GOING BACK TO CHURCH: A THEOLOGICAL AND PRACTICAL PERSPECTIVE

BY REV. IVER MARTIN, PRINCIPAL OF EDINBURGH THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

Over 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 calling a whole company to engage in praise: ‘Let us sing to the Lord’ . In similar vein, Psalm 122 envisages a crowd of fellow worshippers: ‘I rejoiced when they said to me, “let us go to the house of the Lord.”’ Indeed, the ultimate wish in the well-known hundredth Psalm is that the entire world will call upon God’s name.

We should take advantage of the present moment as an important opportunity to reassess what worship is and what we’re doing when we participate in it.

Similarly, the New Testament continues that same corporate pattern. On the day of Jesus’ resurrection, the first day of the week, the risen Jesus chose to meet with the disciples, gathered together, which meant, in effect, that the outcome of Jesus’ ministry, death and resurrection was a worshipping company. Shortly afterwards, it was when the disciples were all together in one place that the Holy Spirit was poured out on the newly formed New Testament Church (Acts 2:1ff). Later, as Paul reflects on how believers should worship, he speaks in collective terms, the assumption being that there is a ‘gathering’ or ‘assembly’ (1 Corinthians 14:26ff).

In all of these passages, a collection of people, physically gathered, is presupposed. Indeed, the Greek word ‘ekklesia’, which is translated ‘church’, means an ‘assembly’, the idea being a collective gathering. This gathering is so important that we are warned not to neglect our participation in it (Hebrews 10:26). Moreover, we are ultimately shown the picture of consummate worship in Revelation where, gathered around the throne, is a multitude that no one can number (Revelation 7:9). There is no question that the pattern in the New Testament is the gathering of real people in a real place to worship on the Lord’s Day.

The past 18 months have been an aberration; an exception to the rule. During the COVID pandemic, as we followed government guidelines for the nation’s health, churches had to be closed, which meant that alternative emergency arrangements had to be made. And, insofar as the word was preached and there was a measure of access to one another, we could say that worship was maintained. But it was far from ideal and, indeed, far from what the New Testament expects in normal circumstances.

Rather than simply return to church out of a mere sense of duty, perhaps we should take advantage of the present moment as an important opportunity to reassess what worship is and what we’re doing when we participate in it. A return to real singing ought to fill our hearts with a renewed thankfulness, a new enthusiasm and a discernibly heightened quality in our praise. Reunion with others from whom we have been separated for months ought to fill us with both a new sense of joy and determination to love within the family of believers whose care we are responsible for.

Thankful as we are for the technology that has allowed us to hear God’s word and maintain a measure of ‘church’ during lockdown, there is something special about actually coming together; something on which we can’t always put our finger; something that God does uniquely among his gathered people, but something that we can easily miss if, for us, church is only a habitual routine.

If a return to in-person worship is only a resumption of the ‘same old’, we’ve missed an important opportunity. On the other hand, if lockdown has reminded the church of what church is, our worship will never be the same again. •