An authentic worship experience should bring all participants together as equal recipients of God’s mercy and love. It should provide opportunities for participants to experience – or at least get a glimpse or two of Jesus Christ’s presence.
What kinds of activities should be part of that sort of worship experience? And does the order of activities make a difference? What does an effective worship agenda look like?
You’re right. Most churches do not call it an “agenda.”
Most churches call it the “liturgy.” It’s an ancient Greek word. It means “work of the people,” and originally referred to the public service of wealthy citizens, often in support of civic festivals. Churches today are using an extremely old non-English word to describe the activities of an experience designed (supposedly) to give twenty-first century folks an authentic experience of the sacred.
Jesus used the language of his listeners and followers – Aramaic – to teach them about his kingdom. He did not force them to know ancient Greek (or even contemporary Greek, or Hebrew, the “official” language of the Jewish people who made up most of his audiences).
Most people today understand “agenda.” They would probably also recognize “order of service” or “to-do list.”
Yes. It is a small detail. But how many speed bumps are we going to require first-time visitors to get over just to find a place to sit and get started?
Okay. Let’s assume they are seated and an usher has given them a printed agenda listing the activities of the worship experience.
It turns out that many churches today include the same activities that Luke ascribes to the earliest gatherings of Jesus Christ’s followers: the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers [check Acts 2:42 and 46-47].
In the first years of the “Way” (which is what the early followers called their movement) many people had had personal involvement with Jesus and could speak about their experiences in detail. So their fellowship time was filled with stories of direct, individual adventures with Jesus. There was a lot of, “Remember when he . . .” and “I watched him heal . . .” A new follower could quickly develop a set of impressions of what Jesus was like from people who had known him.
Likewise, the apostles had learned directly from Jesus. They had spent three years listening to him preach and describe the kingdom, and argue with the Jewish leaders about what the “Law and Prophets” really meant (and also like today, most of those “experts” never did get it). A new follower could get a detailed and authoritative answer to questions about the Way from someone who had learned directly from Jesus (sometimes the hard way – think Peter).
The “breaking of bread” probably had two meanings in the early church. First, meal time was the only break in common people’s work day, so a gathering to eat was also a good time to hear from an apostle. Luke reports that followers of the Way voluntarily shared what they had with others who may not have had what they needed (possible origin of the church pot luck?). Luke also said these early activities took place “day by day.” The Way did not designate a special day for “church” stuff; and the name itself indicates the followers viewed their faith holistically as a way of living.
The other “breaking of bread” did have special meaning. Jesus Christ’s followers regularly shared bread and wine “in remembrance” of him as he directed the night before he was crucified.
Praying was the primary activity of Jewish worship, along with the sacrifices, in Jesus’s time. It was natural that the new Christ followers would make it a prominent part of the time they spend together.
We can carry out the same worship activities today.
We can study the apostles’ teaching. We can share our experiences with Jesus Christ in fellowship with other followers. We can “break bread” together. And we can pray. The only difference between those early followers and us is that we rely on the holy spirit who Jesus promised would guide us “into all the truth” — the Spirit brings the apostles’ teaching and the experiences of other believers to life in our worship today.
By including these activities on our worship to-do list we remind ourselves of our link back to Jesus and the activities that he and his friends [check John 15:15] did together. And because so many other churches are carrying out these same activities at about the same (local) time, we are linking ourselves metaphorically to the universal church and believers around the world.