Rhythms of Worship (Pt. 1)

RHYTHMS OF WORSHIP (PART 1)

BREAKFAST AND SLEEPY BEARS
How did you start your day today? I don’t know about you, but my morning began with my kids running into my room after their wake up light turned green and jumping in our bed. After we all finished our morning snuggles (or wrestling match), I made a cup of coffee and prepared our breakfast. The clinking of silverware, the click-click of turning the gas stove top on, the kids setting the table, the singing of the doxology before our meal - it’s all a part of our family’s morning rhythm. We do this nearly every day.

We are creatures of habit. Rhythms and repetitive rituals are an integral part of our lives as human beings. Even the created order has a God-given rhythm. God separates the day and the night (Genesis 1:5), the sun rises and sets each day, tree leaves change colors, bears hibernate, and bees buzz. Spring turns into summer, into fall, into winter and back into spring every year. God has a good sense of rhythm.

The church needs good rhythms, too - healthy, weekly and repetitive corporate actions that invite us into worship and form us into a redeemed community over time. When we turn to Scripture, we can see how God institutes good rhythms for his people.

FEAST - OLD COVENANT
After God saves the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt, he brings them into the Promised Land and commands them to keep a number of feasts and assemblies. He does this so that they will regularly remember the Exodus event by celebrating God’s saving actions, particularly in the Passover Feast. These worshipful events will shape them into a restored nation. God instructs them, “Then you shall keep the feast...and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God…you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt; and you shall be careful to observe these statutes” (Deut. 16:10-12). God’s not enforcing dead ritualism; rather, because he’s created them as creatures of habit, he is telling and retelling the great story of his faithfulness through frequent feasting and celebration. God has a good sense of rhythm.

FEAST - NEW COVENANT
Just as the Old Testament feasts reoriented the Hebrews around the Exodus event, so the Lord’s Supper reorients Christians around the Christ event: his death and resurrection. Jesus himself institutes this new feast by offering his own body and blood, commanding us to “do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). The word “remembrance” comes from the greek word “anamnesis”, which is not best understood as cognitive remembrance (like when I remember my grandpa’s funeral from years ago), but is more like a forceful reenactment, drama, or a re-membering of the past event. We recall the Lord’s Supper into the present by acting it out in worshipful community. Jesus’ disciples understood this already since, as Jews, they engaged in the Passover Feast the same way. Jesus, during Passover, institutes a new feast for the early church to embrace. It’s not long before we see the disciples practicing it as a weekly corporate habit, if not more often (Acts 2:42, 20:7). God has a good sense of rhythm.

WHAT ABOUT TODAY?
The rhythms in a church’s worship collectively make up its liturgy. The word “liturgy” (based on the Greek word “leitourgia”) simply means “work of the people.” Liturgical worship, then, invites you and I - creatures of habit - to “work out” or “publicly act out” the gospel story in repetitive rhythms that reorient us to God and his kingdom.

I currently serve at a church that has a four part liturgy each and every Sunday: Gathering, Word, Table and Sending. It’s similar to hosting friends for dinner: Gathering, Talking, Eating and Saying goodbye. God first Gathers us into his presence (we greet him in adoration), he speaks to us by his Word (we listen and apply), he feeds us at his Table (we give thanks), and he Sends us out into the world to be his witnesses (we obey). The repetitive nature of this gospel order embeds God’s story of redemption in us week after week, year after year.

Every church has a liturgy, even ones that wouldn’t self-identify as liturgical. Think about it. What rhythms make up your church service? How do your people “work out” their worship together? Does your church service usually begin with a song, a call to worship, a video or a casual greeting? What happens before the sermon? A scripture reading? Spontaneous prayer or singing? Is there space for lament? Or is there a constant state of celebration? What part of your service is emphasized the most? These ways of worshipping together (even the informal ways) make up your church’s liturgy. They’re not unlike our morning routines, intentional or unintentional, that form us into certain kinds of people.

In Rhythms of Worship (Part 2) we’ll explore why good liturgy matters and why, as worship leaders, we have the joyful responsibility of helping build these rhythms for our churches.