What is Christian Worship?

Worship: At the Heart of Our Relationship with God

The Westminster Shorter Catechism begins as follows:

1. What is the chief end [i.e. goal] of man?

A. Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

This reflects a common Christian perspective that all of Christian life is focused on God and on our fellowship with him and other people. Our care for others is in this context. That doesn't mean that others are only side-issues: loving others means that we genuinely care about them. However Christian experience is that our relationships with other people must be put into the context of a relationship with God, or those relationships will start to become unbalanced.

For many Christians, worship is at the heart of our relationship with God, both as individuals and a community. In worship we focus on God: on hearing a message based on the Bible, on prayer, and on the sacraments. Of course individual Christians can do many of these things in private. However in worship we ground our life as a community in a corporate experience of God.

The Content of Christian Worship

It is not possible to give a complete description of Christian worship. Congregations worship in quite different ways. Worship services vary from formal services with wonderful classical music and well-planned liturgical actions, to a small group gathering around a table and using an impromptu service with rock music.

Worship tends to have two major centers: the Word and the Sacraments. The Protestant tradition tends to emphasize the proclamation of the Word. This includes readings from the Bible, and a sermon, which will normally help the congregation understand the reading and apply it to them. Historically, the sermon was a major means of conducting adult Christian education, and of spurring both individuals and congregations to make necessary changes. Protestant worshippers had a surprising appetite for sermons: three-hour sermons were not uncommon. (This appetite does not seem to have survived into the 20th Century.)

Of course Catholic worship also includes readings from the Bible and some exposition. This is normally referred to as a "homily", rather than a sermon. However the center of worship in the Catholic church, as well as other "liturgical" churches, is the sacrament of Communion, which will be discussed below. For them it is normally celebrated at every regular service. The elaboration and formality tends to be greater than it is in Protestant churches. Protestants normally celebrate communion either 4 times a year or once a month.

In addition to the Word and sacraments, services of all groups include prayers and singing. One analysis of the prayers classifies them according to the acronym ACTS: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. Another variant is ACTIS, with the I standing for Intercession.

Services often begin with a combination of prayer, responsive readings and music which simply celebrate being in God's presence. This is adoration.

Fairly early in the service there is normally a prayer of confession. In confession we express both our individual faults and those of the community. We ask God to help us to amend them, and receive assurance (normally in words taken from the Bible) of God's willingness to do so.

Thanksgiving acknowledges God's goodness to us. Thanksgiving is important in the Christian life. As we thank God for things, we put those things into the context of our relationship with God.

In Supplication we ask God for what we need. In worship, this supplication normally includes the needs of the congregation, nation, and world. Intercession is a specific kind of request, directed towards the needs of others. Intercession is particularly important to Christian life, because it is one of the key elements in the pattern of "exchange" that I referred to in a previous article. Through intercession we bear each other's burdens, and join the other members of the community in putting their requests before God.

The Sacraments

The one aspect of worship which is most specific to Christianity is the sacraments. This is also the element that is the most dangerous to describe in a document such as this, which is intended to describe Christianity in general. That's because the definition of sacrament is somewhat different among different groups. However a good general definition is that a sacrament is "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace" (from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer). The sacraments each involve a specific symbolic action (the "sign") that make visible God's action for us. For Protestant theologians, this must be connected with a specific promise of God, as recorded in Scripture.

It's probably best to think of a range of actions that can be described as sacraments. At the center we have Baptism and Communion, which are practiced by all Christian groups (although some call them "ordinances" rather than "sacraments"). These are actions that were specifically commanded by Jesus.

Next, there is a group of additional ceremonies that are regarded as sacraments by the Catholic and Orthodox tradition. Initially, there wasn't an exact list of these. One medieval writer identified 30. However in the Catholic tradition, a standard list of seven was identified in the 12th Century. That list includes Baptism, Communion, Confirmation, Penance, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Marriage. While Protestants generally consider only Baptism and Communion to be formal sacraments, there is some flexibility. Luther was willing to accept Penance, if properly understood. Calvin considered the laying on of hands in ordination to have a sacramental quality.

Finally, note that many other activities have at least some sacramental character: for Christians, the whole world, and our own activities, should all serve to make visible God's activity with us. As an example, Calvin identified the rainbow as having a certain sacramental quality: it is a visible sign of a promise of God.

Baptism

Baptism marks a person's entry into the Christian community. It involves water: depending upon the group, it may be anything from a symbolic sprinkling to complete immersion. The water symbolizes being cleansed from sin. More specifically, it symbolizes dying with Christ and being raised with him. This symbolism is clearest when immersion is used: being lowered into the water reminds us of Christ's death, and being raised from the water, of his resurrection. This understanding is used even among those who don't literally immerse the candidates.

Communion

Communion is a symbolic meal, involving bread and wine. It commemorates Jesus' last meal, which he ate with his followers the night before he was killed. This meal seems to have been a Jewish Passover Seder, in which bread and wine are key elements. Jesus gave them a new significance, as symbols of his body and blood, which he was about to sacrifice in his death. Jesus commanded his followers to remember his death for them by eating bread and drinking wine in his name. He promised that he would be present with them as they did so, in a very direct way.

Different Christian groups understand Christ's presence in communion differently. When he instituted communion, Jesus said of the bread "This is my body". While some Protestants understand this as purely metaphorical, most Christians believe that Jesus is in some way present in communion. Many Christian traditions believe that in some sense the bread and wine used in communion become Jesus' body and blood. This is referred to as Christ's "Real Presence". Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, and Reformed all hold some variant of this concept.

For Catholics this involves an actual metaphysical change in the bread and wine. While the physical properties of bread and wine remain, the metaphysical identity is changed to Christ's body and blood. Lutherans and Reformed do not accept this metaphysical change. For Reformed theology, Christ's body remains physically in heaven. In communion we truly eat his body and drink his blood, but this is a spiritual matter mediated by the Holy Spirit. Lutherans believe that there is an actual identification of bread and wine with Christ's body and blood. Other Protestants take a more metaphorical approach.

In the Catholic tradition, the consecrated elements are treated with the same respect that Jesus would be if he were physically present. That is because they are actually Jesus' body and blood, so Jesus really is physically present. For that reason, it is perfectly appropriate to worship the consecrated elements. Most Protestants regard this with something between disbelief and horror.