On Sunday I wrote about the purpose of church and how we should be not merely attending, but involved. Church is not for attendance; it is for participation, exercising gifts, ministering, loving our fellow believers. Commenter David said, "I don't think it helps that services are set up to encourage attendance and not participation." Good point.
Our modern church services are not built for participation. Not really. Oh, sure, we are asked to stand and sit, to sing or to sometimes even participate in the reading of Scripture, but we are not called on to fellowship. We are not asked to actually minister. Not during the service. Sometimes they tell us to "greet one another" which is a cursory, mass "hello" that ends quickly and without any real ministering going on. At best, an acknowledgment of your existence. No, in order to minister as Scripture says we should minister, it requires involvement. It requires involvement way beyond Sunday morning (or Saturday evening if you're so inclined). Most churches have dropped the Sunday evening services and the Wednesday night prayer meetings because of poor attendance. And, as I'm pointing out, services like this can only go so far in involving individuals in service to one another.
I know a new pastor whose laudable goal was to connect the older generation with the younger generation to allow the sharing of experience and wisdom. So he cut out the "traditional" service to put them all in one service. As you can imagine, the majority of older generation went elsewhere to find ministry to them. The new pastor inadvertently set up an atmosphere of "younger" as preferred. In the same way, most of us only have the option of a Sunday service (or so) without any real stimulation to participate or opportunity to involve ourselves with others. All we see is an atmosphere of "attend" and little push to participate. That requires additional effort. that requires work. It seems to me that services could be structured to at least point to ministry and involvement. And certainly personal involvement beyond a Sunday meeting should be encouraged at all times. But I still think that it is a biblical mandate, so perhaps "encouraged" is an incomplete concept, because if we are commanded to love one another and all we get is, "Well, maybe you should consider it," it seems as if we're doing our fellow believers at church a disservice.
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Postscript: Please note that this is a generalization. I know there are exceptions out there. I don't mean to suggest that there are not. Don't take this as an attack on your church, but an opportunity to think through how we might be doing this better.
6 comments:
"11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ."
Without necessarily disagreeing with your post, it seems like the above indicates that those in pastoral roles should be doing some degree of teaching, and it seems like the Apostles used public worship as one place to do so. It further seems like both Hebrew tradition and the actions of the Early Church indicate that public/communal worship including singing and prayer are appropriate.
My question is more about how you would see this playing out at a local church. Any thoughts?
Very rarely do I hear preaching about the command to fellowship. As you noted, it is more often simply an invitation. For the longest time, I was okay with my lack of attendance because I didn't feel the gravity of my sin because I wasn't told it was a sin, just that it is better to go than to not. Telling people they are sinning may alienate some church goers, but which is better, a church less full of people acknowledging and repenting their sins, or a church more full of people ignorant of their sin and thus unrepentant? And then we wonder why attendance is dwindling. If we look at the two great American revivals, were the pastors going easy on sin or going hard on sin? Repentant people will want to spend time and fellowship with other repentant people.
Craig, I think the point still stands. The purpose of the church is to equip His people. Ephesians 4:11 is clear that God supplies certain gifts to do that, but Romans 12 is equally clear that all believers are gifted and "for the common good." Now, communal worship (with singing and prayer) is absolutely appropriate and biblical. Our problem isn't that we have them in our churches. Our problem is that we think that's it. We sang our songs, we heard our sermon (preferably a homily ... you know, short and sweet), and we've completed our obligation. As David mentions, why is it that the local churches are not presenting the commands to serve one another, to minister to one another, to bear one another's burdens? I'm a product of our modern churches, so I'm not fully clear, but it looks like the original plan was "When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification." (1 Cor 14:26). I've never attended that church.
Also, in the early church, their communion doesn't seem to have been a wafer and juice (or wine if your church is even more traditional), but a full meal. Preparing and sharing a meal can be a ministry all to itself, with the prepping, cooking, setting, serving, etc. Today, we aren't typically encouraged (or better yet commanded) to serve one another. We have open invitations to welcome people to help, or join a small group, with no indication as to the importance of such things. Probably more than 80% of church goers come in, greet their friends, sit down, sing the songs, pray, greet their neighbors (I find this step so pointless and meaningless), sing some more, listen to announcements, listen to a sermon, sing a song, maybe one a month have communion, then visit some friends some more, drive home, and think nothing more of what they did that morning.
Stan,
I appreciate your answer, I thought that you'd respond that way. I will say that I've been seeing churches that are intentionally allowing more time for the sermon either by eliminating other elements, or by extending the time of the service. I'd suggest that doing so is a piece of evidence that the church is on the Biblical/healthy side of the divide. Although, obviously the content of the service as primary.
I do agree that many churches don't spend enough time of the "one another" commands. Am I wrong to think that the specificity of those commands to serve "one another" would build on what we see in Acts that the first responsibility for the church in a charitable sense is to fellow believers?
I've never attended that church either.
David,
I absolutely agree that the Early Church had much more of a focus on the sharing of meals as a part of their community/worship. I'm not sure I'd agree that those meals were the same thing as the sacrament of Communion. I agree that they are related, but I'm not sure they are interchangeable.
But I agree that we should do more of the sharing of meals together.
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