Worship

I’m currently taking a Presbyterian Worship course taught by Dave Davis, the pastor of Nassau Presbyterian Church. In the first class, he brought up the question (as all good intro courses will) of the subject itself. What is worship?

To help answer this question, he showed this video: Click here.

Watch the whole thing, if you can. It’s just five minutes long. It actually gave me chills by the end. Apparently it’s from a documentary project about music, community, and peace.

Its connections to worship are many. The one I love the best (that actually wasn’t even mentioned in class) is the idea of our worship as joining a song that is already going on. When the first man begins playing and singing, he is alone. But slowly more and more people join the song that he started. In our worship, whether it is private or corporate, we do not begin the song. It is already playing all over the world. Men, women, and children, the whole earth, the angels of heaven, are already singing, and we simply add our voice of praise to theirs. We are not alone in our worship not only because God hears and responds, but because the universe is dedicated to the worship of God.

Dr. Davis made the point that this video helps illustrate worship because we all need one another for worship. We need others to “stand by us” and bolster us in our worship of God, for we are weak and changeable people. “There are some weeks you’ll drag yourself to worship and not even be able to sing,” he said, “but the person next to you will sing for you.”

This reminds me of some wisdom my college roommate Kelsey offered to me back when I was in undergrad. I was only twenty, and I was sitting in our room crying about some boy or other. She found me there, on my bed, and came to sit down next to me.

“What’s going on?” she asked. 

“Oh, nothing,” I said. “God and I have some things to work out.”

“Would you tell me about it?” she asked, kindly. “You don’t have to handle it all by yourself. Sometimes we all need a prayer that is stronger than our own.”

This is one of the great beauties of the Christian life. Yes, we are each individually called to follow the Lord. Yes, our obedience and response to Christ’s call is a personal decision and responsibility. Yet, we simply cannot go it alone. We aren’t designed to. We aren’t built to. And, mercifully, we aren’t required to. The Christian life is by nature a life lived in community. We serve a communal God—three persons within Godself. We serve a God who reaches out to us to be in relationship with us even as we are in relationship with one another. And often, each of us needs a prayer that is stronger or different than our own.

I’m excited about this course on worship, despite being a touch cranky that I am required to take it (I’ve already passed my Worship Ordination Exam, making this course a tad bit redundant). Still, I’m learning that my Presbytery does indeed have my good and the good of the church in mind, and I’m trying to have an open mind and heart during this short course. And, really, if I am going into the pastorate, reinforcing the theology of Presbyterian Worship one more time before I head in for my final review is quite a good idea indeed.

Dr. Davis also said something that made me think twice about those Sundays where I sleep in. I go to a church 45 minutes away, which is quite a drive on a wintry Sunday morning when Daryl is far away in Nashville. Listening to a sermon on the radio is tempting. Sleeping in until 2pm is very tempting. But, as Dr. Davis rightly noted (this is my paraphrase): True worship requires the understanding that worship is not about us. It’s about God and God’s people. Some weeks, the person next to you will not have the strength to pray. If you’re not there, you’re missed not necessarily because your presence was missed, but because you were needed that day. Worship is the work of the people of God.