From
Living Theology in the Metropolitan Chicago Synod
Evangelical Lutheran Church In America
Volume 1, Number 2
Lent 1996
Worship and Evangelism
Inez
Torres Davis
Worship
and evangelism is a broad subject. The entire service or worship of the people
is the Church active in society, but I have chosen here to reflect upon our
formal congregate worship.
Recently
I listened to Murray Haar, who teaches religion at Augustana College in Sioux
Falls, South Dakota. He reminded me that Lutherans are grounded in a theology
which, regardless of its diverse and lovely cultural and historical
accompaniments, has at its core three unfailing truths:
·
God
reaches us because God is for us.
·
Because
of Jesus’ redemptive work, we are forgiven.
·
We
can act by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
These
three are the main course, all else are side dishes, prepared to taste, made
with love, using the wonderful ingredients of our own storehouses, informed by
the God Spirit. This is my beginning hypothesis.
We
live within different contexts. Within each are storehouses from which we pull
our worship and sharing of God’s love for all. The appropriate tongue for our
message is that understood by both stranger and friend among us. The
appropriate formal proclamation is with ritual and music familiar to the people
we need to reach. We are surrounded by hungry sheep. Our context informs the
methods we use. The constant is that to reach these hungry sheep we need
evangelism.
There
is a huge mass of people needing the Word of God spoken relevantly. These
people hunger for ritual as well. They try to satisfy this hunger with orders of
consumerism and ritualistic entertainment as well as by a proliferation of
forms of “god-knowledge” marketed by “spiritualists” and others of that ilk. We
must offer them God’s better way. We need to be clear ourselves about what this
better way is and is not.
The
better way is the message of God’s
love to all through Jesus’ redemptive work. It is not singing particular hymns, or moving in just-so-fashion, or
speaking in any one tone or dialect. (I am amazed we still have sermonizers who
use a different voice from the pulpit than in their everyday conversation.) The
better way is to choose lives which
serve God’s creation. It is not in
setting one, two, or three of the worship book.
Written
orders of worship direct us as smaller parts of a larger community of
believers. While they are seen by some as ways to “do worship right,” they are
more properly used to serve God as a means of feeding God’s people and reaching those who are seeking the
presence of God in their lives.
As
to whether the liturgical order of worship is detrimental to evangelism, I
quote a former colleague: “We could worship in Greek, but if we love, people
will come. Love is known in all languages.” For my colleague it is not our
order that matters most, but the way the stranger is received. Equally
important is whether the way to and of God is clearly stated, not only from the
pulpit, but in our orders and rituals.
The
simple truth is that the hour of time we normally allot for worship leaves us
little time to waste. Since some of us have to be literally wrestled to the
ground before we grow, we must, in that short time, allow for God to actively
pursue us, surprise us, and even leave us as disjointed as Jacob.
A
story from a parish I served: Gladys lived in a group home. This Gladys one
Sunday came to worship just as the interim began his homily. Gladys sat in the
front pew and began to accompany the sermon with “Amen!” and “Preach the Word,
Preacher!” At the conclusion of the sermon Gladys stood to bear witness to God
in her life. As she spoke ,the mood of the crowd went from tolerance to alarm.
This was not how things were done in this church. Since I was the one who knew
Gladys, the ushers asked me to get her out. We did our exit arm in arm, Gladys
witnessing all the way.
In my
office, Gladys spoke more. I was spellbound and deeply fed by God’s action in
this woman’s life. Outside my office, worship concluded as prescribed. Days
later I was congratulated for handling a difficult situation. I had saved
worship.
For
whom was Gladys sent? Some might say she was sent for my edification, but that
would miss the vital connection that exists between people and their context.
There were three group homes within walking distance of the church. Was there
not a purpose for the members of the congregation that Gladys was the one who
visited us? Was God not using her to disrupt things and to wrestle us all to
the ground for a blessing?
Having
learned a bit about sheep and shepherds in my undergraduate studies, I find the
shepherd metaphor helpful. Our roles as worship leaders are clear. Unless we
select and clear the pasture, sheep would eat thistle. Without wise and healthy
direction a particular field becomes the sheep’s destination even if it has
been eaten bare. It is also true that sheep do not readily receive strange
sheep into their fold. A visitor like Gladys always gets shoved outside.
Another
metaphor may make this clearer. We are called to feed the holy flame within the
baptized. This flame directs and burns into all of us in ways we would not
always predict or choose (“My ways are not your ways.”). Without a discerning
openness to God’s creativity, specifically in formal worship, we miss these
Gladys-opportunities more often than we can bear.
As
leaders of worship we are to be open to the creative lead of the Holy Ghost as
it comes in sermon preparation, in selecting the order of worship, and in
preparing the music.
Have
you ever been moved by that Spirit, but then just before the Sunday worship,
you took out something too foolish or strange? Tell me, was it as strange and
foolish as people preaching in diverse tongues and appearing drunk on the first
Pentecost of the Church? There’s a story of evangelism and worship!
Spirit
inspiration can come from the outside, beyond the control of the leader. This
intervention is harder to discern, and by my limited experience, appears to
happen when such is the only route left to God’s Spirit. Yet a love-based
reception of such providence produces blessings for the entire community.
The
Spirit’s inspiration comes in different ways in different contexts. This poses
problems for those who cling to the goal of “doing it right.” They might look
at things differently holy as exotic, quaint, alternative, or “not quite
Lutheran.” Without a receptiveness to God’s creativity, we classify. We come
dangerously close to nonsense when we compare ourselves to one another rather
than to God’s standard, Christ (2 Corinthians 10:12).
May
we never allow ourselves to be divided by our congregate worship of the one
God! May we grow and prosper in God’s wisdom and light. May God’s sheep in our
care grow fat from feasting upon the good things of God, that, even when shorn,
they are seen to be sleek and well fed. May such be our record as shepherds and
leaders.
Inez Torres Davis
Executive
Director, Lutheran Congregations for Career Development
Member of Good
Shepherd, Oak Park