Sunday, February 16, 2014

Rethinking Modern Church Practice, Part 1 (of ??)

One of the ideas I've long nursed came up recently in the discussions I was having regarding speaking in tongues and other spiritual gifts. While there is no detailed instruction or description in the New Testament of the early church's "worship services" Paul does give some very interesting information about what was "normal" at the very beginning of the church:

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 Corinthians 14:26

That certainly sounds like pretty much no "worship service" I've ever seen! Paul's picture is of a meeting where - potentially and sometimes literally - contributed something to the overall worship and  building up of the assembled Body. Modern "worship services" are like a hybrid concert, stage production, and lecture. While this modern (and it is centuries old) performer--participative-audience model is a more organized and efficient for preplanned worship and teaching in a large group, it channels limits the work of the Holy Spirit. In fully scripted (= liturgical) churches, the Holy Spirit could almost go on a years long sabbatical, unnoticed.

It also severely limits the expression and variety of gifts that can be used in a gathering. Looking over the lists of spiritual gifts listed in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4,  some would be impractical or extremely difficult to express and oversee in the performer-audience worship service model. And those that do fit are limited to particular circumstances (e.g. "worship time", "offering time", "sermon time") and particular people (e.g. the worship leaders, the pastor or guest speaker).

All in all, the modern performer-audience worship service model does not fit Paul's "each one has a" and "(l)et all things be done". Does anyone sincerely believe we modern Christians are smarter than what Paul described and the Holy Spirit developed? Have we modern Christians improved on the early church? Or lost/discarded something extremely valuable? And have we done so for so long that we wouldn't recognize our loss or what Paul wrote of as normal?

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