Weaving Work-Truth into Church Life (Part Two)

Why so little Sunday talk about weekday work? What’s behind the silence? Part One set the stage for a series on specific ways to bring work-truth into congregational meetings. The first step involves dealing with a viewpoint that can block the work topic from the Sunday agenda. What is this idea that stops such talk?

Visualize your next full-church meeting. What will people see as their purpose for getting together? How does your church leadership explain the reason for gathering? I ask this, because our purpose (or the lack of it) shapes everything we do. If I go into my garage intending to change the oil in my car, I’ll find a wrench and a drain pan. But if I mean to build a bookshelf, I’ll roll out my table saw and some sandpaper. Purpose steers my every action. It’s no different when it comes to church. How we answer the “Why meet?” question determines what does or does not take place on Sundays.

Do We Really Know Why We Should Meet?

As much as churches differ, virtually all seem to agree that the purpose for assembling is . . . to worship. So we have worship services, worship pastors, worship centers, worship teams, worship music, and worship leaders. There’s even worship software! Countless Christians equate worship with the songfest just before the sermon. Others see worship as a feeling of adoration or reverence for God.

If we define worship in those ways, and if we see worship as our purpose for gathering, what will the meeting agenda include? Praise music will fill a good bit of the time. A Bible message that inspires us to exalt God in our hearts, thoughts, and conduct will take most of the remaining minutes. Both good. But any talk about work—that earth-and-money-related thing we do on weekdays—will have a hard time finding its way in. After all, what does work have to do with those conceptions of worship?

But what if this almost-universal idea of why we gather—worship—differs from that which the New Testament teaches? What if worship, while not excluded, is not the main reason to meet with other Christ-followers? Is this farfetched? Some kind of heresy? Plenty of Bible scholars who have studied the New Testament on this subject say otherwise.

The New Testament Perspective on Gathering

In his book, Paul’s Idea of Community, Robert Banks, an Australian theologian and author, says this: “One of the most puzzling features of Paul’s understanding of ekklesia for his contemporaries, whether Jews or Gentiles, must have been his failure to say that a person went to church primarily to ‘worship.’ Not once in all his writings does he suggest that this is the case. Indeed it could not be, for he held a view of ‘worship’ that prevented him from doing so. . . . Since all places and times have now become the venue for worship, Paul cannot speak of Christians assembling in the church distinctively for this purpose.”

The late I. Howard Marshall served as Professor Emeritus of New Testament Exegesis at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. In his paper, “How Far Did the Early Christians Worship God?” he investigates the “Why gather?” question. After studying the relevant New Testament passages, he wrote: “It is simply not the case that the purpose of Christian meetings was understood as being primarily and directly worship, homage and adoration addressed to God. To speak of a Christian meeting as being ‘a service of worship’ with the implication that everything which takes place must somehow be related directly to this primary purpose is to depart seriously from the NT pattern.”

Why, Then, Should we Gather as Believers?

So—if not worship—what is the New Testament reason for Christians to meet? Banks says: “The purpose of church is the growth and edification [building up] of its members into Christ and into a common life through their God-given ministry to one another.” Marshall agrees: “We are greatly hampered by the one-man ministry which is still so common. Somehow we need to give the individual members of the congregation the opportunity to exercise the gifts of the Spirit, to receive from one another and to show love to one another.”

What Banks and Marshall are saying echoes the purpose of the participatory church meeting Paul describes in I Cor. 14. All that is done should be for “the strengthening of the church” and so that “everyone may be instructed and encouraged.” In Heb. 10:24, 25, the writer—in urging believers not to skip their meetings—tells why they need to gather: so that they may “spur one another on toward love and good works,” and so that they may “encourage one another.”

Strengthening. Instructing. Encouraging. Spurring on. Gathering should be all about one-anothering in love—the very essence of Jesus’ new command in Jn. 13:34. When we discover and adopt the New Testament reason for our meetings, the agenda door will swing open so that work-truth may enter. As pictured in the graphic, we ought to worship in all we do, 24/7—and, yes, when we assemble as well.

Suppose we try to squeeze worship into the weekly meeting with other believers—or (smaller yet) into the time of singing with them? Then our undersized concept of worship will leave no room for something as seemingly “unspiritual” as our daily work. But what if a church structures its meetings to cultivate mutual up-building in all areas of life? What possibilities might that open up for workplace equipping?

Meeting Formats Can Encourage Mutual Up-Building.

In a meeting format that allows it, those with decades of experience in various workplaces can share how God uses them as light and salt there. Those with gifts of teaching can open up the richness of what the Bible says about our everyday work. And newbies to the work world can ask questions that stimulate others to help them prepare for the places to which God will send them to represent his Kingdom during the bulk of their waking hours.

Imagine the dialogue emerging out of that kind of mutual encouragement from the Scriptures and from the testimonies of those seeing God move in the whole lives of fellow Christians. It could cause those present to suck in their breath in awe as they realize what his Spirit is doing through ordinary people in their daily activities, including their work. In this way real—not artificially stimulated—worship would arise from the assembly to the glory of God.

The body of Christ includes a variety of members with diverse callings and gifts. When those members assemble, they must have the opportunity to cross-enrich each other. As Paul puts it in Eph. 4:16, the whole body “grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.” When it understands the New Testament purpose for gathering, the church can aim for each-othering.

A shared-church meeting welcomes all of God’s truth—including his truth about work.

Gathered Church with Many Voices

Several authors have called for a return to what I call “shared church.” But their books don’t appear on best-seller lists, and few Christ-followers know about them. This blog series will introduce some of those writers and their books.

“Churches have structured for passivity!”

With this quotation Anne Wilkinson-Hayes opens her Foreword to The Power of All: Building a Multivoiced Church, by British authors, Sian and Stuart Murray Williams.

Multivoiced, of course, contrasts sharply with monovoiced where one person—typically a pastor—does nearly all the speaking on a Sunday morning. As the Williams explain, “Multivoiced church is an alternative to the dominant tradition in which large numbers of the Christian community are passive consumers instead of active participants.”

Most contemporary Christians have never experienced multivoiced church. So the book’s eight chapters describe what that looks like in today’s Western culture. “Mulltvoiced church matters,” contend the Williams, “because it is the biblical pattern, however much cultural influences and prevailing church practices have obscured this over the centuries.”

Multivoiced Church is Biblical

In a fast-paced overview, the Williams recount the New Testament basis for meeting in a multivoiced context. It all began on the Day of Pentecost, with many people in various languages “declaring the wonders of God” (Acts 2:11). In his brief message, Peter explained that the outpouring of the Spirit meant that “all” would speak. The authors then trace the multivoiced nature of the Church in the remainder of Acts, on into the Church at Corinth, and throughout the rest of the New Testament.

They also point out that “Jesus rarely preaches a sermon.” Instead, he “devises parables, tells stories, asks questions (but rarely answers them), teaches through symbolic actions, engages people in conversation, invites others to interpret Scripture, and presents those who listen to him with enigmatic sayings that require them to wrestle with their meaning.”

Multivoiced Worship

One whole chapter explains multivoiced worship. “It simply means that when God’s people gather, our corporate worship is expressed by many people and in many formats, tones, and accents.” The chapter is peppered with accounts from various churches. In one, gatherings allow 20 minutes or more in which people, using microphones from where they are seated, tell how they have or have not experienced God during the week. “There is no room to hide,” say the Williams, “as there is in monovoiced churches, behind a few spiritual superstars.”

Multivoiced Learning

The Williams devote another whole chapter to multivoiced learning. They make it clear that they value sermons—and often preach them. But they argue that monologue sermons are out of step with the way people communicate today: “Nowhere else does one person speak at length to a silent and passive audience that has no expectation or opportunity of engaging with the speaker.” This, however, is not a capitulation to contemporary culture. In first-century churches, dialogue was the norm. “Sermon” and “homily” come from Latin and Greek terms that mean conversation.

Multivoiced learning, the Williams write, rests on three underlying bases. It is “learner oriented,” “multivoiced” (participatory), and “open-ended.” Those principles unfold in the following practices:

• Pausing to reflect

• Discussing and responding

• Providing space for comments

• Inviting interruptions

• Living in the Word

• Preparing sermons jointly

Multivoiced Community

Multivoiced practices not only foster learning, they also build community. The dozens of one-another/each-other passages show that Jesus and the New Testament writers expected many voices to contribute to church life. “What we have here,” say the Williams, “is the persistent rhythm and heartbeat of multivoiced community. . . . What multivoiced churches need are leaders who can broker and encouraging one-anothering.” In this kind of community, real friendships—not merely the superficial “fellowship” that too often fills the gap—can develop and thrive.

Community nurtures two more benefits: “discerning and deciding.” The Williams summarize three traditional church-governing patterns—the episcopal, congregational, and presbyteral—and explain the strengths and weaknesses of each. They list a half-dozen techniques multivoiced churches have used to reach their decisions as a body.

Multivoiced Church Leadership

What role do leaders play in discerning and deciding? “The task of those with leadership responsibilities is neither to dominate nor to abdicate, but to facilitate. Encouraging those with valuable insights who are reticent to speak, noticing those who might otherwise be marginalized, challenging those who respond ungraciously to others, reminding those who speak a lot that listening is even more important, judging when it is time to move from discerning to deciding, summarizing the conversation and drawing out the salient points, making sure everyone knows what decision has been made and why, helping the community reflect on the process and learn from it—providing leadership for multivoiced discerning and deciding is multifaceted and demanding.”

Con: the Case Against

In their final chapter, the Williams set forth several reasons churches might not want to adopt a multivoiced model. Tradition: the Church has practiced monovoiced gatherings for centuries. Difficulty: multivoiced church is hard to keep up over time. Schedules: it demands too much time from busy people and church leaders. Capability: few church leaders have the training, ability, or motivation for it. Immaturity: those in the church, so their leaders think, don’t have what it would take.

Pro: the Case For

But the Williams urge that, despite these obstacles, churches should move forward into multivoiced mode, because it:

• Represents “the biblical norm.”

• Has been the path on which the Holy Spirit has led many historic “renewal movements.”

• Works against a monopolizing clergy, pastoral exhaustion, and “abusive leadership.”

• Encourages Christians to learn the Bible and theology well enough to carry out their life roles.

• Unlocks spiritual gifts for the benefit of all.

• Develops grownup learners instead of immature, passive dependents.

• Contributes to “the emergence of missional churches in post-Christendom societies. . . . Most people in our society are much more likely to encounter individual Christians in the places in which they live, work, and relax than they are to respond to invitations to participate in church-run activities. . . . The skills we learn in multivoiced churches are transferable to other spheres of life.”

In The Power of All, the Williams recognize the obstacles that stand in the way of participatory church gatherings. But they write with the “hope . . . that setting alongside each other arguments for and against multivoiced church will clarify the issue and ensure that those who choose to embrace multivoiced practice will be under no illusions about what may be involved.”

Why Do We Gather as Christians? (Part One)

True or false: “The New Testament reason for meeting with other Christians is to worship God.”

If you said true, your answer lines up with what most of us have been taught. One website, which suggests how to speak to children about church, begins with: “People go to church to worship God.” We call our main congregational meetings “worship services.” In those meetings we sing “worship songs,” led by “worship leaders” in charge of “worship teams.” Sometimes we call church buildings “worship centers.”

I know it is not RC (religiously correct) to question the nearly universal idea that gathering with other believers is all about worship. So please grant me a little grace as I ask you to examine the evidence for this rarely questioned conviction.

Right off, I’ll reveal my assumed starting-point. I believe Scripture is our only rule for faith and practice. Faith involves what we believe—truths such as the deity of Christ, salvation by grace through faith in Jesus, his bodily resurrection, and so on. Practice involves what we do, including how we meet with other Christians. I am assuming the New Testament, not church traditions, should have the last word on why we assemble.

Check It Out

What is “worship”? In the New Testament, the Greek words for worship of God all reflect attitudes and actions directed toward him. Duties carried out toward God. Esteem and reverence directed toward him. Obedience and service oriented toward God. Bowing down toward God. In short, in worship, we aim our attention in a God-ward direction. Think of a single arrow pointing upward from us to God.

If you have a complete concordance, trace the uses of “worship/worshiped/worshiping” in the New Testament. You’ll find that, together, those English words appear about 70 times (NIV version). Yet you will not find those words used in contexts that speak about what we Christians do in our regular gatherings.

Yes, in Acts 13:2, while fasting and praying, a group of prophets and teachers were “worshiping.” Not so much a church gathering as a prayer meeting among church leaders. And in I Cor. 14:25, Paul says an unbeliever, after hearing gathered Christians prophesy, might be led to “worship” God. Here, an unbeliever—not believers—is worshiping. Neither text describes what typically goes on in church meetings. But this is about as close as the New Testament comes in connecting the word “worship” with Christian assemblies.

By contrast, a great many verses describe worship as taking place not in church gatherings but by individuals in other settings. The Magi, upon seeing baby Jesus, worshiped (Matt. 2:11-12). Anna, presumably by herself in the Temple, worshiped (Lk. 2:37). The disciples worshiped Jesus in a boat (Matt. 14:33). As they hurried away from his empty tomb, the two Marys worshiped Jesus (Matt. 28:>9). The man born blind worshiped Jesus (Jn. 9:38). And so on. These are not what we call “corporate worship” occasions.

Others Agree

After a study of all the Greek words translated as “worship” in the New Testament, the late I. Howard Marshall (well-respected as a New Testament scholar) says: “It is a mistake to regard the main or indeed the only purpose of Christian meetings as being the worship of God.” (See "How Far Did the Early Christians Worship God?")

And in Paul’s Idea of Community, Robert Banks writes, “One of the most puzzling features of Paul’s understanding of ekklesia [assembled church] for his contemporaries, whether Jews or Gentiles, must have been his failure to say that a person went to church primarily to ‘worship.’ Not once in all his writings does he suggest that this is the case.”

Then Why Should Christians Gather?

The New Testament leaves no question that we believers should meet. But why? If not to worship, what should be our main purpose for getting together? Think of it this way: you and I are to worship anywhere and everywhere—all alone, with our families, in our workplaces, and in our church gatherings. In other words, worship can rise to God even when no one else is around.  

But time after time the New Testament calls us to do something we simply cannot do by ourselves: one-anothering. In his new commandment, Jesus calls us to “love one another” in the way he has loved us (Jn. 13:34). These words became the seed from which the dozens upon dozens of New Testament one-another/each-other instructions grew.

For example, the two one-anothers in Hebrews 10:24-25 explain why we should never stop meeting together: “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Getting together lets us see and hear each other. This  creates the setting in which we may spur on and encourage each other.

This focus on one-anothering when we meet, although in different words, shows up in I Cor. 14:26: “When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church.” Each of us has been given one or more gifts to use in building each other up. The New Testament term “fellowship” is a one-anothering word. The church is a body made up of mutually-supportive members. It is a family whose members huddle to help each other. This is shared church.

(Part Two will explore why the single-arrow model does not reflect the gathered-church picture seen in the New Testament. It will also ask, “Why Does Our Purpose for Gathering Matter?”)