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Is there such a thing as communal worship?
When your church comes together to worship God, do they do so as a community or as a larger group of individuals?
I came across a situation I found slightly disturbing recently. In order to try to facilitate worship in a smaller group of people (about 20ish) I arranged the seats in a crescent with myself on acoustic guitar at the end of one arm (not in the middle) so that we were all closer together. Negative feedback ensued, with one person particularly declaring how, when they worshiped they didn't want to have to see other people and another how they preferred CDs to a live musician where they needed to sing out (this church has a long history of using CDs in place of a worship team).
Now *to me* communal worship is what we do together as a body, rather than simply as a group of individuals. I know that I have argued the opposite to this in the distant past, but that was before I discovered what it meant to actually be part of a worshipping body. So my questions are really:
1) Do you see communal worship as everyone together, almost linking arms, to worship God, or simply as a larger gathering of individuals who worship alone en masse?
2) Is the way we arrange worship (band, gig atmosphere, 'clever' songs, words on screen etc) producing more performance oriented worship for individuals and less worship as a community functioning together?
Replies are closed for this discussion.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Cory Zipperle on -
There is something to this.
Economic systems that rely heavily on subsistence living models tend to force people into the same molds, or they die. You dedicate huge swaths of your life just to preserving your life.
Certainly, as subsistence living models ease up, then people become able to pursue other and differing activities because somebody else is able to support them. Instead of 16 hours tending the fields, now you can pursue mathematics, science, philosophy, art, or any number of a variety of vocations.
Still, I think mankind has always had a way to figure out how to individualize itself. We were, after all, created as individuals.
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Permalink Reply by Stevo on -
Yea - a good example of the individualism club is our US Army commercials - "Army of One". Really? That's messed up.
And a good example of the group thing taken too far is...can't think of one now.
I think your last sentence is very true - even if the only place to express individual-ness was in the family or the village, it was always there to some degree. However, I think American society has actually developed a loathing for group-ness and communal-ness, as if it's somehow wrong.
The New Testament treats it perfectly - all part of one body, working for the common goals, each with his/her own unique set of gifts from the Holy Spirit.
So applied to group worship - we could see it as analogous to marching/drills in the Marines. It's a time to be and do together, a time to model what we should be doing when the bananas hit the fan.
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Permalink Reply by Cory Zipperle on
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So applied to group worship - we could see it as analogous to marching/drills in the Marines. It's a time to be and do together, a time to model what we should be doing when the bananas hit the fan.
Or people worshiping together, singing the songs together, while injecting their own worship personalities into the mix. Lock step has a place, but I don't think that place is in the church. There it's... destructive.
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Permalink Reply by Stevo on
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Lock step wasn't the point, every analogy or figure has it's limits. The point of comparison was in the modeling and patterning aspect of it.
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Permalink Reply by Cory Zipperle on
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Lock step wasn't the point, every analogy or figure has it's limits. The point of comparison was in the modeling and patterning aspect of it.
Gotcha. Drills / Marines sounds quite locky/stepy. I stand corrected.
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Permalink Reply by Greg Moore on -
Really? I'm half my mama and half my papa // and just a little ..... bit o'.....me!
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Permalink Reply by Lorraine Doswell on -
Nah, you are unique and completely you, no one else in the whole wide world like you. Wow, what a thought : )
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Permalink Reply by Greg Moore on
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God gave us varying gifts, varying personalities and varying desires, and people are often fond of turning these into types ("use the people of the church according to their giftings" and other such slogans); but I hope you never find a box you fit into.
God also made us to be mobile and inventive and curious. The only box I will truly fit into is a little longer than myself, and to be mobile requires six persons to carry it.
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Permalink Reply by Cory Zipperle on
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You don't fit in elevators?
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Permalink Reply by Greg Moore on
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Wellll, I do, but when I get in them I don't intend to stay very long.
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Permalink Reply by Stevo on
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Yes, but I'm very surprised to hear it from Corey. He usually calls such preferences "idolatry"...
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Permalink Reply by Cory Zipperle on
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I'm sure I've corrected you here before, but that was a long time ago. Perhaps you've forgotten, or maybe I never did provide correction.
Idolatry is when you MUST have something for your worship to happen. If you can't worship without choruses then you have an idolatry problem. If you can't worship without hymns, then you have an idolatry problem.
Mock this all you you want, the Lord disposes of people and churches who promote idolatry, even passively. I've seen it happen many times. I'm sure you also have.
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