GOING BACK TO CHURCH: A THEOLOGICAL AND PRACTICAL PERSPECTIVE BY REV. IVER MARTIN, PRINCIPAL OF EDINBURGH THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
O
ver the last 18 months , churches have become used to a routine which has been vastly different from what it was
before . Lockdown meant a fast transformation and steep learning curve as technology became essential to continue ministry. As ministers, accustomed only to preaching from pulpits, have had to adapt overnight to addressing a camera in their front room, worshippers have regularly accessed church via YouTube or Facebook, within the comfort of their own homes. Online services have been immensely convenient; in fact, the temptation to ‘have church’ when we want, as well as our own choice of preachers, has been, for many, irresistible. The COVID habit has become the new norm and, in reality, as churches have recently opened up, more difficult to break out of than we first imagined. While some people have rushed back, others have delayed, not just because of nervousness or vulnerability, but as a result of new questions that online services have provoked. In a ‘new normal’ world, do I need to actually go back to church? More specifically, is gathered worship important? Weren’t we told at the beginning that, although church buildings were closed, worship would continue? If that is so, then why should it not continue that way, at least for those who want it? Is church only a tradition or is there something more fundamental about actually gathering to worship? Like every important Christian question, the answer is first of all a theological one, found, as always, in the Bible, where the nature and pattern of true worship is shown. Worship is, first of all, an attitude, a frame of mind, something we do in our hearts, from our hearts, with faith in Christ as the central component and God as the only object. The first evident act of worship in the Bible was Abel’s sacrifice, where personal faith meant the difference between true worship and his brother’s false religion. Personal worship is brought out in the Psalms more than anywhere else. Expressions like, ‘To you I lift my soul’, ‘Bless the Lord, O, my soul’ and ‘I waited for the Lord, my God’ are all personal declarations of the ‘worthship’ of God to us. But worship in the Bible is not just about ‘me and God’. It is about ‘us and God’. In the Old Testament it is clear that God commands and accepts the worship of a gathered company, not just as the sum total of individuals, but as a people with whom he has established a unique covenantal relationship. Once again, the Psalms bring this idea out powerfully. Psalm 95 extends beyond the feelings of the individual in
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