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Author: Teddy Ray
What kind of worship service do you have?
I’ve been asked the question a number of times. “What kind of worship does your church do?” Sometimes the question is a bit more specific: “Do you do contemporary or traditional worship?” Several church signs I drive by indicate the times of their traditional, contemporary, and perhaps blended worship services. The most hip are now doing contemporvant.
It seems that the most important question anyone has about worship is whether the music is led by a band or a choir. I know that people have stylistic preferences. In honesty, I have my own. But I think other aspects of our worship are much more interesting and important.
Changing the Conversation
I’d like to change the conversation when it comes to what kind of worship we do. In fact, when people ask me the question, I tell them, “We do Word and Table worship.” That’s usually followed by a strange look. People aren’t used to descriptions of worship that have to do with its primary substance. But this is the best description I can give. In fact, it is the only description of our worship I can give and know will remain true.
Every week, we hear the Word of God. Week after week it comes to us to guide, rebuke, encourage, or correct. And every week, we come to the Table to commemorate Christ’s sacrificial death, participate in his body and blood, and receive the spiritual strengthening to do His will. Word and Table — these are the essentials of our worship and nothing else.
When some people in our community have asked how I describe our worship, I ask them, “Which would be more shocking to you: if a piano and choir were to lead our music one week, or if we were to simply sing, preach, and then give a benediction?” I suspect that I might not get a single question if we were to use the piano and choir. But if we didn’t come to the Table one week, I expect that the majority would be confused, disappointed, and perhaps distressed.
I expect the same would happen if we chose to have a reading and message from Aesop’s Fables rather than from the Word one week. How, then, is our worship defined? By the Word and the Table. Everything else may change, but these will always remain.
Hearing from Many Streams
Since the question about what kind of worship we do typically has to do with music – and sometimes other liturgical elements (i.e. whether we say any creeds, use drama, etc.) – I’d like to say a brief word on these elements of our worship. In most of my community’s worship services, a band leads the music. This does not mean that we sing exclusively – or even primarily – praise choruses written in the past ten years. We sing Appalachian spirituals, praise choruses, hymns, and Black gospel songs. We have chanted psalms and have even danced (or at least moved around a little) to African praise songs.
This variety is important to us. We believe Christians from many different places, times, and streams of influence have contributed something important. If we limit ourselves to one particular stream and style, we are likely to miss the great perspectives that have come from so many others.
I hope to embrace that same mentality when it comes to other elements of worship. We have a number of excellent elements to choose from as we worship each week – creeds, prayers, greetings and collects, drama and dance – and we would be remiss to neglect any of these. We do not consider any of these essential to our weekly worship – only Word and Table hold that distinction. So we don’t necessarily recite the Apostles’ Creed or say the Lord’s Prayer every week, but we make sure to incorporate these into our worship throughout different times of the year. The weekly presence or absence of any of these elements has also been a point of controversy in some churches, and I would again encourage us to focus on more important matters.
Let’s leave behind the battles about musical styles or secondary elements. Honestly, if you will only attend a worship service that uses a [insert instrument of choice], I would challenge you to re-consider your priorities in worship. If we contend for anything, let’s contend for the content of Word and Table in all of our worship, then embrace all of the great variety the Christian tradition has to offer when it comes to the other elements.
Why we’re teaching our kids a catechism
I can still remember my parents reading to me from a children’s Bible before I was old enough to read. (For some reason, it’s the Tower of Babel story that sticks out in my head.) And I can remember kneeling on the floor with them and praying before bedtime. I don’t know just how routine these activities were, but they happened often enough to burn into my brain as some of my earliest childhood memories. Of all the gifts my parents have given me, the best and most important has been the foundation and example in the faith that they gave me. The best children’s ministry in town is in your living room. I hope this week’s posts might inspire parents and church leaders toward the same focus.
As part of our Family Worship, we are teaching our kids a catechism. I promised I’d explain why.
1. Bible stories are not enough.
Yes, I said it. For all of us – and even more for children – I believe that we cannot depend on Bible stories alone for an understanding of Christian faith. Since the early days of the Christian movement, we have had canon and creed (i.e. the Bible and various creeds or rules of faith). I’ll write something more in-depth on this topic in the future. For now, let me explain particularly with children in mind…
A catechism gives our kids a lens for looking at the Bible. It gives them the big picture – as brilliant theologians for thousands of years have understood it – and helps them to see where the big ideas show up in the individual stories. So when Adam and Eve hide from God, I ask my kids if God could still see them, and they say yes. When I ask why, they say, “Because God is everywhere!”
By teaching your kids basic theology, you’re enabling them to read Scripture in a better, deeper way. Walk through a garden with a trained gardener and you’ll see the difference in how you each look at it. The same is true for Scripture.
This certainly isn’t to say that children can’t learn theology by reading the Bible. That’s called learning inductively (from particular stories to general theology). It’s great and important! A catechism helps them to apply deductive learning (from general to particular) to the stories, as well. The Bible stories give them the trees; the catechism gives them the forest.
2. A catechism is great devotional material.
Sometimes I’ll lay in bed with one of my kids and ask, “Who made you?” They answer, “God!” I ask, “And what’s the character of God?” They answer, “God is love!” And then we talk about how God made them and how much God loves them.
As we get a little more sophisticated, I can ask, “Was mankind created good?” And my daughter will answer, “They were; God created mankind in his own image, male and female he created them.” When I ask her what that image of God included, she says, “Being like God in true righteousness and holiness.” Then we talk about how God created her GOOD (as opposed to any other messages the world may try to give her)! And that God created her to be righteous and holy. Big words at this point, but ones that I want to help her understand and live. Those two questions should be fodder for talks for a number of years.
3. A catechism is theology and Scripture my kids will have memorized for the rest of their lives.
Do you have the pledge of allegiance memorized? Could you imagine forgetting it? My guess is that you have it engrained permanently. We think the same will happen with this catechism. It’s being implanted in our kids’ minds and hearts. What better to have implanted?
This again shows why Bible stories aren’t enough. At the end of the day, I would rather my kids remember “the Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love,” than the story of Jonah and the big fish. And by memorizing the catechism, they are primarily memorizing Scripture. The quote I just gave is Psalm 103:8.
Spend some time searching and you should find a variety of catechisms out there. Two friends and I updated and revised an old catechism for use in our families and church, and it was recently published by Asbury Seedbed as Echo: A Catechism for Discipleship in the Ancient Christian Tradition. It has 98 questions and answers, in addition to The Apostles’ Creed, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord’s Prayer. I’m obviously partial to it, but there are many options out there.
What thoughts or questions do you have about using a catechism to teach the faith?
teddy ray 