A note to my friends, a people called Monroe Free Methodist
From where I sit on Sunday mornings I have noticed something shifting among us, something beautiful and essential changing the very nature of who we are as a church. Have you felt it too? No longer is there an invisible line separating the leaders from the congregation. There’s a sense of “we” forming. We are being changed into a community who gathers to do the “work” of worship. We are showing up on Sundays expecting to participate in every element of the service, taking responsibility to be present to the corporate nature of worship. We are letting go of our personal preferences and coming with a mindset of expectancy of how God might work among us. We are becoming co-laborers, working together to hear from God and respond, to confess and repent, to build peace and unity on the common grounds of the Cross of Christ.
Friends, I really and truly believe we are being transformed by the liturgy, the parts of the service that invite everyone’s participation. (“Liturgy” literally means “the work of the people.”) We participate in liturgy in a number of ways during our services. We prepare for worship together (O Lord open our lips: and our mouth shall proclaim your praise). We respond to Scripture together (The Word of the Lord: thanks be to God). We respond in prayer together (Lord, in your mercy: hear our prayer). We pass the peace of Christ to one another and sing our thanks in Doxology together and recite the Lord’s Prayer together and come to the Communion Table together. Together.
We see this communal participation in other ways too. We read lots and lots of Scripture each Sunday (and during the week as we follow along with the readings on the bulletin/bookmarks). These passages are chosen for us from the Revised Common Lectionary, a three year cycle of readings that follow along with the themes of the Church Calendar. Beyond Sunday mornings, we see the liturgy showing up in the way we arrange our lives around the rhythms of this Church Calendar. We, as a community, are intentionally observing the anticipatory season of Advent, the celebration of Christmastide, the expectancy of Epiphany, the repentance of Lent, the rejoicing of Eastertide, the intensity of Pentecost, and the dedication of Ordinary time. These yearly rotations shape us and ground us in a rhythm beyond ourselves.
When we participate in liturgy we are practicing the discipline of submission, a willingness of spirit based on the example of Christ. We may or may not understand why we’re doing something (and we may or may not like it), but in choosing to submit we are saying we trust that God is working among us. And I want to say thank you for joining in the “work of worship.” It’s forming me and I see it forming you, too.
