worship together

I couldn’t “enjoy” the Good Friday service last night because I was busy explaining things to my younger kids and making sure they weren’t too noisy. And I suppose my kids and the other kids in the service were a little distracting to the adults present who didn’t have kids.

But what’s the purpose of corporate worship, especially during Holy Week? Worship isn’t merely about me having a “worship experience”. It’s about all of us, as a church community, re-telling, re-living, and re-creating the gospel, the good news that is epitomized in the events of Holy Week as we remember Jesus’ teaching us to love each other, suffering and dying for the redemption of the world, and becoming the firstfruits of the resurrection.

I’m not saying that there isn’t a time for quiet reflection in worship and that kids should be allowed to run wild during worship services. But the worship life of the church community should not be exclusively “adults only”. As Jesus said to the disapproving Pharisees on the first Palm Sunday, if the kids aren’t allowed to make some noise then the very rocks will cry out. Corporate worship is the response of the church community to God’s work in our world and in us. And it shapes us as a community (including our children), as well as shaping me as an individual.

How do I measure a “successful” worship service? By how deeply I am moved? Or how engaged my kids are? If that’s the case, then I’m probably looking at each worship service as an event in itself and as a kind of baptized entertainment venue. I’m guilty of using the same standards to measure worship as I use to measure a movie. And I’m becoming a critic instead of a participant.

Worship throughout the Christian year sets the rhythms of our life together as a family and as a church community, and shapes our identity as the people of God. So I was glad to see so many of Grace’s families attending the Good Friday service together. As parents brought their children up to the communion stations, some parents were just accompanied by their younger children while others were explaining and then administering the communion to their older children. I’m sure the kids would rather be watching cartoons or playing video games. And the parents couldn’t have a time of deep individual reflection. But it was still a holy moment. Because if we as a church community aren’t becoming more deeply the people of God, then eventually all that will be left to praise God will be the stones.