The Very Rev Albert Bogle explains why public worship needs to be transformed and placed at the heart of the Church.
Photo: iStock
A NEW year dawns and there are so many imponderables that face us as individuals but also as citizens of the world.
Add to this the uncertainty that some within the family of the church feel about the future of their congregations and it would be easy to become despondent.
One way to counteract this despondency is to understand the significant role worship can play in healing our communities and to invest time and energy into additional worshipping opportunities and experiences. Finding alternative ways to introduce worship to a wider public should be our priority as a church.
The Gospel is the story of how ‘outsiders’ can become ‘insiders’.
Perhaps this is the reason why in the parable Jesus told of the wheat and the tares, the farmer advised his workers to let both grow together until harvest. The implication being, it is too easy to mistake a fruitful plant for a weed while it is still growing to maturity.
When Christian communities and individuals begin to believe that God has conversations with sinners who may also become saints, then perhaps we are beginning to recognise the magnitude of the magnanimous grace of God. When this penny drops, we start to see the church in a different light. Scripture doesn’t say: “For God so loved the (Church), that he gave his only Son.” It is the world that God loves.
Making connections within a multiculturally diverse Scotland calls for congregations to be willing to become the conduit through which communities and individuals are transformed.
I believe worship is the key to the transition from fear to faith.
I’m suggesting we need a radical re-appraisal of our expectation and understanding of the mechanics and purpose of worship.
We need to make space for transformation to begin.
We have not made public worship the core of our daily activities, nor the focus of our budgets or enthusiasm. It often looks to the outsider that it is the worship of our buildings, rather than their use that has been focused in our budgets. We have placed too little emphasis on how we create within our buildings a sense of the sacred for all.
When it comes to the weekly diet of worship we may have employed a person to lead worship but too often the format and liturgy and timing is too predictable and restrictive.
The worshipper is considered to be a consumer rather than a producer.
The world around us has changed: passive participation is no longer the order of the day. A generation has arisen globally with an interesting perspective on the importance of the creative arts, this has been further encouraged by the use of technology to create new art forms often centred around digital participation.
To create vibrant spiritual communities we required to have a flexibility in our approach to participation in our structures and liturgies. The Shorter Catechism in summary states the purpose of being human is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
In other words it is because we believe worship is part of the DNA of a human being, it is a human being’s right to have a place to worship in their local community.
Could it be such a place of worship is already in our hands in the form of a smartphone?
It is now up to us as a national church to begin to invest in what it means to deliver an authentic worship experience to a seeker on the world wide web.
This article is a summary of a much larger series of articles that form part of my blog on Sanctuary First (
www.sanctuaryfirst.org.uk)