Stop Doing Religious Stuff
Contemporary Worship in God's Overarching Story
Photo by Pascal Meier on Unsplash
I've been watching N. T. Wright's Reading The Images series on YouTube, which is a wonderful exposition on how key themes of Scripture help enrich our understanding of God's overarching story. For the past year, I've been working through a process of teaching The Story study in our churches and Wright’s series has turned out to be a marvelous companion piece to some of the things we've been learning together.
One of Wright's episodes looks at the idea of the "seed". I've been working to fully grasp and explain this concept in our churches here as well. Namely, the idea that the chosen ones (Israel) would be whittled down to just one “seed” that would be planted in the ground and then out of that planted seed an entire garden would grow. Out of a narrowing, a widening. It’s the idea of new creation that comes about from within the old creation, but not without God himself becoming one of us and being "planted in the ground" in order to generate this new life. When this is coupled with the understanding of our being image bearers vs. the sculpted images of earthly creatures (idols), and the understanding that because of Jesus (the one seed that was planted) we have become part of a new living family, and have been provided the path to accurately reflect His image, (the living, flesh-and-blood versions of those stone statues) a sign to all the world that Jesus is actually the King and that his kingdom has an entirely different economy (namely the idea that Jesus is building a global family that shapes their entire lives around the plan that he revealed through his apostles), then it means that we must pause and reconsider all the cultural forms this has taken over the centuries in Western civilization and make any and all necessary adjustments to make sure we are accurately representing His simple, perpetual plan, His kingdom, and Himself which He has revealed through the apostles’ work and teaching.
In 1 Corinthians 11:17-14:40, Paul addresses some of the cultural forms that are innapropriately dominating the weekly gatherings of the churches there in Corinth, preventing them from becoming a mature community. Paul is accessing some of these concepts in his reprimand of the church there. He is telling them that they should stop worshipping Jesus like they used to worship the stone idols in their pagan temples because Jesus is not a god that can be conjured up, but rather they should realize that Jesus has already animated them to bear the image of God throughout all creation and also be the “living stones” (1 Pet 2:4-5) of the new temple He is building His new family, that is expanding and will one day represent Him throughout the entire earth - which was created to be His temple in the first place). Instead of engaging in ecstatic expressions in an attempt to summon His presence, they should simply serve one another and build each other up, which is the expression of true worship that Jesus desires from them.
Paul is specifically critiquing the way they gather each week, which has implications for our contemporary 'worship' services.
Paul is saying that when they gather each week, they need to stop focusing on individual "spiritual moments with Jesus", and instead focus on everyone participating and building each other up in the apostles' teaching, so that their lives together as a community will become shaped and transformed by His plan. Paul's main argument is that all of them can have "spiritual moments with Jesus" any time and any place (although this is best reserved for their own homes), but when they gather together, it should be for the purpose of building each other up. He argues that when he comes to visit one of the churches, it wouldn't make any sense for him to show up and then engage in personal spiritual moments. He is there to instruct, have dialogue, and build them up as a community. They should follow that example even when he is not present.
In chapter 14, he basically tells them to stop engaging in religious activities, because those types of activities are worthless, and will end up on the burn pile when Jesus returns, but instead they are to live their lives together in a particular way as extended families that care for one another and build each other up to maturity in the plan of Christ.
Today, churches gather each week as if they are just beginning a brand new courtship with Jesus. Praise and worship functions as an attempt to woo Jesus’ presence out into the open, in the hopes of providing an opportunity for each person to make a special connection with Jesus. Many believers want an endless weekly repeat of that special feeling you get at the beginning of a courtship, rather than engaging in a serious ordered process that leads to maturity. Sermons are delivered by charismatic personalities whose messages provide emotionally gratifying, “bacon-wrapped” homilies. (Basically dog treats for good boys.) Or, to flip that canine metaphor on its head, believers behave as if Jesus is our therapy dog, who gives us just enough mental clarity and emotional sanity to hang on for one more week. Is that really the transformed, exponentially abundant life that Jesus talked about in John 10?
[I’ve brought up these ideas before in many of my essays, but I’m inentionally choosing to be very blunt about it here.]
When this is how churches engage in “worship” then church communities are not shaped around Christ’s plan and are never built up to maturity. Churches do not become one-minded communities who are able to interpret their lives together in light of the gospel. Families and individuals never develop complex states of mind that would allow them to live flexibly in their culture and effectively address problems using the gospel. Most everyone just fills their lives with religious experiences + American dream ambitions + random good deeds that bear no connection to Christ's plan. All of these religious experiences have become completely disconnected from the larger framework of how to actually build Jesus' family, according to His plan, in a way that will accurately represent His kingdom right now and that will last into new creation.
Scott Canion is based out of the NYC area and is part of the METRO equipping team, a network of global leaders who are establishing churches that are families, patterning themselves after Acts.