WORSHIP: The heart of Discipleship
Worship. It’s the most important thing the Church of Jesus Christ does. Discipleship. It’s the next most important thing the Church does.
Most Christians agree that worship and discipleship are important. They also agree that neither worship nor discipleship are easy to do well in the church. Church worship frequently provokes so-called ‘worship wars’. I say ‘so-called’ because if we’re fighting about worship, we’re not worshipping. When we truly worship, in spirit and truth, as God desires (see John 4:24), there will be no warring. Discipleship (better known today as ‘Christian education’) is not without its problems either. Christian education programs are often limited to children and youth, ignoring adults. If you talk to Christian educators you’ll frequently hear them lament over the sorry state of education in local churches. I’ve often lamented about this myself, including in writing! [1]
We know worship and discipleship are important, but many churches struggle with both. I want to suggest that the problem, at least in part, has been our tendency to keep worship and education (and you can think discipleship) as two separate practices in the church. Worship in the church, we presume, belongs in the service we designate ‘worship service.’ That’s where we practice, usually on Sundays, worship as a community. Education, discipleship and spiritual formation, belong in those programs we offer before, after or during the service of worship, and perhaps also mid-week, and most often primarily for children and youth.
This is where I must pause, make a confession and seek forgiveness from all of you who, once upon a time, sat in my classes on Christian education (CE). For a long time, I failed to include worship in the subject matter of my courses in CE, thus encouraging the belief that worship and education are unrelated to each other. I don’t know where students were supposed to learn about worship, I just knew it wasn’t in my discipline of CE. I was never taught that worship is as central, if not more so, to spiritual formation as is education, and so began my career neglecting teaching about worship. Please forgive me and please keep reading so I can at least try and fix my error.
As I matured in my discipline and in my understanding of worship and spiritual formation, I made some changes. I talked more about worship and even included a module on worship in the foundational CE course. My purpose was to teach students about worship so that they would also teach their flock, be it children, youth or adults, about worship—what it is and how to practice it. Worship, I said, is important and of course we need to teach about it. This was a start, but it wasn’t enough. We must do more than teach about worship. We must worship, not just in the ‘worship service’ on Sundays, but in our various CE programs and ministries. And yes, we should live lives that are worshipful all the time but, for the purpose of this article, my focus is on worship with a gathered community, regardless of age.
Worship in the local church, as James Smith in You Are What You Love, argues, “is the heart of discipleship because it is the gymnasium in which God retrains our hearts” (2016, p. 77). In other words, the practice of worship, in and of itself, is formative. When done well, it trains worshippers to be faithful followers of Jesus Christ. Worship ‘teaches’ us (and I’m using ‘teach’ in the sense of forms). Yes, I still believe that teaching about worship is essential, but we can’t stop there. We, be it in the formal worship service or the different children and youth gatherings, must also worship! The practice of worship, not merely the teaching of worship, is at the heart of discipleship, therefore the practice of worship must be done well.
If the goal of ministry is to form people into faithful followers (think disciples) of Jesus Christ, which it ought to be, then worship in and with the community must be thoughtful and intentional, regardless of the age group with whom we work. For the sake of this article, I’m going to focus attention on youth group and worship. However, the principles can be applied to all groups, so keep reading, even if, like me, you don’t work with youth in a church setting.
In my years of teaching I attended dozens of youth groups from different churches and even different denominations. With little variation, the typical youth group format included, albeit not in this order, games (usually rather rowdy), food and drink (not usually healthy and far too much sugar for wound-up teens), a short ‘talk’ that ended in small group discussion on the ‘talk’, and a prayer or two that were usually extemporaneous (‘off-the cuff’). Sadly, it was rare youth were invited to worship God. On the occasions they were, it was almost always an invitation to sing a few ‘praise songs’. And, yes worship sings (just read Revelation 4 and 5; there are five hymns in those two short chapters) and thus singing is a good thing and most youth groups I attended could do more of it.
If we’re serious about obeying Jesus’ mandate to ‘make disciples,’ by which I mean, faithful followers of Jesus rather than current culture and its icons, we need to make our programs worship events, from beginning to end, thinking intentionally and thoughtfully about the practice of worship in the gathered community, regardless of age or type of group. Youth group, for instance, can be a worship experience for youth; children’s programs a worship service for children. In The Godbearing Life, Creasy Dean and Foster pass on advice from a seasoned youth leader who said, “There’s really only time for two things in ministry…. Lead a fine worship. Visit the people” (1998, p. 41). Relationship to God and to others matters most. Worship, however, shouldn’t merely be one of the many things we do, another item to add to the format of youth group. Worship must be the only thing we do. The entire youth group should be designed for worship of the Living God.
Obviously, I need to explain what I mean by worship. To many people, my claim that the entire youth group should be a worship experience means singing and more singing, during the entire meeting. According to James Smith nearly 90% of Christians equate worship with singing. Yes, they may know in their head that there is more to worship, but still, music is what first comes to mind as the means of worship. “As a result,” writes Smith, “we also tend to primarily think of worship as something we [not God] do” (2016, p. 69). The church has trained people to think this way. This was brought home to me one Sunday as I glanced through the order of service for the installation of a new pastor. The order included prayer, Scripture, sermon and, as a separate item on the list, ‘worship: sing…’ and a song was named. The message conveyed was clear: the only worship in that service was when the congregation sang the prescribed song. No wonder laity equate worship with music! We, church leaders, taught them to do that.
If we equate worship with singing it also means that we will define worship as expression—me expressing myself to God, offering up to God personal and communal praise and thanks and maybe a few other things besides. As Smith notes, worship in most contemporary churches and in individual practice is a ‘bottom-up’ activity; the people at ‘the bottom’ offering praise up to God. This is not the way of historic Christian worship, according to Smith. He writes, “Instead of this bottom-up emphasis on worship as our expression of devotion and praise, historic Christian worship is rooted in the conviction that God is the primary actor or agent in the worship experience. Worship works from the top down…. In worship we don’t just come to show God our devotion and give him our praise; we are called to worship because in this encounter God (re)makes and mold us top-down” (2016, p. 77). In other words, when it comes to worship, God and God alone matters because God is at work in our innermost being. However, we, the human participants, aren’t passive ‘pew-warmers’. We’re invited into vital and active interaction with the God who is remaking us, forming us into the image of Jesus.
This is why both the form and content of our service of worship is critical, and why we need a worship that proclaims the biblical Story loud and clear. Biblical worship (a worship service that proclaims God’s Story) will inevitably include things we’ve been tempted today to reject in our worship services: routine, ritual and rhythm. Sadly, once we equated worship with expression and thus with singing, we fooled ourselves into believing that routine, ritual and rhythm (and I don’t mean musical rhythm) were bad, because they encouraged inauthenticity. Authentic and sincere worship that comes from the heart, we told ourselves, had to be new and even spontaneous, sometimes mistakenly referred to as ‘Spirit led’. This reflects contemporary culture, rather than biblical norms. We’re a culture shaped to constantly consume the newest and latest stuff because last year’s stuff is ‘so yesterday’—new clothes, new shoes, new smartphones, new cars and more and more new stuff; and new music in church. True, the biblical Story is about newness, but not the newness that craves novelty and change for its own sake in a mistaken belief this makes us more authentic in our practice of worship. It’s a newness that forms us back into the old way God created us to be—whole, healthy, flourishing and fully human, just like Jesus.
The early Christian Church, following its Hebrew religious roots, designed its worship liturgy (the format to guide a community to worship together so that the Story is told over and over) used ritual and rhythm. It was a deliberate and thoughtful religious pattern that was designed to shape worshippers through God’s Story of redemption and new creation. The routine of the ritual seeped into worshipper’s hearts, shaping their loves to love God and to love their neighbor as they love themselves (meaning, loving neighbor as though she/he were yourself); to be transformed by the Story.
I know routine, ritual and religious patterns are ‘dirty’ terms to some. I recently read a missionary’s prayer letter that asked prayer supporters to pray that the small group of new believers would stop falling into routine and religious patterns and instead be led by the Spirit. This missionary failed to realize that the Spirit leads us into and through the rhythm of our rituals and routines that were prayerfully discerned and prepared prior to the meeting. After all, routine and ritual are the way humans live their normal lives; they are the means of shaping us into who we are. Take a moment to think of the family patterns that you experienced as a child, the ones you hope your family is still practicing when you go back home—a special breakfast made by dad every Saturday; the rituals of Thanksgiving and Christmas, and so on. Family rituals shape the family for good or ill; youth group rituals (and yes youth groups have them in those items I mentioned above) shape youth in good or bad ways. My plea is that you think about your rituals and choose those that will shape youth into the Way of Jesus. Ritual is part of church life, including youth group life. Even Jesus taught us to practice rituals—baptism and communion, for starters. When life feels like it’s falling apart, it’s the rituals that hold us together. Our rituals and rhythm help us keep the faith when faith becomes so difficult. Ritual becomes a problem only when we fail to be thoughtful and deliberate in our choice of ritual. Good rituals are a conduit for the Spirit to lead and work, not evidence the Spirit is being ignored. As Tish Warren in Liturgy of the Ordinary, writes, “the question is not whether we have a liturgy. The question is, ‘What kind of people is our liturgy forming us to be?’” (Warren. 2016, p. 31).
I’d write a whole lot more on this understanding of worship, but James Smith has done a masterly job of that in his book, You Are What You Love. I urge you to buy a copy and read it. I’d have required students to buy it and read it, knowing that only some (the good?) students would do so.
Of course, the big question now is: How can a typical youth group evening (children or adult programs unrelated to Sunday worship service) be worshipful from beginning to end?
I’m not going to answer this question for you in any kind of detail. It’s a question every pastor and leader, be it of youth, children or adults, must answer for themselves with the people among whom they minister. I can only offer a few suggestions for you to adapt to your unique situation. The basic framework of my suggestions comes from a definition for worship I learned in Seminary. I’ve long since forgotten in which class and from which professor. There are three broad strokes in this definition that can form the basic structure into which your typical youth group activities can fit. The ordering is important, especially the first—recognize God’s presence.
1. RECOGNIZE God’s presence
Begin with an invitation to the group to recognize that God, in all his majestic splendor, is present and moving among them now. Worship is about God and therefore, always begins with the conscious recognition of God’s presence, closer to us than we are to ourselves. Discern a ritual that you could practice at the beginning of each youth group, before the games, before anything happens, that draws the attention of all present to the very present God. Some options to consider are such things as: praying a few verses from a psalm that the group can read responsively with you; a traditional ritual opening such as: ‘The Lord be with you’, to which the group responds, ‘And also with you;’ lighting a candle as a symbol of Jesus, the Light of the world; a few minutes of stillness and silence; the list can be endless. Find a way that would be most appropriate to your group, a meaningful ritual to shape us in the Jesus Way. When we fail to prepare a ritual, we’ll fall back on our old thoughtless rituals, such as a quick off-the-cuff ‘opening prayer’ that often fails to pass on good prayer habits to the people listening. After this ritual opening, the games can begin, or whatever you prefer for your group.
2. REMEMBER God’s mighty acts
Recognizing God’s presence is a good and necessary beginning. But who is God? The second broad stroke of the definition, not necessarily the second item of your agenda, is a reminder to teach about who God is by remembering what God has done. There are many ways to do this remembering, but the most important is by reading Scripture and teaching lessons that follow God’s Story in Scripture. Teach the Bible and tell its stories more and more often. Motivational devotions, topical lessons on issues we think are ‘relevant’ to youth (you know things like ‘sex and dating’), have a place, but not at the expense of teaching the Bible and its Grand Story. (Read, http://www.storymakerlife.com/tell-me-a-story-and-put-me-in-it.html). Dare to follow the church yearly calendar and train your youth to live, day by day, year by year, into the story of Jesus. That’s the whole purpose of the church calendar. (My ‘go-to’ source for the weekly readings is: http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/.) Teach people to think biblically and theologically (remember? Prayerfully wondering: Who are you God?) as you unpack Scripture with them.
Before the formal teaching time, incorporate a ritual to prepare people to listen to God through the lesson—a simple prayer, or a meditative song, a time of silence, are some ways to do this. Be intentional and rhythmic about it. If the lesson time is immediately after the lively game time, I suggest singing a meditative song and let the quiet music and repetitive words still the group on the inside, which helps to still them on the outside.
We also remember God’s acts in the songs we sing. Worship sings, as God’s people have always known. But, remember that our songs teach people theology and biblical knowledge. Pay attention to the words and choose songs that teach good (I mean biblical) truth. Rowan Williams reminds us that our hymns and songs are where we learn much of our theology, and adds, “This, incidentally, makes it important to have good hymns—so that we have good theology” (The Sign and the Sacrifice, 2017, p. 55). I’m not sure that much of our contemporary praise music teaches good theology or even biblical truths. One popular praise song I’ve heard sung often, begins well: ‘Here I am to worship.’ But then it slips into confusing theology: ‘I’ll never know how much it cost to see my sins upon the cross.’ We know exactly how much it cost. The Bible tells us so—the life, suffering and death of the Son of God. Read the Bible and learn and stop singing misleading theology! Sing, but sing songs that are biblically and theologically teaching who God is as revealed in Scripture and songs that guide us in our practice of living the Story of Jesus.
We remember God’s acts in our prayers. Yes, our prayers teach people about God and what God has done. Think about how to address the One to whom you pray. The most frequent address I hear today is simply, ‘God,’ repeated often. The word ‘god’ is a generic term, not a name! Read, or better, pray the psalms to learn the great variety of names and titles lovers of God use in their prayers. Both what you say in prayer and how you pray teach theology, that is about God. Prayerfully prepare your public prayers, even write them down, that not only help people understand the God before Whom you all stand, but also teaches them good prayer habits.
3. RESPOND in obedient faith to God
Having learned about God and God’s ways, people need to respond in obedient faith. Provide intentional space for people to interact with God in Christ Jesus. In doing so, we’re training people to make response to God and God’s Word, that is, a commitment to live obediently in the world. This is a natural part of the worshipping life. Help them become people who habitually wonder how to live and be shaped by the Story of Jesus. After an opportunity for response, conclude your time together with another carefully chosen ritual. Some options for a concluding ritual are: a thoughtfully chosen song, perhaps even a song you sing each week; a time of silence for individual prayer-response; rereading a key Bible verse from the lesson; a prayer for the people; a benediction to send them out assured of God’s presence.
In many youth groups I attended, the ritual after the message is small group discussion on questions related to the lesson. This is an important and often the best way for people to discern the response God desires from them and then commit to going out to live in obedience to God. Youth leaders, keep on encouraging your small group leaders in this awesome task.
At this point you might be wondering: What about games and snack time in youth group? I’m not advocating omitting them since they do have a useful place. God is present in those activities just as he is in the other activities of youth group. God works in all sorts of ways to form us into the image of Jesus. It’s your task, as group leader, to remind people that even games and snacks are worship because God is present and at work in us. Both the games and snacks are part of the format that begins with recognizing God’s presence among us.
Worship is the heart of discipleship/Christian education and therefore essential. It isn’t an optional extra. Keep thinking and learning ways to keep both worship and discipleship together, then stand back and watch God work. If you’re serious about training your flock to be disciples of Jesus, worship with them all the time in a manner that is intentional and that faithfully shapes worshippers to follow the Jesus Way—loving God and loving neighbors as we love ourselves.
Questions for ongoing reflection and discussion
- What is our worship teaching ?
- What form is our worship shaping people into?
- Is our worship shaped by the biblical story, a story of sin, redemption and re-creation and thus guiding us to live the Story. [2]
- Are we satisfied with what our worship teaches and how it shapes the people among whom we minister?
[1] See Smallbones, J. L. “In All Sorts of Trouble.” Christian Education Journal: Vol. XII, No. 1 (Autumn 1991): 89-95 and “What's Wrong with Christian Education?” Christian Education Journal: Vol. XI No. 1 (Autumn 1990): 105-112.
[2] Read my book, Live the Story not the Dream, (2016) available through lulu.com and most major online booksellers; also in eBook format only at lulu.com.
Works Cited
Creasy Dean, K and R. Foster. The Godbearing Life: The art of soul tending for youth ministry. Nashville, TN: Upper Room Books, 1998.
Smith, J. K. A. You Are What You Love. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2016.
Warren, T. H. Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred practices in everyday life. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books. 2016.
Williams, R. The Sign and the Sacrifice. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press. 2017.
Jackie L. Smallbones
September 2017©