I bump into folks on a regular basis who think that communal worship is an entirely optional part of our faith experience. Its like sauce for ice cream or gravy for potatoes. Not required and even superfluous. Some of the reasons cited include the following:
“I like to do my own thing.”
“I don’t like the whole ‘following a script’ or that unison stuff.”
“It feels artificial.”
As you can see, these objections hardly qualify as reasons. They simply boil down to personal preference and a refusal of the very biblical discipline of Submission. Our culture has introduced into the Christian faith the idea that our faith experience is to be a private one. Its all about “me and Jesus.” This is hardly the case. The Bible mostly reflects a collective experience of worship, and so much is missed when there is no collective worship in the lives of the faithful.
Consider Psalm 136. This Psalm was designed for collective worship. The crowds were gathered for the Passover festival. They came to the temple by God’s command, as a group to celebrate and remember what God had done to redeem the people of Israel from the hand of the Egyptians.
God commanded that the people of Israel would come together for celebration on more than one occasion each year. One was the feast of Pentecost, when the people gathered to remember Moses coming down from the Mountain. Another was the festival of Tabernacles, when the people of Israel were called to come together and celebrate God’s deliverance, as well as to remember their time in the wilderness.
Are we catching a theme here? Certainly! God felt that collective worship and remembrance was important enough that He institutionalized it. When we are called together to worship we remember the things that are most important. If we refuse that opportunity, what is there to call us back to the most important things?
Psalm 136 is referred to as the “Great Hallel.” Hallel means “Praise God.” It is sung at the end of Passover. The Priest leads the worship in this Psalm which David wrote for community worship. And David certainly did know a thing or two about real worship! The Priest leads, by saying one line, and the crowd responds: “For his love endures forever.” Through the course of the Psalm, the singer calls out the remembrances of what God has done for praise and thanksgiving, and the crowd responds, with “That’s our God’s everlasting covenant love for us!”
What is it that they are celebrating God’s covenant love about? Firstly that He is a good God, who is the God of gods (1-3). Second for His creative power revealed in the creation (4-9). Third, for His acts of deliverance from bondage to Egypt (10-16). Next they thank Him for what He did in giving them the land of Canaan (17-22). They close with remembering His mercy (23-25).
All good reasons to be thankful! And these things were not dusty truths that were tedious to remember! Remember, David wrote these things about 400 years after they happened. The people of Israel collected this Psalm into the Psalter sometime after the exile. They did not feel that this was dusty, a barrier to real fellowship with God. And in Jesus’ day, they were still singing it! They did not feel bound by an empty practice, or that it was artificial! David and the people of Israel all knew how important it was to remind people of what God had done in providing deliverance. They knew it was important to continue to celebrate those acts, lest they be forgotten, and lest the people become ungrateful.
So remember that the next time you go to church, and you hear about the gospel...AGAIN. And you sing that old dusty hymn...AGAIN. And you hear about Jesus on the cross...AGAIN. And you have to do the Lord’s supper, or say the Lord’s prayer...AGAIN, AGAIN, AGAIN. Remember, as you submit yourself to these practices, your mind should be moved toward gratitude for what God has done. As a group your congregation calls you back to what's most important. It calls you out of what's bringing you down, to remind you that there are eternal truths. Collective worship reminds us that God is still God, worthy of praise, no matter what our personal experience might be.
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