(100) Small Worship

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for Small Worship, originally shared on March 22, 2021. It was the 100th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   What if you could design Christian worship from scratch? What would you include? What would be different? What structure and elements would reflect the worship of the faithful as we come out of a global pandemic? Today we’re going to consider some possibilities for the new Small Normal.

   Martin Luther, the 16^th century Church reformer, said that as long as the Gospel was rightly preached and the sacraments were rightly administered, everything else in worship was adiaphora, i.e. important but secondary. That gives us a lot of flexibility.

   We’ve done videos on how worship is directed at God. I’ve quoted Soren Kierkegaard as saying that the question to ask ourselves after worship is not, “What did I get out of that?”, but “How did I do?”

   Recently, we’ve done a couple of videos about how the new normal for the post-pandemic church will be oriented around small groups, and how those groups will be built around the transformational and unifying work of the Holy Spirit.

   Today, I’d like to consider some possibilities for how those two realities could shape the worship life of our churches as we move into the new Small Normal.

   First, I think that future worship will be small by design. People emerging from various levels of isolation will be hungry for community and the size and structure of their primary Christian community’s worship life will reflect that.

   People will be encouraged to memorize as much as possible to encourage open-hearted worship, not reading. It will take place both in small groups that will function as small primary Christian communities of between 8 and 16 people, and in gatherings of groups together for more celebratory worship services. 

   A small group, or Christian Community can have anywhere from 2 (as in a personal accountability group) to 16 or so, just before it splits into two groups. That’s the most difficult crossroad in the life of a small group. Groups live in order to die.

   I’m not suggesting that all churches will be small. Some may be quite large depending on their purpose in the Body of Christ. A living organism may be a single cell, but it is not fulfilling its nature until it begins the process of growth with cell division. But they will be composed of small Christian communities that will be their primary interface with the Christian movement and the development of their faith.

   The location of weekly worship services will change, will take place out of the public view, preferrable in places of natural beauty, and will be announced each week by email or text. Worshipers will bring their own folding chairs and maybe one or two to share.

In addition to the location of worship, the email/text will include a chapter from the Bible that worshippers will be asked to read so often that they pretty much know it by heart. It will be recited by the congregations, with the majority remembering where others memory is not as clear, and the pastor teaching it as the sermon.

   Pastors will serve the linked small groups and will train the leaders.

   Second, I think that post-pandemic worship will be less “contemporary” and more “traditional”. And what I mean by “traditional” is “liturgical”. Now, I think that what most people mean when they say that they prefer “traditional” forms of worship is that they prefer the form of worship services that they grew up with. I mean something more specific.

   I mean that there will be a desire for a structured worship service that is built around the form that goes back to the synagogue service in which Jesus participated and before: Gathering, Word, and Sending, only, a fourth element will be added: Meal (or Holy Communion/Eucharist/Sacrament of the Altar/the Lord’s Table, etc.). This form has sustained Christians for centuries, and now almost thousands of years, in all kinds of situations throughout the world. It will be scaled for the number of small groups involved, but it will be designed to facilitate the worship of the one true living God.

   Third, one form might be that music will start the service, there will be additional singing in the middle, and at the end. It will be simple melodies that can be easily memorized with lyrics that have meat and meaning, including Bible texts, focused but not limited to the Psalms. Worshipers will be encouraged to memorize them or, better, to know them by heart.

   Worship that is held outdoors in cold or inclement weather will be shorter than that that is indoors.

   Worship will be simple and will focus on actual worship, prayer, praise and thanksgiving directed at the one true living God.

   A money offering will be received to serve the community and the poorer members of the congregation and will be administered by a board of elders. The community will be encouraged to be generous.

   Fourth, I think that small groups will be the best way to embody the diversity we experience in the Body of Christ. Small groups will provide the best ways for people to get to know people who are not like themselves. During the pandemic we heard calls for racial justice. I think that small primary Christian communities can be one of the best ways to draw people together to experience the faith that unifies even while respecting diversity. Even groups focused on a topic or an interest will be established to emphasize those things that unite us and on gaining understanding and empathy with regard to those which divide.

   They will be places where Christians and those becoming Christians will be able to put their lives in perspective, though they feel like the world, including their families and friends, is becoming more and more indifferent and sometimes hostile to lives of faith.

   Fifth, churches have been given guidelines to hold indoor worship services with crowds of people up to 25% of their worship space’s seating capacity.   We will be at 25% of capacity at first. We will be necessarily small for a while. Then we will move to 50%. Beyond that, does it matter for most of us? Most churches would be thrilled if their worship spaces were filled to 50% capacity every Sunday. 😊

   As our society, and even some of our churches, become more and more secular, the centralization of the Church will only make us more vulnerable. The hierarchy of the Church will flatten, and small groups will be our primary Christian communities.

   Congregations will be clusters of small groups, which will make them nimble. They will have no property or buildings to protect or maintain. Or, what property they control will be multi-use and providing income.

   Many congregations will rent church office space and a conference room for leadership gatherings and a option for small group meeting place option.

   Warehouses of commercial spaces or off-time worship building space will be rented. If party promoters and rave organizers can to it, so can the Church! 😊

   Or, it may rent worship spaces for multi-small groups, or be a part of a church with a large worship space. Churches that close will invite collections of smaller groups to take over their buildings, or sell them for a nominal fee to keep the faith alive, or will hang on until it is sold or given to the judicatory. These buildings will usually not be a good option for a Small Normal church.

   The first Christians met in people’s homes, under trees, in cemeteries and catacombs, in open places known as places of prayer.

   All the small groups associated with a congregation could gather once a month or so, and congregations may be gathered in conferences and gather once a quarter or so, and conferences could be a part of synods and gather annually. These gatherings could also function as training grounds and provide doctrinal and personal accountability

   It will take longer to become a Christian and to be more directly accountable in the Christian life. Small groups will be places for formation as well as encouragement for those whose faith has led them to be rejected by their friends and family. But when people do become Christians, it will be a great celebration! Transfer of membership not so much; that’s corporate.

   They will be reminded in their shared lives of the promise of Jesus in the gospel of Luke, the 12^th chapter, starting at the 32^nd verse:

*Luke 12:32-36

   Sixth, we are already seeing the advantages of decreasing the hierarchy and making the church more in the hands of the people. Liturgy has often been defined as “the work of the people”. Liturgical worship is one in which the people are worshipers, not spectators. There should not be any question of whether people, particularly those who have come to understand their spiritual gift/s, feel that they are a valued part of the Church.

   Choirs and Christian education classes could also be small primary Christian communities, as long as there is time to talk about why they exist, and for what purpose, in the Body of Christ, and allow time for questions and growth, sharing and learning.

   Seventh, our primary community event is currently a worship service. I wonder if it’s sometimes just a motif, something to be endured, or a desperate attempt to be hip and relevant, or a tradition that we do because tradition gives us a point of shared experience, but one which has in fact lost any real meaning.

   The primary community event in the Small Normal will be the small group experience. It will be a place for worship, and it will be a place for Christian encouragement, learning, growth and service to one another and to the world.

   Finally, what can we do to prepare for the new Small Normal?

1. Pray to receive, or to be opened to the Holy Spirit.
2. Read whatever you can find about how to start a small group, spiritual gifts, identifying leaders, and staying on track. (Staying on track is the second greatest challenge to the life of a small group.)
3. Speak with your pastor, or if you’re a pastor with your dean, or if you’re a dean with your bishop, however you are structured, about encouraging the development of small primary Christian communities and what you will need to make it happen.
4. Volunteer to be a part of the effort.

   This won’t happen with one-size-fits-all programs. That’s implementing someone else’s vision for their own circumstances. We need a revolution not a reformation, change not tweaking, a movement not an institution, because the Holy Spirit is real and alive, it is the person God at work for good in the world.

   We need people who are open to and actively led by the Holy Spirit.  It leaves us comforted, challenged, and a bit challenged. It is the streams of living water that forms and sustains the Christian church. The church needs its inspiration. It is all that it needs and everything else flows from that.