percussion, was in a big, old Baptist church in downtown Montclair NJ, some 15 years ago. (Anybody remember the Ho-Ho’s)?
Peace
John Grewe