The following is the
second installment in a 10-part series on the 10 Marks of a Mature Anglican
Christian.
The Second Mark: A Mature Anglican Christian is active in the
worship and fellowship of the Church.
In order to have a solid, robust understanding of what this
mark means, it is very important to have an adequate, Biblical understanding of
what worship really means. In our
current culture, I believe many churches in general have become nothing more
than entertainment complexes. Let’s take
a look at this more close.
The word worship
is merely a contraction of the word “worthship.” In our worship, it is simply a display of how
much God is worth to us. Soren
Kierkegaard has a great analogy that I believe still rings true today. In most churches on a Sunday morning, the
pastor and the praise team are the performers, and the people are the
audience. They are there to be
entertained, and when the “worship” loses its entertainment value, the people
leave. For Kierkegaard, worship was
something very different. The clergy and
the musicians are directors, the people in the pews are the actors, and God is
the audience. We as Christian disciples
should ask the very important question that places this in context: are we
seeking worship that is pleasing to us, or are we seeking worship that is
pleasing to God?
One of my favorite
Scripture verses comes from the Psalm 96:6-9 (BCP 726).
6 Oh, the majesty and
magnificence of his presence! *
Oh, the power and the
splendor of his sanctuary!
7 Ascribe to the Lord,
you families of the peoples; *
ascribe to the Lord
honor and power.
8 Ascribe to the Lord
the honor due his Name; *
bring offerings and come
into his courts.
9 Worship the Lord
in the beauty of holiness; *
let
the whole earth tremble before him.
I want to
focus in for a moment specifically on verse 9.
The Psalmist gives us two attributes that must be present in our
worship, beauty and holiness.
Worshipping in beauty means that there should be an aesthetic quality to
our worship that draws our attention upward toward God, instead of downward
toward earth. We accomplish this, only
by God’s Grace, by treating our worship with seriousness, reverence, and a
sense of the importance that should be placed on worship. Worship should have a transcendent quality
that makes us feel like we just experienced a foretaste of heaven.
Worshipping
in holiness means that our worship should achieve something different than what
the world is offering. The theological
definition of “holy” is “set apart.” Anything
that is holy should be different in that it should point people away from a
sinful, suffering world and toward a holy God who is a retreat, a sanctuary,
from the world. In short, our worship
should be different from what the world is offering.
This
Scripture from Psalm 96, as well as the idea that our worship should be
beautiful and holy, will be at the center of our discernment and our future
plans as we follow the course God has in store for us at Christ the King
Anglican Church. May God always help us
to keep our focus on Him, not only in our worship, but in everything that we
do.