“For: The Institute Of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Red Online Worship History Course with Dan Wilt” (just figured out last week how to link the titles)
This week in our essentials red course we had two videos to watch. The first was an overview of worship history from the beginning of time up to the present, and all in 20 minutes – incredible! Actually it was I think a very good general summary. Looking at the notes from this video I was struck by the similarities that transcend over 6000 years and who knows how many cultures.
Some of the similarities between all four areas covered (pre-history, Old Testament, New Testament, and up to the present) are: community, sacrifice, rites of passage, feasts and food, and prayer. It is interesting to note that in the last few decades “community” has been undermined in our culture, almost sabotaged. Community is exactly what many people are longing for, and why Christians move from church to church until they find a “place to belong.”
The other video was about the language of prayer and scripture. I really was not aware of how much time or how often the early Christians were in prayer. I grew up in the church and thank God for some wonderful men and women of faith who have been examples to me, and prayer has always been emphasized. However, we never learned about or about the early churches patterns of prayer and we hardly ever, if ever, had anything like a public prayer time on a Sunday morning. We did have Wednesday night prayer meetings which did allow for some times of small group prayer. I also did not associate prayer with worship until recently. The Lord’s prayer outlines some key elements of worship. It points out who God is, how great He is, it directs us to surrender our will to God, it reminds us of our need and dependence upon God. When broken down like that, it is easily identifiable as worship.
Dan commented about creating space for “prayers of the people.” This would definately require a paradigm shift. Some of the congregation have been so used to little participation for so long, or for their whole lives, that they are uncomfortable with more direct participation. How do you incorporate “prayers of the people” without creating chaos?
I did have one idea for which I would like some feed back. I like the idea of the 9:00, 12:00, and 3:00 times of prayer throughout the day. We don’t have a church bell, and most of our congregation would not be able to hear it if we did. Maybe, we could do some type of automatic email system.
Finally, I think a good lectionary and a liturgy would be a valuable tool. Anybody reading this is welcome to recommend some.
