So what makes the church different from any other organization that does good things and trains children to be helpful, caring individuals? I ask this question because much of what the church does is also done by other organizations. We focus on caring for the environment. Greenpeace, The Nature Conservancy, Earth First and hundreds of other organizations do the same. We focus on making our children better, more caring people. Boy Scouts, Girls Scouts, and most of our schools do the same. We focus on helping those in need. Lighthouse, the Red Cross, Orchards Children and Family services along with thousands of other organizations do the same. So what makes us different?
The answer can be found in two words, worship and witness. This week we will look at worship and next week at witness. (Actually we will spend several weeks looking at what it means to be church…but these two factors, worship and witness, define us in our most essential essence).
Wikipedia defines Christian worship as, "the central act of Christian identity, the purpose of which is to ascribe honor or worth to God." While this definition is helpful it does not quite get at the fullness of what Christian worship is about. Warren Wiersbe (with some personal additions from me in italics)
offers a better definition. He writes, "Worship is the believer's response of all that he/she is--mind, emotions, will, possessions and body--to all that God is and says and does (in Jesus Christ)." In other words worship is a life orientation as much as it is something we do for an hour on Sunday mornings.
The people of God have always struggled with this definition of worship (though it is at the heart of the entire Biblical story) because it demands so much. It has always been easier to choose one of two alternatives.
The first alternative is to see worship as a particular set of practices (singing hymns, saying prayers, offering gifts, listening to sermons, etc.) rather than a way of life. In other words as long as we go through the religious motions we have met all of God's requirements. We have liked seeing worship in this way because it allows us to be in charge of our lives rather than turning control of our lives over to God. The outcome of this choice however is that we often fail to love others as God in Christ has called upon us to do, thus the Promise of a transformed world is lost.
The second alternative has been to assume that if we live good lives then our worship is complete. In other words as long as we are nice and polite to people around us then we have fulfilled everything that God desires and we don't actually need to be "in church" and engage in a particular set of liturgical practices. We have liked this choice because we don't actually have to take the time to give praise and glory to God…we don't have to give God any of our time and attention. The outcome of this choice however is that we lose our connection with the living God and thus the Promise of transformed lives is lost.
We are different from other organizations because in worship we offer our minds, emotions, wills, possessions and bodies to the living God through a particular set of practices and then go forth showing the sacrificial love of God in Christ to the world in all that we say and do. Worship sets us apart in both action and orientation. So as we seek our vision for our life together we need to hold worship as central to our life and to our identity as the people of the Promise.
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