When I was a kid, I KNEW how to worship God. I went to church with my family, sat in the second row, remained as quiet as humanly possible, resisted the urge to crawl under the pews, and was serenaded with sounds of the organ, piano, hymns, and choral music. I stayed awake during the sermon (miracle of miracles), put the quarter my parents gave me in the offering plate and counted down the seconds until it was over.
When I was a teen, I KNEW how to worship God. At the youth conferences and camps, I attended, we did these silly dance moves to songs called Energizers. For some, it was fun. For me, the quiet, introverted, tubby kid, it was the most embarrassing thing humanly possible...but, it was full of energy and movement. Now there were guitars accompanying simplistic, repetitive songs. The preacher preached down to my level and held my attention – apparently, sermons could teach me about everyday life. Who knew?!
Prior to seminary, I KNEW how to worship God. I was, after all, the future church professional. I had THE knowledge. I had THE right perspective. Worship needed to be more contemplative. It needed detailed, liturgical movement, well-thought-out silence, and contemplation, more traditional rituals, an abundance of theological jargon, historical church prayers, simple banners, and paraments. Worship was highly intellectual, renewing the mind through careful, thought-out, meticulously crafted, three-point sermons.
Since seminary, I have KNOWN how to worship God. The only trouble is I discovered there are many more ways to worship than I can count. I’ve worshiped in Catholic churches and Episcopalian churches. I’ve worshiped in Methodist, Baptist, non-denominational, and Pentecostal churches. I’ve had the opportunity to worship in a small subsistence community near Berlin, El Salvador, in 4th Presbyterian Church in Chicago, at Lutheran Church of Hope in West Des Moines, at St. Teresa’s in Austin. I’ve participated in worship services with no music at all, in others with only choral music, and yet also in churches with only highly produced praise and worship teams. I’ve worshiped in loud, joyful, hope-filled services, but also quiet, contemplative, reverent services.
I realized the God we worship and serve is so much more than we make God out to be and that’s why worship is so diverse. There is no right or wrong way to worship...there is a gathering in the name of Jesus Christ to be with God and each other in a time of worship. In it, there is prayer, there is scripture, there is a proclamation of the Word, a chance to give of ourselves, time and offerings, sacraments, and a time to be sent out again into the world to be God’s disciples.
I’ve been thinking and praying a lot about this lately. Worship is a central part of who we are and what we do as a congregation. Even today, our corporate worship is still the singular event that brings us together each week as a church. It is the event that shapes everything else that we do. It molds how we do mission, how we do programming, and how we engage the community and the world around us.
And we have come to a time to reflect on and pray about how we continue to worship as PCN. As many of you know, we have been worshiping in different formats since coming back from the pandemic. Due to our low in-person participant numbers, we began with a blended service where we took the best of our contemporary and traditional services and put them together into one service. We then shifted a few months ago to an alternating worship format. Every other Sunday we would alternate between a traditional and contemporary form of worship. We have planned to do this throughout the summer of 2022.
Now our plan is to move to a more permanent form and pattern of worship in the fall. Our intention, since the pandemic started, has always been to go back to our pattern of two worship services on Sunday so that we can offer both contemporary and traditional worship each week.
Yet, many things have changed over the course of the last few years. The pandemic forced us to move online. It pushed us to experiment and try new things. It moved our two separate worship service crowds together. And many people have discovered: that they like to worship together and be together. In fact, our mission as a church reflects this. It states our call from God to be ‘together in worship, faith, and service.’ One of our core values is ‘authentic community.’ We are working on initiatives even now to bring us closer together with each other and with the community. Togetherness is a part of our identity.
So the question that we, as a congregation, and that your worship committee is praying about right now, is, “How do we worship come fall of 2022?”
Let me start by saying: Each of you will have a say in how we move forward. The Worship Committee will be doing a survey asking for your worship format preference. We want to know what you think and feel. There will also be opportunities for conversations about our future worship pattern as well (organized by the committee).
But this conversation will go deeper than simply preference. We also want to look at how our future worship pattern reflects our call from God (our mission and vision as a church), and how it connects us with God, each other, and the community around us. We want to carefully think about the number of worship participants we have and if that makes any difference to how we move forward. We want to receive input from our new members and regular participants (of which we have many) who have never known our two-service format.
I know some of you may be reading this and worrying about the future of our worship. But my hope is that we can see this time not as a harrowing challenge or a roadblock, but as an opportunity for meaningful, faithful reflection and a time to listen to where the Holy Spirit is guiding us.
So, my friends, when the time comes, fill out those surveys, engage in those conversations, think and pray about it. Your worship committee needs your help.
With humility and care, Adam