Often when I am on vacation, I find that I have enough time and distance to mull over how things are going in my home congregation. Without the day to day pastoral demands or weekly worship preparation, it is easier to have a big-picture view. It is a great time to do a bit of leisurely thinking, dreaming, imagining. This summer, I have been mulling over some of my Emmaus experiences.
One of the clearest messages from the Emmaus Project gathering in April was that many of us long for fresh and engaging experiences of Christ. A recent article on worship from the Alban Institute picks up on this very same hunger, and the church’s struggle to address it. Here is an excerpt:
Many mainline churches quit asking long ago whether our worship leads people to an encounter with Christ and the Holy Spirit. Think about why we do what we do in worship. Do we worship the way we do because it is how we have always done it? Do we worship the way we do because it is what we are best at? Do we worship the way we do because it makes certain members of the church happy? These reasons reside at the center of what has caused so many people to walk away from the church. Many people have wanted a tangible, transforming encounter with God but have never found it in worship, because worship has been focused on everything but that transforming encounter. To foster an encounter with God means designing worship that is deliberately focused on making a spiritual and psychological impact on people. If people are to experience God in worship, it needs to resonate with where they are psychologically and spiritually. If we don’t offer people a venue through which they can access the spiritual, they will gladly find some other venue or ignore their spiritual yearnings and substitute the pursuits and pleasures of the world…
I hope you will read the whole article here:
Does your presbytery worship together in ways that connect you with the gospel in deep and meaningful ways? Has your congregation sought to make changes that encourage the transformation this article hopes for? What do you long for in worship and where do you find it?
Perhaps this summer while you’re out in a canoe or sipping a glass of wine on the back deck you’ll find a few unhurried moments to consider it. Enjoy your vacation!
#1 by Patricia White at July 14th, 2010
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I hope this e-mail is of some importance to the rest of the church who did not have that mountain top experience of the Emmaus project. As an elder in a presbytery that was not invited to participate in that experience and who has read each of the e-mails that has come from it, I wonder. How can I help my presbytery and my congregation for that mater to benefit from this experience.? Everyone involved seems to have had a wonderful time, but I haven’t heard of any practical suggestions on how we can see each other better. How do we help our people experience God in worship and their everyday life. Ministers have the right and responsibility to decide the content of worship. Elders on Session decide time and place..
It is my experience that Presbytery have as many elders as ministers and often more elders in attendance at meetings. How do we help with this concept.of seeing each other and seeing God. The fellowship time is limited to the supper hour, and we do interact with one another, get to know each other , our situations and families. Prayer time between meetings occur with a presbytery wide prayer e-mail..We have a clergy care committee where our Ministers have access to private one on one council if they want it with older experienced colleagues What other ideas came from the elders at the project?
#2 by Gordon McCrostie at July 24th, 2010
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This is a very good Alban article. Further to this is a quote from Bob Rognlien in his book Experiential Worship: “The purpose of [worship] forms is to convey the content of worship: an authentic encounter with God. The content is the experience of conviction, grace, forgiveness, love, commitment, and joy that comes to us through the forms we employ. Ultimately, the content of worship is God himself. If our forms of worship are not leading believers and unbelievers more fully into an awareness of God’s presence, they are no longer fulfilling their purpose and must be changed.”
#3 by Armen Svadjian at July 29th, 2010
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I wonder if focusing on ourselves and our worship experience is really the best way to “transform, recharge and refresh churches in the PCC”. Seems the churches who ignore or outright deny things like the atonement and innerancy of Scripture have no choice but to turn inward for inspiration. Meanwhile congregations preaching Christ from the whole Bible thrive and overflow with genuine gospel love.
#4 by Joel Cross at August 21st, 2010
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I’m a worship pastor @ a church who’s had great leadership over the years and today we are the beneficiaries. We work hard with the leading of the Spirit to make Sundays an experience were for the most part, people will hopefully encounter the Creator of the universe. In doing this our learnings have been that creating a Sunday service format, is a moving target when it comes to environments that encourages people to engage in worshiping God.
The Holy Spirit moves in mysteries ways and we can plan a great service on paper, but sometimes we need to make space for things to happen without planned elements. God is the same yesterday, today and forever but His Spirit is always moving. Therefore challenge yourself not to lean on traditional forms of worship, but instead seeking to find God inspired environments that will engage the congregation in worship and allow newcomers to sense the Holy Spirits tug on their hearts.
I hope more churches can learn from this article that traditions have their place and allow the up and coming generations the opportunity to express themselves in ways of worship that are different from the past.
Thank you for sharing this article
#5 by Gordon McCrostie at August 28th, 2010
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I think that the question of renewal in worship is not about refuting Scripture, rather it is about the failure, particularly of mainline churches, to communicate Scripture in ways that allow more people in our current culture to experience God.
I personally believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, but I also believe that Christians in every generation have a blemished record in how they have interpreted Scripture.