Worship – Random Thoughts and Ramblings

To Pastors and Churches Having Online Worship Today

“O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!” Psalm 95:6 (NLT)

Dear Pastors Leading Worship Online Today:

I see you. More importantly, God sees you. I’m in this boat with you so I’m experiencing this “new normal” with you. And, like you, I will get the experience of leading prayer, proclaiming scripture, and preaching a sermon in an empty worship space (minus two musicians and our worship leader) to only my cell phone and whomever watches on Facebook Live and our website. Like you, I’m having to fumble my way through and figure things out. Like you, I’m nervous, yet excited at what God is going to do through our efforts today.

It’s going to be weird. It’s going to be different. It’s also going to be OK.

God sees you as you have had to make difficult decisions, often while receiving flack from your congregation and other clergy. Claims of your “lack of faith” sting but hopefully ring hollow. God knows better. He knows that your first concern is for the safety of your flock, the flock that He entrusted you with when you were called or appointed. Calling off in-person worship today and for however long is necessary does not make you a poor pastor, nor does it mean you lack faith. Making these tough decisions means that you are being a good shepherd. Not exposing your people to a disease that could kill them means you love them. You’re not reckless with your flock. Instead, this is how you love them. If some in your congregation don’t realize this now, they will. And they will be grateful.

While online worship is not a replacement for in-person community, it will have to do for now. Thanks be to God for modern technology that He can use to keep people connected to Him and to lead them in worship. My prayer for you – for all of us – is that we remember that God can be glorified anywhere and in so many more ways other than sitting in a pew or on a chair. Like you, I long for the day when we can return to our worship spaces but for now I will lead in the best way that I can. My encouragement to you is to seek to do the same. God is with you. God is with your people. And God will be worshipped and glorified today and for however long this is our “normal.”

Press on. Be bold for the Kingdom. Preach the word just as strongly as you would in front of a congregation. The truth is, you still are preaching to a congregation, only for now they are disbursed. Try to ignore the criticism and outright shaming. God is proud of you for pressing on in spite of what the world is enduring right now. God is using you.

Most of all, God loves you.

Offered to you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit by a fellow preacher in the trenches…

Pastoring in a Pandemic

Random Thoughts and Ramblings

This has got to the most challenging time for ministry so far, at least in my short career. When I began candidacy and seminary, I never imagined that I would find myself ministering in the midst of a global pandemic. There were no classes offered on how to manage a congregation in the midst of a true global crisis. And yet, like so many other clergy, here I am learning as I go. Trial by fire has been a constant in my life so why not now? I’m here, do the best I can, making mistakes, but trying to learn from them. It helps to know that I’m not alone.

And as a reminder: Neither are you. You are not alone.

So, at least for this season, this is our new normal. I’m having to get use to doing nearly all of my pastoral care by phone since I can not go visit any of my parishioners right now. I’m having to navigate coordinating an online worship service and making sure we do things like stay in compliance with copyright and have the best sound possible on a shoestring (thankfully, I believe we’ve figured this out). I’m resigning myself to the fact that, for the first time in my career, Sunday I will be preaching to only the musicians and to my phone while people watch on our Facebook page. It’s absolutely different but it’s also the best we can offer to our folks, all things considered.

I’ve come across some people who have said that online worship streaming is invalid. To them I say: Save it. Streaming is not meant to be a permanent replacement for a community of faith but also it’s simply not safe to gather as a body at this time. In the early church, the body was disbursed and had to meet in small groups in houses. They used what they had available to them to continue worshipping in the face of persecution. In this situation, we must do the same but, thanks be to God, we now have modern technology whereby God can work in ways we never imagined. The awesome part about that is, he is using everyday people to do this. I have long been a proponent of using streaming technology for worship and we are now at a place where this can truly become mainstream.

I have no sage advice to offer from a ministry standpoint. Like everyone else, I’m fumbling my way through this and learning how to do ministry in the face of a pandemic. But I will say this: I am a former healthcare worker and, while I was no doctor (I was a paramedic), I learned a few things in school and educated myself on many topics that school did not cover. I’m no epidemiologist by any means but I can say this: COVID-19, and diseases like it, is no joke. This is highly contagious. The numbers are honestly frightening. Reuters did a great graphic that illustrates how COVID-19 spread in South Korea. One person attending worship ended up infecting over 1,000 people. You can see the data for yourself here. If this happened in your congregation, how many would that impact? How many outside of your congregation could it impact? How many people could die as a result?

Shut it down.

Please, take the warnings seriously. Do your part to flatten the curve. Swap to online worship and discipleship with the knowledge that this is not permanent. Reach out to your parishioners and make sure they’re cared for. Do visits by phone and FaceTime. Is all of this different? Absolutely. But it’s also necessary.

“And the best of all is, God is with us.” – John Wesley

Worship is Active Work, Not Passive Consumption

Random Thoughts and Ramblings

liturgysermonseriesslide One time I overheard a conversation between two people who were discussing their churches. From what I could pick up, one went to a church within the mainline denominations and the other went to a non-denominational church. The topic of their worship services came up and the man who worshiped in the mainline congregation was describing what sounded like a service that included a lot of ritual (think a traditional Methodist or Episcopalian service – it seemed to be along those lines). His friend said, “Well, that sounds nice but I don’t believe in all that ritual and, what’s the word, liturgical stuff. We don’t do that at my church.”

Oh, yes you do.

Every worship service has a liturgy. The word “liturgy” at its core derives from Greek which is translated “public work.” Another way to say it is, “the work of the people.” Further derivations of these words become “minister.” All of this to say, the work we do in the public setting of the worship service is a liturgy. So, it does not matter what the name on the sign of the church says, all churches have a liturgy.

It’s in keeping with this notion that all worship services have a liturgy and the origin of the word that I bring this next point: The word worship is a verb. The definition is, “to show reverence and adoration for (a deity); honor with religious rites; to take part in a religious ceremony.”

Worship is meant to be an active means of grace. It’s meant to be more than sitting idly in the pew or singing with very little effort. We are called to give our entire being to the worship of God, to engage all of our senses (yes, even taste, by means of Holy Communion) and our intellect into pouring our praise for and awe of God. We should engage our passion into worship and find joy in the worship of the risen Christ who died and rose again for us.

But I do want us to remember something: Worship, liturgy, is work. Work is not always fun and work is something we do in order to accomplish an important goal. Work also means that we often have to do things that are not our preferred way of doing them. But even more important than having our preferences met is knowing that we direct our worship to and only to God.

Worship is, indeed, work, but it’s holy work and work that we do for God. Do we take it seriously? Do we remember that worship is an active engagement of our entire being and not just a passive activity we do our of sheer obligation or tradition? We must be honest with ourselves and ponder these questions for ourselves and act accordingly.

Perhaps what needs to change is not the style of worship in our churches but our attitudes toward worship. Worship is work and the work is not done by us for us.

Worship is work done by us for God.

What Does Worship Really Mean?

Random Thoughts and Ramblings

worshiphim “Worship is when all God’s people get caught up in love and wonder and praise of God. It is not the performance of the few for the many.” – Dr. Ben Witherington III

Several times, I have mentioned here that I have had a sense that we, as the wider Christian church, need to get back to our roots. The decline of Christianity in the western world has led to an almost panic-like push to find the best ways for the church to do what it has been doing for about the last 2,000 years. Some say we should get back to using a traditional style of worship service while others say that we should put aside ancient rituals in favor of contemporary styles of worship. Some say that worship means having an organ and a preacher wearing a robe and stole while others say that there should be the feel of a rock concert and that the preacher should be wearing a flannel shirt and skinny jeans. The church is good at a lot of things and having debates such as these seems to be one of them.

Let me go ahead and state that this is not about advocating for traditional or contemporary worship. This is not about robes or skinny jeans or whether any of these things are right or wrong. Instead, this is about us remembering that worship is not about us. Worship is not for the people sitting in pews or chairs. Worship is not to please any person at all.

Worship is about God and is for God.

When we get bogged down in these debates, we lose sight of the real point of why we gather together and sing, pray, hear a message, and depart to serve. Regardless of what music or liturgy is present, the worship service can often take on the feel of a performance meant for the entertainment of the congregation. If this is what worship becomes, we’re doing it wrong.

The quote at the top of this post is from my New Testament Intro professor from a lecture he was giving on the theology of worship. Dr. Witherington was essentially telling us during this lecture that we worry so much about what we get from worship or what others get from worship. The thing we ought to be most worried about, however, is what God receives from our worship. Is God receiving our adoration and praise or is he receiving lip service in favor of self-serving, feel-good acts within the walls of the church?

Church, we have lost our way.

Scripture is filled with instruction on how we are to worship. One of my favorite passages on worship is Psalm 150. “Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heaven!” There and elsewhere is nothing about the style with which we worship or about worship being primarily for us. We need to remember this.

Another source of instruction on worship is courtesy of Methodism founder John Wesley.

“In divine worship, (as in all other actions,) the first thing to be considered is the end, and the next thing is the means conducing to that end. The end is the honour of God, and the edification of the Church; and then God is honoured, when the Church is edified. The means conducing to that end, are to have the service so administered as may inform the mind, engage the affections, and increase devotion.”

— John Wesley, from his commentary on the Roman Catholic catechism

Should the church and those who make it up be built up? Of course. One of the things that worship should do is to draw us closer to God and make us think. Worship should give us the spiritual food that we need to go out and serve God in the world. But first and foremost, worship should be about and for God, directed at him as the primary reason and audience of worship. It’s alright to prefer a certain type of music or a certain preaching style but the first consideration that should be made about worship is whether or not the worship is directed to and dedicated to the glorification of God.

In the end, the how does not really matter as much as the audience. The audience is not us! The audience of worship is God. We need to remember that worship simply is not for us and that our preferences on music, the color of the carpet, and whether or not there are hymnals or projected lyrics should not matter in the end. Unfortunately, we seem to have allowed “worship wars” to take over. We have lost our way.

We need to get back to our roots.

Cancel Christmas?

Random Thoughts and Ramblings

one-does-not-simply-cancel-christmas Perhaps I’m still somewhat naive and idealistic to this whole ministry thing. I say that because, to me, some things should just not be up for debate. One of those things is having worship on Sundays unless some sort of unusual situation – such as snow emergencies which close the roads, and the return of Christ – occurs which forces the worship service to have to be cancelled. Doing so is something I would never do flippantly and without a very good reason.

Perhaps out of this acknowledged idealism and naivety, I was reading a forum for clergy on Facebook and I was shocked to learn than many of my fellow clergy were planning to cancel worship on Christmas Sunday due to the holiday.

Say, what?

The excuses (note that I did not say “reasons”) given mainly centered around anticipated lack of attendance. And then someone said this:

Guess my priorities are wrong, then. We are not having a Sunday service on Christmas, at my request. If we had one I would be unable to be with my family for Christmas – some of whom I am only able to see every year or so. I’m single and my only family live a distance away.

Again, perhaps I am idealistic but in my opinion those of us who are called to pastoral ministry are also called to make sacrifices in order to answer that call. We are considered set apart for a reason. My parents and siblings and all of my wife’s family live a great distance away and we are sacrificing time with them so that we may worship Word made flesh. I’m sure there are at least a few people in each congregation who would love to cancel worship for any number of reasons but I could not in good conscience do such.

I make no apologies for thinking that canceling worship under the guise of “family time” communicates to the world that we are willing to give in to the whims of the world and celebrate not by worshiping but by celebrating as the world does. In short, many clergy and congregations have forgotten who we are and whose we are.

And yet, these people have the audacity to question why the church in America is dying.

When we cite “family time” as the reason to cancel worship on a holiday, we neglect our calling to gather as the family of Christ to worship and celebrate. Christmas is one of the highest and holiest days in the Christian church. If worship is scheduled on this day, there is absolutely no reason to cancel it so that families can spend an extra few minutes with their trinkets.

A clergy colleague relayed this story:

A couple women chewed out the cashier for saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”…I was sitting next to them as they had many conversations including one about Christmas morning…

“I can’t believe our church is having services on Christmas morning…My husband has to hand out bulletins…Why don’t they just cancel it? I mean really…”

Me (inserting myself into their conversation): “Yeah, I just hate it when Jesus gets in the way of Christmas….Merry Christmas, right?” (they took their things & left, calling me a Christian name on their way out.)

Fellow pastors, such is our fault when we willingly cancel worship so that secular Christmas celebrations can take priority over worship as the body of Christ. The same people in the story above are the ones who scream the loudest about “keeping Christ in Christmas.” If we really mean that, we must put our money where our mouths are, unless we, like the two above, are simply giving lip service to Jesus.

Not to mention that not everyone has family to be with during the holidays and will find comfort with their church family. How dare we cite “family time” as a reason to cancel worship when we have such people in our midst.

Fred Day, the General Secretary of the General Board of Archives and History for the United Methodist Church (who I had the pleasure of meeting and getting to know on the Wesley Pilgrimage in England this past summer), said this about Christmas worship:

Early Methodists in England and America saw [Christmas] as less illicit and more a golden opportunity to save souls. They viewed the increasingly popular, sometimes rowdy feast day as a prime-time for the pulpit: “Always avail yourselves of the great festivals (of the Church of England) by preaching,” says John Wesley in the Large Minutes. The unique opportunity Methodist preachers were to seize, like Christmas, is evident in a 1798 commentary on Wesley’s words: “Shall the men [ sic] of the world have carnal festivals on their birthdays and we not communicate the birth of the Lord.”

Let’s heed the words of Wesley and get back to our roots!

Yes, I’ve been on my soap box about this and very outspoken. Having worship on Christmas Sunday is something that I feel should not even be up for debate – simply, we should have worship even if it’s just the pastor and the pianist. If the church wants the world to remember why we celebrate Christmas, we must practice what we preach. It’s time for us to remember who we are and whose we are. Anything less just means that the culture of the world really is influencing the church rather than the other way around. Let’s not be party to such. We’re called to be better than that.