Worship: Keeping a Strong Center & an Open Door
by Daniel T. Benedict
United Methodist worship is best when it is strongly centered on God while remaining open at the threshold. This is critical in the face of so much experimentation and fascination with alternative worship. Change in worship needs to be God-driven, not customer-driven. One lay leader put it this way, "I think we went wrong when we offered a sack lunch instead of having a community picnic. We gave people what we thought they wanted and failed to give them ourselves." If we focus on "customers" by giving them what we think they want or need, we may be denying them the authentic body of Christ that comes together to focus on God in prayer and praise. We end up offering a product rather than a community of faith. Many churches confuse evangelistic outreach (fast food) for the community experience of worship (a home-cooked meal).
What is the center for your congregation? When is your congregation most authentically itself before God? The challenge for your congregation as you reach out may be to recapture the genuine hunger for God by reaching in. Fast food is easy and tastes good, but a home-cooked meal has family-treasured stories, grandma's recipes, sharing the day's experiences and the concerns for the wider world in a community of care.
Worship centers on Word and Table. The historic ritual of the church is embodied and embraced by people who are famished for permanence not found in today's society. It is essential that we create a space for deep, meaningful worship to happen. Celebrate the liturgy repeatedly, yet vitally. By staying open to our own questions, our longings and struggles, while listening for the Spirit, worship gets in our bones as the Word of God is proclaimed in word and sacrament. Genuine worship is not talking to ourselves. It is listening to God using the basics that Christians have always used — gathering, reading and listening, preaching and responding, thanking and sharing food, and scattering to serve. These are first priority. These are our moorings. Worship is the center of our Christian lives.
Where can we find this core of our Christian lives? Try again — as for the first time — the worship resources in The United Methodist Hymnal and Book of Worship. Use them until they are your church's soul song. Use grandma's recipes, but have your people do the cooking. And it smells so good that the aromas get out beyond the door, and people find their way to where your congregation is "lost in wonder, love, and praise."
If your church is exhausting itself with handing out sack lunches to visitors on Sunday in "worship," maybe it is time to recover the "living Bread come down from heaven" (John 6:51). Return to the basics of worship, centering on communication with God, and all else will fall into line.
If we were to "turn our eyes upon Jesus," who else might turn to where we gaze? Find a strong center; leave the doors open!
Daniel T. Benedict (dbenedict@gbod.org) is Director of Worship Resources at The United Methodist General Board of Discipleship, Nashville, Tennessee. Visit the General Board of Discipleship's Worship Web Site at www.umcworship.org.
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