BLOG 8/10/15. WORSHIP SERVICES … NEED TO GO SOMEWHERE

Our calling in Christ is not to “go to church” or to “attend weekly worship services.” Yes, we are encouraged to make our assembling together with other believers a part of our necessary disciplines, but that is because we actually need the mutual encouragement that should come from such gatherings (Hebrew 10:25). And, yes, there is the sabbath principle that is there from the beginning, and which comes from the very model of God, who worked in the six days of creation and then rested. We, likewise, need to recognize the necessity of both daily responsibilities and work, and then a time to rest and reflect.

But then we also need to stop and reflect on exactly what it is that we are called to be and to do as the followers of Jesus Christ, … and this is may not be as simple as it sounds. Paul taught that all things work together for good to those whom God calls. He goes on, then, to say that God has a purpose in knowing and calling us, and that is that we should be conformed to the image of his Son (Romans 8:29). If that is not sufficient to get our attention, then note that Peter taught us that God has called us to his own glory and excellence … and to make us partakers of his divine nature (II Peter 1:2-4). I love Gregory Boyd’s explanation that to glorify God is to be the radiant display of his divine nature, … and that takes place in a very real, often hostile, context.

So God calls us to be the walking, talking, living, breathing demonstrations of his own divine nature. And just where does remarkable display and incarnation this take place? It takes place in a very broken and fallen world in which we are, on one hand to be the thankful recipients of all that is good and true and beautiful, … but on the other in the grim realities of all that is ugly and broken and discouraging. We are aliens and exiles to be sure, but we are also called to be the children of the Light, i.e., “lights shining in the darkness.” And in this pilgrimage we are given, hopefully, a community of others who are walking it with us, and among whom we are mutually encouraging and teaching each other.

This means that when we assemble ourselves together for a worship service as the colonies of God’s New Creation people that those assemblies should go somewhere that is germane to our calling. They are not just a religious duty that church members are to ‘check-off’ once a week, and hope that they will be inspirational and well performed. Rather they are to be that absolutely transformational encounter with God (through his Word) and with our fellow sojourners in which we are reminded of what our calling is, of what the realities of our context are and the challenges which that context offers to us. We come to be refreshed and formed by the Word of Christ, to receive the reminder of our forgiveness, and to be equipped for our daily calling to walk in the context of the dominion of darkness as the people of the dominion of God’s dear Son.

If a worship service doesn’t go beyond its own performance, then it is useless no matter how well performed. The church, the people of God, lives in a multitude of daily contexts. Consider where God’s people live, so often not in control of their own circumstances: some of our sisters and brothers are sex slaves (not of their own choosing), some are venture capitalists, some are those who stock shelves or are cashiers in local stores, some are educators, some are sanitation workers, some are entrepreneurs, … and so vastly many more roles. But all have in common their calling to be the glory of God even in often boring and seemingly future-less places.

Paul catalogs the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5, and nearly all of them are relational and can be practiced quietly in most common contexts as the display of God’s design. Then he catalogs the works of the flesh, i.e., the grim realities of the broken dominion of darkness that speak of the sexual, ethical, behavioral fallen-ness in which we have our pilgrimage.

If our worship services do not equip us to live out our calling in such a world, then such services are meaningless. It is our calling to be the glory of God the other six days that counts.