1 Timothy 3:14-15
14 I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, 15 if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.
Suppose that on Monday morning, you strike up a conversation with Andrew, a Christian coworker of yours. The topic of churches comes up, and you inquire, “Andrew, what do you like about your church?” He replies, “Well, my church has a wonderful children’s program. The messages are always encouraging. And I love the worship.” You then ask, “what exactly about the worship do you enjoy?” He answers, “My goodness! We have an amazing worship band. They’re so talented and can play any style. They’re able to play a mix of hymns and contemporary songs, which allows our church to put on traditional and contemporary services. Members can choose either based on their preferences. For me, I prefer the contemporary service. The songs are appealing and help get me into a worshipful mood. You know, our worship leader actually went to Juilliard and toured with the band Third Day?”
There are many things worth highlighting about Andrew’s answer to a question about worship. For starters, he’s extremely impressed with the skill of his church’s worship band. He’s also pleased that people are able choose which gathering to attend based on their musical preferences. Moreover, he seems to rely on music to put him in a “worshipful mood” (whatever that means). Each of these observations would be worth its own Perspective article. Yet what I wish to highlight one aspect of his answer: when prompted by a question about worship, Andrew only speaks of music.
Is Andrew odd for this? Christian, what do you think of when you hear the word “worship”?
In particular, what immediately comes to mind when you consider your church’s corporate worship? My guess is that most evangelicals merely think of music. Consider churches you may have visited before. The “worship band” gets up to lead an opening song. Some person then walks on stage, gives some announcements, and then says something like, “before we move back into a time of worship, I’m going to lead us in prayer.” He prays, and then the band proceeds to lead the “time of worship.” Fifteen minutes later, a pastor delivers a thirty-minute message, followed by (you guessed it) more worship. Why is it that so many of us are inclined to reduce corporate worship solely to the musical portions of our services?
There are many reasons for this confusion. But perhaps the main reason is this: many of us equate worship with music because we have been trained––deliberately or subtly––that singing is the only way in which congregations participate in worship. However, on this point, Scripture is clear: corporate worship encompasses much more than music. In fact, every element of Christian worship involves the active participation of the entire congregation. This article will endeavor to show how the congregation has a role in everything that happens in the Sunday morning gathering.
The Role Of Every Member In Every Element Of Worship
We are helped in our understanding of corporate worship by appreciating what a church is. The apostle Peter says of the church in 1 Peter 2:5: “you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” According to Peter, Christians are stones. Together, they form a spiritual house which we call a local church. Every time a church gathers in the name of Jesus, the people are forming a habitation of praise––an environment of exultation that exists for the sole purpose of glorifying God. This is why Peter continues in verse 9, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
Such a vision for the church shatters any notion of performance in corporate worship. If every member is essential to what a church is, and if corporate worship is essential to church life, then every member is essential to corporate worship. Congregations are not audiences in worship, they are eager and active participants.
Let’s examine the congregation’s role in different elements of corporate worship.
The Congregation’s Role in Singing
Most of us intuitively recognize singing as a participatory part of worship. However, many Christians sadly refrain from entering into congregational singing. Perhaps they don’t like the songs, or maybe they think they’re bad singers. Such Christians would do well to read the four hundred-plus references to singing in Scripture. This includes fifty direct commands to sing. The largest book in the Bible is the Psalms, which is essentially a songbook. Moreover, the most quoted book in the New Testament is the Psalms. Evidently, it’s of paramount importance to God that his people––every last one of them––sing his praises.
The apostle Paul makes no exceptions when he says in Colossians 3, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” Singing is non-optional in the Christian life and corporate worship. Moreover, the only instrument referred to in New Testament worship is the human voice. It is God’s design that the local church’s music ministry be comprised of an untrained choir of blood-bought saints, also known as “the congregation.”
The Congregation’s Role in Prayer
A cursory reading of the New Testament reveals the priority of prayer in gathered worship (Acts 4:23–31, 1 Corinthians 11, 1 Timothy 2). We see churches pray together in one voice, and we also see individuals lead congregations in prayer. And we should do all this so as to edify or to build up the whole body (1 Corinthians 14). It’s worth acknowledging here what is happening when someone stands before a congregation to pray. Prayers of Confession, Pastoral Prayers, and Prayers of Thanksgiving are not spiritual performances. They are congregational cries to God. Christians don’t listen to prayers––they are led in prayer. When an individual leads a prayer in corporate worship, they speak as a mouthpiece for the congregation. Hence, their words demand the attention and affirmation of every saint.
The Congregation’s Role in Scripture Readings
Paul charged Timothy to devote himself to the public reading of Scripture. This was no empty exercise. Paul knew that active listening was one of the chief means of implanting truth into the hearts of congregations. In an age of high literacy, we moderns can forget that early believers studied the Bible chiefly by meditating on what they had memorized in the context of corporate gatherings. True Christians stand in awe of God’s Word. Today, Scripture readings should be attended with the same posture of David, who says in Psalm 19, “More to be desired are they [the Scriptures] than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.”
The Congregation’s Role in Preaching (Yes, Preaching!)
At least the congregation has a passive role in preaching, right? Wrong. Preaching is an active element of congregational worship. John Piper is right to define preaching as “expository exultation.”1 After all, Peter exhorts preachers to “speak as the oracles of God.” This means that when people hear true preaching, they are engaging with God. The preacher’s task is to facilitate fellowship between the congregation and the Lord. True preaching upholds Christ in such a way that the hearers meaningfully commune with the Almighty. In this way, preachers are simply instruments through which believers behold their God.
In Nehemiah 8, God’s people––after years of rebellion and neglect of Scripture––recommitted themselves to God’s Word. After Ezra and others expounded the Scriptures, Nehemiah 8:6 reads, “And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God. And all the people answered, ‘Amen, Amen,’ lifting up their hands; and they bowed their heads, and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground.” Notice how the people actively interacted with the Lord in the context of biblical exposition. And this was described as worship. How could it not? The people were engaging with God. Commenting on this text, Charles Simeon (1759–1836) asserted:
This was a deportment which became sinners in the presence of their God: they did not look to the creature, but to God, whose voice they heard, and whose authority they acknowledged, in every word that was spoken. What a contrast does this form with the manner in which the word of God is heard amongst us! How rarely do we find persons duly impressed with a sense of their obligation to God for giving them a revelation of his will! How rarely do men at this day look through the preacher unto God, and hear God speaking to them by the voice of his servants!
Consider that phrase “look through the preacher unto God.” Think of that the next time your pastor preaches! So much as the sermon is faithful to the Scriptures, you are communing with the living God.
The Congregation’s Role in Baptism and the Lord’s Supper
The congregation’s role in the sacraments (baptism and the Lord’s Supper) is tremendous, though perhaps it’s not obvious with regards to baptism. In an age of expressive individualism, Christians can tend to think baptism is merely about a new believer’s profession of faith: someone’s personal decision to express their allegiance to Christ. And they’re not wrong about this vertical element of baptism. But it’s only part of the story. There is a corporate dimension to baptism that’s far too easily dismissed. In baptism, the believer declares his union with Christ, and thereby, declares his union with Christ’s church. Therefore, baptism is best understood as an initiatory rite, an avenue of entrance into formal membership of a local church. The New Testament has no category for a Christian who’s not a part of a local body of believers. This means that when a congregation witnesses a baptism, they are formally welcoming that new Christian into their family. It should be a sweet occasion in which the whole church celebrates the goodness of God.
In the Lord’s Supper, Christians spiritually feast on the Lord Jesus Christ. This ordinance is intended to fuel the faith of saints. It’s important to appreciate that in communion, we don’t get a different or better Christ, but we may get the same Christ better. The personhood of Christ and the benefits of his sacrifice are made more vivid in the Lord’s table. On this point, the Scottish Presbyterian Robert Bruce (1554–1631) is especially helpful:
Therefore I say, we get no other thing in the Sacrament than we get in the Word. Content yourself with this. But if this is so, the Sacrament is not superfluous.
Would you understand then, what new thing you get, what other things you get? I will tell you. Even if you get the same thing which you get in the Word, yet you get that same thing better. What is this “better”? You get a better grip of the same thing in the Sacrament than you got by the hearing of the Word. That same thing which you possess by the hearing of the Word, you now possess more fully. God has more room in your soul, through your receiving of the Sacrament, than he could otherwise have by your hearing of the Word only. What then, you ask, is the new thing we get? We get Christ better than we did before. We get the thing which we had more fully, that is, with a surer apprehension than we had before. We get a better grip of Christ now, for by the Sacrament my faith is nourished, the bounds of my soul are enlarged, and so where I had but a little grip of Christ before, as it were, between my finger and my thumb, now I get him in my whole hand, and indeed the more my faith grows, the better grip I get of Christ Jesus. Thus the Sacrament is very necessary, if only for the reason that we get Christ better, and get a firmer grasp of him by the Sacrament than we could have before.
In the sacraments, God intends to provide his embodied people with physical signs of spiritual realities. Special grace is not mechanically infused into Christians when they take the Lord’s Supper. Yet at the table, those who partake in faith experience their faith strengthened.
Each Christian communes with Christ at the table. But we must never forget that the Lord’s Supper is a family meal. In it we acknowledge our bonds and fellowship with one another. The “He” and “me” of communion become the “we.” What He has done for me on the cross has purchased the fellowship we together share.
Application
In this article, I have endeavored to show how the congregation has a role in every element of our Sunday morning gatherings. Congregations are not audiences––they actively take part in each aspect of worship. In light of all of this, consider three practical applications.
Think about corporate worship before you worship corporately.
I pastor a church that uses a bulletin which includes the order of service each Sunday. I have long made it my practice to read our bulletins before our gatherings. This helps me prepare my heart for worship! Whether your church has a bulletin or not, I encourage you: arrive early on Sundays. Take a moment in the pew (or chairs) to consider the different elements of your church’s worship. And then think, “how will I enter into all of worship this morning? What’s my role in the songs? What’s my role in the prayer of confession? What’s my role in the Scripture reading? What’s my role in the sermon?” Don’t let the elements of the service wash over you without pondering their significance. In each part of our gatherings, consider your role to God and to your brothers and sisters in Christ.
Look at others in corporate worship.
I occasionally have the privilege of leading the singing at my church. One of the sweetest parts of this is getting to face hundreds of saints as they enter into worship. Unfortunately, the average church member misses out on this because our sanctuary is designed to emphasize what’s happening up front. Nevertheless, I encourage members to look around at each other at different points in our service. Remember, one of the ways we let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly is by encouraging one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. This means when I worship God in song, I’m not only addressing God, but I’m reminding the saint next to me of God’s goodness and the beauty of his promises.
Plead with God’s blessing upon our gatherings.
As long as you’re a member of a local church, the most important thing in your life is what happens when your church gathers on Sundays. Corporate worship is the rushing river that runs through every current of your life. Thus, make it a priority to plead with God that he would greatly bless your church’s gatherings. He’s already made special promises to his gathered people: the risen Christ is in your midst! With your whole heart, seek and anticipate God’s rich supply of grace in corporate worship.
