How We Worship

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
November 1, 2009

How We Worship
Galatians 1:3-10

The mighty sound of a pipe organ
shaking the very foundations of the building
with the celestial music of Bach.
Light washing through stained glass windows
that tell all the great stories of the Bible:
Noah, King David,
Mary and Joseph,
Jesus and his disciples.
Candles flickering in the stillness,
the faint scent of beeswax in the smoke,
rising with prayers and praise
as a fragrant offering to God.
Communionware on the Table glistening silvery,
offering plates gleaming in their brassyness.
The minister robed to reflect the seriousness of the moment,
the stole around the preacher’s shoulders
a colorful voice speaking joy in response to God’s call.
The worship service runs its course,
with just enough drama to inspire,
but not so much as to overwhelm.

This is what a worship service should be like.
Majestic and serious,
reflecting the traditions that have grown over the centuries,
especially the traditions grounded in the Reformation.

Heads nod in agreement not only here in this Sanctuary,
but in other churches, other denominations:
Yes, that’s it,
that’s what worship should be like every Sunday,
52 Sundays a year.

But more than a few heads shake.
“No!” they say:
That’s the way it used to be done.
That’s how our grandparents worshipped,
but that’s not how we want to worship.
That kind of service doesn’t connect with us;
it isn’t engaging;
it isn’t inspiring;
it’s often dull.

We want today’s music,
the kind of music we listen to on our iPods:
drums, guitars, keyboards,
loud and lively.
The colors that wash over us in worship
shouldn’t come from stained glass,
as lovely as it might be,
but from lighting that helps set the tone, the mood,
reflecting the spirit:
bright for joy,
hued red or blue, even purple
for more serious or somber times.

Tell the minister to put away that 500-year-old relic of a robe;
Did Jesus wear one?
No, he preached and taught in what he wore each day;
why can’t the minister do the same thing?

And don’t lock us into one book for the hymns we sing
to praise and honor God.
These days any hymnal is out of date
as soon as it rolls off the presses.
Bring hymns from all the world to us,
hymns from every source,
other denominations,
other cultures.
Put the words up on screens to save paper;
After all, we have learned through screens all our lives:
television, Gameboys, computers,
cellphones, texting and twittering:
“Screens-R-Us” describes our generation.
They work for us.

Make the service lively!
Aren’t we here to praise an awesome God?
Yes, we agree: let’s do it seriously,
but can’t we rock even a little
with the “Rock of Ages”?

Traditional versus contemporary,
what kind of worship style is right, is best?
In some churches the debate has fractured congregations,
even families.
A popular book that came out not that long ago
was entitled “The Worship Wars”,
written to help clergy and congregation navigate through
different needs, desires, histories,
that were often seen to be competing
in how we worship.

I am a product of tradition.
When I was in Buffalo two weeks ago to visit my sister,
we worshiped at the only church I knew
for the better part of 40 years,
the church of my grandparents and parents,
a grand, historic, traditional church,
established in 1847,
a foundation stone in Buffalo’s history,
a church with a Sanctuary
that can hold more than a thousand worshipers,
imposing with darkened brass and heavy oak,
gorgeous stained glass windows,
telling Old Testament stories on the North,
New Testament stories on the South.

It is a church steeped in tradition.
It is also a church that has been losing members for decades.
At its peak 50 years ago the church had more than 2500 members;
the current membership is about one-quarter that,
and the church has struggled financially the past couple of years.

It is the churches that rock with the Rock of Ages
that have grown so rapidly the past twenty years.
We see them all around us here in Northern Virginia:
In those churches you won’t find an organ, pipe or electronic;
you won’t find a chancel,
you won’t find the pastor wearing a pulpit robe.

What are we to do?
Drop traditional for contemporary?
No, of course not.
What we do is find a balance,
a balance between the traditional and the contemporary;
We are not unyielding in our hold on tradition,
but we also don’t race to embrace the latest fad
to appear contemporary.

As Deborah and I plan each Sunday’s service,
we try to blend traditional and contemporary;
the best of each.
We try to balance because we know that
what is comfortable and engaging for one person
isn’t for another.
The hymn you love may be a hymn that the person sitting next to you
finds almost an impediment in helping them worship God.
Our calling, our responsibility
is to reach across age and backgrounds,
to reach out to our most adventurous worshipers
as well as our most traditional.

Our job and the job of every worship leader
is not to please people;
it is to please God.
In Paul’s day there were many preachers
who claimed to preach and present the gospel,
but were doing nothing more than
giving people what they wanted to hear;
they saw that as long as they made crowds happy,
the crowds were willing to respond
by filling up the offering plates.

We seek authenticity,
faithfulness,
sometimes in the form of tradition,
other times in newer, more contemporary forms.
We balance, we blend,
knowing that what works for you,
may not work for another,
and what works for them,
may not work for you.
We try new things,
even as we build on history and tradition.

Could there be anything more traditional
in our worship service than when we join our voices together
and say the Lord’s Prayer?
But the Lord’s Prayer as we say it comes to us
from the days of the Westminster Confession of Faith,
written more than 350 years ago.
It reflects Elizabethan English,
the language of William Shakespeare:
“Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed by thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…”

We don’t speak that way any longer, of course.
And Jesus never spoke Elizabethan English:
he did not say “thee”, “thine”, or “thou”.
He spoke Aramaic, the common language of the people.
He would not have said,
“Thou art created in thy Father’s image.”
He would have said,
“You are created in your Father’s image.”

When he taught his disciples the Lord’s Prayer,
he taught them to say,
“Our Father who is in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
(Matthew 5:9)

Perhaps it is time for us to make a change,
a change from the Elizabethan,
from the traditional to the contemporary.
Here’s the irony:
If we did this we’d actually be more traditional, not less,
since we’d be going back to the prayer
as Jesus first taught it to his disciples.
See how contemporary can be traditional,
and the traditional contemporary?

As you come to this table this morning,
remember that we are all worshipers together
in our wonderful diversity
even as we share our common faith.

Our Lord invites us, in all our diversity
to come to his table
and share in this meal that he has prepared:
a meal that reflects an extraordinary history
going back more than 3,000 years,
a meal that renews and refreshes us for today,
and a meal that gives us a glimpse
of our glorious future.

Come to this table where you will find the perfect blending of
the tradition of yesterday,
the contemporary of today,
and the hope and promise of tomorrow.
That’s how God calls us to worship.
AMEN