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Home > Resources > PublicationsA More Profound Alleluia: Theology and Worship in Harmony (Eerdmans, 2005)
Worship Observation Exercise
CHAPTER 1
TRINITY. p. 2 "In this way of thinking, God is not only the One before us, "up there" to receive our praise. God is also "alongside us" in the person of Jesus, perfecting our otherwise imperfect songs and prayers. God is also at work "within us," prodding us, prompting us, encouraging us, and even-when we are unable to pray-praying through us (Rom. 8:26)."
• How does this service depict God? In what "place" does it imply God dwells?
CALL TO WORSHIP. p. 11 "In many Christian traditions, the first words spoken convey God's invitation to worship (a call to worship) or announcement of God's active presence. This reinforces the theological assertion that God always comes to us before we come to God. Thus, it is fitting for worship to begin with scriptural words that convey God's greeting to us (historically referred to in some traditions as the "salutation")."
• In what way does the opening of the service you attend do this? If it doesn't do this, how could a simple adaptation help it to do this?
TIME. p. 15 "Trinitarian worship is full of references to time, past, present, and future. One way of thinking about the controversy over the doctrine of the Trinity in the fourth and fifth centuries is to think of it as a controversy about how historical and concrete divine life could be. The doctrine of the Trinity makes a fundamental choice about how to speak about God's relationship to the world and to history. Arians and Deists of all times posit a god removed from history. Trinitarians posit a God who acts within history."
• In what way does the service you attend do this? If it doesn't do this, how could a simple adaptation help it to do this?
RELATIONSHIPS. p. 23 "Christian worship is one arena where a trinitarian vision for the church is most tangibly expressed. Worship reflects, embodies, and enacts a rich tapestry of relationships. Like concentric circles, the relationships flow out first from those between Jesus and the Father in the Spirit, then to the relationships between the Triune God and God's people, and then to the relationships between the members of Christ's Body through our life in the Spirit. At its best, Christian liturgy embodies the mutuality and koinonia of a trinitarian ecclesiology.
• In what way does the service you attend do this? If it doesn't do this, how could a simple adaptation help it to do this?
CHAPTER 2
CONFESSION. p. 36 "The practice of confession then is a continuing recognition that by our own strength we are unable to come before God in worship. The prayer of confession is both an acknowledgement of sin as well as a recognition of the grace of God that has already been expressed in Christ's death, and the victory over sin that has already been achieved through his death and resurrection. In the prayer of confession, we acknowledge both our guilt and our gratitude at one and the same time. We are both humble in our recognition that we do not deserve to be in the presence of almighty God and yet deeply at home with our loving Father."
• In what way does the service you attend do this? If it doesn't do this, how could a simple adaptation help it to do this?
STRUCTURAL SIN. p. 38 "These broader perspectives allow theologians to focus not only on discrete personal sins but also on social sins and structural sins, not only on doing what is wrong, but on failing to do what is right. Sin in all its multiple and insidious forms not only infects our individual lives, but disrupts community, deforms institutions and even damages the creation itself."
• In what way does the service you attend do this? If it doesn't do this, how could a simple adaptation help it to do this?
PASSING OF THE PEACE. p. 49 I am often struck by the fact that, though I frequently do not feel like greeting people, the very act of doing so reminds me of my relationship to them and of our mutual responsibilities. And carrying out this act frequently brings with it feelings of love and unity. Here we model God's action in which he reached out and embraced us in Christ and calls us to the ministry of reconciliation. We embrace each other on behalf of God.
• In what way does the service you attend do this? If it doesn't do this, how could a simple adaptation help it to do this?
CHAPTER 3
SCRIPTURE READING. p. 67 "But Scripture does not just remain in the pew racks in the worship service. It is read. It is read aloud. Here, we make a rather startling claim: when Scripture is read in gathered worship, Christ is presented to the community of believers. This rather simple affirmation has profound implications for the worship service. At the very least, it implies that the reading of Scripture ought to be done with preparation and care. Haphazard or careless reading of the Scripture text is inappropriate. Reading in a false and pretentious voice is unfitting. A clear and well-delivered reading presents no barriers either to the people's hearing or the work of the Holy Spirit."
• In what way does the service you attend do this? If it doesn't do this, how could a simple adaptation help it to do this?
SERMON. p. 71 "The sermon is the word of God that presents Jesus Christ in the worship service by the power of the Holy Spirit."
• In what way does the service you attend do this? If it doesn't do this, how could a simple adaptation help it to do this?
CHAPTER 4
CREED. p. 89 "The crucial point is exactly this: the Creed is not the possession of any single individual; it belongs to the church catholic, to the covenanted community, called and chosen at God's initiative. "It's our creed." As individuals, any one of us would likely choose to articulate the doctrinal content of our faith in words that are particularly appropriate to us. We would choose words that express our experience, our history, our particular ways of speaking. But when the church is summoned to rise and profess its common faith, it does so not in a cacophony of simultaneous personal testimonies, but in words that belong to the community of saints, including both the living and the dead."
• In what way does the service you attend do this? If it doesn't do this, how could a simple adaptation help it to do this?
LAMENT. p. 100 "Daniel Migliore and Kathleen Billman, in their book Rachel's Cry; Prayer of Lament and Rebirth of Hope note that prayers of lament are often not given room in the worship service. "As a result, instead of providing space for protest and grief, what churches often offer are worship services that are 'unrelentingly positive in tone.' " Billman and Migliore are convinced that the biblical tradition of the psalms of lament and other prayers of lament in scripture can lead Christian believers today back to a more whole and balanced expression of Christian faith. The prayers of lament have been "exiled" from much contemporary Christian worship. It is time to bring lament back into the worship service."
• In what way does the service you attend do this? If it doesn't do this, how could a simple adaptation help it to do this?
CHAPTER 5
MEMORY AND HOPE. p. 112 Clearly, the eucharist is rooted in the memory of something that happened in the past. Gathered around a table, we remember the one who ate and drank with sinners and who broke bread with his disciples on the night of his arrest. The eucharist is also, however, about something that we anticipate. The prayer that tells the story of Jesus' actions two thousand years ago goes on to call on the Holy Spirit to sanctify this meal here and now and turn us to the future when we shall all sit at table together in the kingdom of God.
• In what way does the service you attend do this? If it doesn't do this, how could a simple adaptation help it to do this?
COMMUNITY. p. 116 Another feature that emerges when eschatology is considered in light of the eucharist is that God's future includes people gathered in community, not individuals eating alone. In biblical accounts, meals are not individual, but by nature communal events. To "break bread" is to share food and drink with others, not to warm up something in the microwave and eat it alone in front of "Seinfeld" reruns.
• In what way does the service you attend do this? If it doesn't do this, how could a simple adaptation help it to do this?
PHYSICALITY. p. 118 In the eucharist, we are dealing with physical realities that involve our bodies; we are fed with loaf and cup. As Lawrence Stookey says, "to remember (at the table) was to do something not to think about something."
• In what way does the service you attend do this? If it doesn't do this, how could a simple adaptation help it to do this?
CHAPTER 6
FORMATION. p. 145 Entering into the prayers of the people opens us to the needs of others and habituates us into the activity of being a mediator or intercessor for others. It can develop our empathy for those in pain. Praying for persons and peoples labeled as our enemies changes us by calling into question the way we easily demonize people, groups or countries.
• In what way does the service you attend do this? If it doesn't do this, how could a simple adaptation help it to do this?
LITURGY'S CENTRIFUGAL FORCE. p. 149 Does this way of ending the service reflect a "centrifugal" understanding of the relationship of liturgy to the rest of life?
• In what way does the service you attend do this? If it doesn't do this, how could a simple adaptation help it to do this?