How do we worship?

 

During our Ministerial Lectionary Study, I reflected that the ‘church’ has jumped about 20 years into the future because of the pandemic. Many churches, especially smaller and rural, would have taken our time to do recorded, live, and Zoom services, and almost all are working on both in-person and online, “hybrid” they call it, as a regular thing. OMG, the learning curve and equipment investment is really high, but I think it is worth it.

We can go back to the early Christians starting with the churches the Apostle Paul started, realizing they had no church buildings or sanctuaries. They worshipped in people’s homes, out in the wilderness away from spying eyes, and even in the catacombs (graveyards) because their beliefs were persecuted by the Roman Empire and many of the ‘religions’ of that time. It wasn’t until Caesar Constantine in the 4th century made Christianity it’s official religion that it became safe to openly and publicly worship. They then turned all the temples of the Greek/Roman gods into Roman Catholic churches for anyone to come. Though much of the art and style was not churchy because they couldn’t renovate every church building. As time went on, new churches and cathedrals were built that were based upon Christian and the Hebrew Bible myths, there was also some local culture that was intertwined. Lots of icons, statues, stained glass, and tapestries were used to tell the story because most people couldn’t read and books, even Bibles, were fairly rare.

During the reformation, many of those things were stripped away. John Calvin, the reformed in Geneva, thought that even the organ was too worldly (called it the ‘devil’s instrument’). Now that technology was able to mass print the Bibles in common language and more and more people learned to read, that became the center for most Protestant churches. The Pilgrims (Congregationalists), when they come to America, called their place to worship “Meeting Houses” and there was rarely even a cross on the wall.

The reason why most churches have services in one hour is because the invention of the radio in the early 20th century and many mainline churches would broadcast their service and would have to be done before the next radio program. Most churches have a hymn board up front because there was no easy or cheap way to print bulletins, so the liturgy was in the hymnals or worship books in the early 20th century and before. Now we are in the digital age where most churches have some kind of projection screen and many modern evangelical churches are set up like a theater with stage with modern music and light show, the organ is quickly becoming a relic of the past (though I personally hope it doesn’t).

Jesus was pretty simple, “Where two or more are gathered in my name, I am also there.” I believe that includes worshipping in a sanctuary, out under the trees, or now over a Zoom call or livestreaming. Our diversity of worship is a blessing and reflects the diversity of our world and the church. What is at the heart of worship is that we are loving God, bringing our whole selves, and preparing to let our light shine in the world. My maternal grandmother was an organist in her rural church in North Dakota for 50 years, the last line of their bulletin was, “And now the service begins.” May it be so.

Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month’s contributor is Pastor Enno K. Limvere, Designated Pastor of First Congregational Church of Grand Marais, United Church of Christ.