When we enter into and enjoy our relationship with Jesus Christ alone, most folks call this “prayer” or “contemplation.”
Worship is a community activity. We enter into and enjoy our relationship with Jesus Christ with other people.
But a community is more than a group of people who happen to be in the same space at the same time. This is a “collection” that may or may not become a community.
The folks who study people in groups have developed some principles about community. The first one is community does not just happen. Community exists when the people come together for a reason — a reason that the members understand and hold in common. Jesus talked about a group of people gathered in his name [Matt 18:20].
The second principle is every time a group comes together it’s a different group. Each person in the group has a unique life outside the group. The different experiences we each have when we are not together affect us so that we are not the same person we were at the time and place of the previous meeting. Neither are the rest of the folks in the group.
Effective groups recognize this situation and spend some time and energy re-building the community at the beginning of each meeting.
Here’s a non-church example: A joint labor-management bargaining team works to reach an agreement on compensation and working conditions. In many cases the two parties are opposed to each other at the beginning — that agreement is the common purpose. When I facilitate such a situation each member of the joint team “checks in” by saying their name, how they are feeling today, whether they have any time constraints, and what their expectations for today’s session are. Only after everyone has checked in do we approve the session agenda and start the work.
Saying that information out loud helps the team members focus on their common purpose and become present for the work.
Worshippers are no different than negotiators. On Sunday morning (or another appropriate time) we each bring our experiences, beliefs, attitudes and expectations with us. We need to establish our worshipping community if we are going to enter into and enjoy our relationship with Jesus Christ together. And we need to do this every Sunday.
Some churches do this. And they use a practice common to many other churches: “Sharing the Peace.”
Sharing the peace at the beginning helps build community for worship.
Usually the worship leader greets the congregation and then says, “May the peace of the Lord be with you all.” The congregation responds with, “And also with you.” The worship leader then says “Let us share God’s peace.” The worshippers then greet each other, usually with a handshake (or a hug).
The process is physical: people are moving and connecting with one another. It is verbal: people are greeting each other. It is interactive: people usually make eye contact with one another when they say. “The peace of the Lord be with you.” It is communal: the entire congregation (or at least most members) are participating together.
When the members return to their seats they are part of a community — physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually (because Jesus promised he would be there also).
Some churches conduct the sharing the peace process in the middle of the service. While physical activity after a period of sitting can re-energize a group, it also is a disruption in the flow of the worship experiences. People have to re-orient themselves to prepare for the following worship experiences after they return to their seats.
Some churches conduct the sharing the peace process at the end of the service. This is often contrary to the message of the worship experience. Worshippers have together entered into and enjoyed their relationship with Jesus Christ — who then tells us to go and share it with those who do not know him, those who have not been in worship.
And some churches conduct the process at different times during worship depending on a church calendar. Such a practice manages to miss the advantages of community-building and add uncertainty to the disruptions of mid-service or end-of-service sharing the peace.
Churches that build an authentic worship community help their members gather together before our God and with one another. Such churches share the peace at the beginning of worship. Every Sunday.
That graphic up there is by Gordon Johnson on Pixabay.