Without a real world approach and expectation, worship is irrelevant because of its lack of connection to the real world. Determining the real world is more than a purely human exercise. Such a determination, like worship, is under the influence of the all pervasive, ubiquitous Holy Spirit of God. Real world determination based only on what appeals to culture is too self-centered to be a holistic evaluation of what is real. Relevance, then, is not solely determined by human thinking and experience, but these certainly cooperate in the process.
How do people become part of the creative process of Christian worship which engages people with God who is worshipped in the power of the Spirit? By observation, Christian worship can often be less than an engaging exercise of the whole person (body, mind, and spirit) which is enlivened by the Spirit of God.
The spirit of a person is in no way to be understood as being the same as the Spirit of God. In that God is wholly other than human beings (though human beings bear the “image of God”), likewise God’s Spirit, being very God, is also wholly other. Nonetheless, it is possible for the human spirit and God’s Spirit to be in an on-going cooperative relationship thanks to God’s initiative work of grace in all people. God’s Spirit is at work enlivening people on a continual basis (“In him we move and live and have our being,” Acts 17:28). At the same time we should remember that a person’s spirit is influenced by many outside forces. Even a born again Christian is non-consciously influenced by the culture that surrounds them. Culture is not necessarily sinful. However, it is other than God’s holy influence which works through people to influence culture toward actions like the lovingkindness of God.
As in the creation story of Genesis 1:1-2:3, the Spirit continues its creative role as the generative breath of life. Like the brooding of the Spirit over the primordial waters, the Spirit of God works to draw people from the chaos of what is purported to be the real world through the re-centering influence of God, an influence which moves us from a self-centered existence to other-inclusive awareness and care. This influence is the unifying act of God upon people. God desires that all should become one in Christ. The Spirit’s work is particularly noticeable in the result. Our spirit’s are joined with the Spirit of God in testimony to Christ’s work among a worshipping body and through the loving work performed as the gathered worshipping body scatters to their daily life as the representatives of Christ. Worship, then, becomes a larger communal event through their daily lives. This too is made possible by the ever-present Spirit. The Spirit is at work in the daily life of each Christian believer, and is preveniently at work in the life of non-believers, so that it is possible for the Spirit flow to and out of all of life. The Spirit can make all of life a community event, and all of life sacramental, as people respond to the influence of God’s Spirit.
That there are non-engaged people present in worship is not necessarily a sign that the Spirit is not at work even in these non-engaged people. Rather, it speaks more about their response. Being gathered for worship is not the same as worshipping. The defining element of Christian worship is response, and to become worship that response must be positive, must be a “yes” sung in response to the Spirit’s call to come and worship. Without response, worship is like students in a classroom who hear what the teacher says yet fail to learn the subject. The teacher cannot stuff information into them. Students only learn when they engage with the subject. Likewise, worship is not done by osmosis. Worship is response. It is action. It is what people do in response to God’s loving influence upon them through the Spirit. Apart from the Spirit, apart from human response, there is no such thing as Christian worship. This suggests, as is often the case in gathered worship, that the influence of the Spirit at work can be ignored to the detriment of everyone in the community. The same can be said of daily life as the body of Christ scatters to be God’s influence in the world. Apart from the Spirit, life is going through the motions but not real living, not real life.
Engagement in worship is not the work of gimmicks or the embracing of style, something which seems to predominate much Christian worship practice. Neither is it remaining steadfast to a faded glory of historic experiences. Engagement in worship is people who are actively remembering the work that God has done in them, and/ or people who are actively responding to the loving influence of God to do the work of God in the real world. This work is the work of worship. This work moves ordinary worship into the realm of the extraordinary. This work makes the real world the real world. This work is only possible because of the influencing Spirit of God.
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