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    Worshiping in the Small Membership Church
    Worshiping in the Small Membership Church
    Worshiping in the Small Membership Church
    Ebook144 pages1 hour

    Worshiping in the Small Membership Church

    By Dr. Robin Knowles Wallace

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    About this ebook

    Offers pastors new inspiration and fresh worship encounters with God.Worship is the most important time in the life of the gathered faithful. Inspirational and accessible, this book is will help pastors and worship leaders fully ground worship in scripture and tradition while being responsive to current times.Included: practical worship helps for the Christian year, tips to involve the congregation in leadership and participation, ways to incorporate music and other arts in worship, and select ideas for congregations of up to one hundred.A sample basic worship library
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAbingdon Press
    Release dateDec 1, 2010
    ISBN9781426739354
    Worshiping in the Small Membership Church
    Author

    Dr. Robin Knowles Wallace

    Robin Knowles Wallace is Professor of Worship and Music in the Taylor Chair at Methodist Theological School in Ohio. She is the author of Communion Services and Things They Never Tell You Before You Say Yes : The Nonmusical Tasks of the Church Musician, also published by Abingdon Press.

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      Book preview

      Worshiping in the Small Membership Church - Dr. Robin Knowles Wallace

      Worshiping in the

      Small Membership Church

      Other Books in the Series

      Administration in the Small Membership Church by John H. Tyson

      Evangelism in the Small Membership Church by Royal Speidel

      Pastoral Care in the Small Membership Church by James L. Killen Jr.

      Spiritual Leadership in the Small Membership Church by David Canada

      Worshiping

      in the Small

      Membership

      Church

      ROBIN

      KNOWLES WALLACE

      Abingdon Press

      Nashville

      WORSHIPING IN THE SMALL MEMBERSHIP CHURCH

      Copyright © 2008 by Abingdon Press

      All rights reserved.

      No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission can be addressed to Abingdon Press, P.O. Box 801, 201 Eighth Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37202-0801 or e-mailed to permissions@abingdon press.com.

      This book is printed on acid-free paper.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Wallace, Robin Knowles.

         Worshiping in the small membership church/ Robin Knowles Wallace.

            p. cm.—(Ministry in the small membership church)

         Includes bibliographical references.

         ISBN 978-0-687-65101-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)

         1. Public worship. 2. Small churches. I. Title.

         BV15.W335 2008

         264—dc22

      2007040810

      All scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17—10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

      To the congregations and groups with whom I have worshiped, where size did not matter

      Thanks

      To family, friends, and colleagues in ministry who read the draft: John Wallace, Millard Knowles, Laura Wallace, Joanmarie Smith, Mark Parsons, Margie MacAskie, and Cindy Glocke. To the Trustees of Methodist Theological School in Ohio and Dean John Kampen for granting me a Faculty Fellowship for sabbatical so that, among other things, I could write this book uninterrupted. To students at MTSO and the Course of Study School of Ohio for helping me think about these ideas and their application. To Grace Wallace, who listened to it all. Finally, to Sarah Lancaster and Lisa Withrow, wonderful colleagues who encourage, challenge, and make lunchtimes such a delight.

      Contents

      Introduction

      Chapter 1: Worship: A Convergence or Meeting Place

      Chapter 2: Begin Where You Are: Involving the Congregation in Worship Leadership and Participation

      Chapter 3: Our Context: The Worship Space

      Chapter 4: Getting Ready to Plan the Weekly Service

      Chapter 5: Planning the Actual Service

      Chapter 6: Baptism and Communion

      Chapter 7: The Arts in Worship

      Chapter 8: Select Ideas for Congregations up to One Hundred

      Afterword

      Appendix 1: Discerning Our Gifts

      Appendix 2: Resources: A Sample Basic Worship Library

      Appendix 3: Music of the Heart: Expanding Your Worship Music Repertoire

      Glossary

      Selected Bibliography

      Notes

      Introduction

      What is meant in this book by the small membership designation of the series? Churches, small groups, worshiping communities of up to one hundred persons in weekly worship together. This includes historic churches in rural, town, and urban areas; niche (focused on a language, particular group of people, or mission) churches in cities and suburbs; emerging churches; house churches; daughter or satellite churches; youth groups, men's or women's groups; any group of persons that gathers around Jesus Christ, the Bible, the baptismal font, or the communion table. These groups make a vital witness week in and week out to the power of God to order and sustain human life, to the grace manifest in Jesus Christ, and to the current working of the Holy Spirit. In densely as well as sparsely populated areas, our intentional gatherings in the presence of God orient us to the world and include the world in our prayers, enabling us to live out missio Dei. Missio Dei is the call of God on all who will hear to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8), who love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, and their neighbors as themselves (Mark 12:29-31, building on Deuteronomy 6:4-5). These are important lights to keep burning (Matthew 5:14-16)!

      You will notice several biases throughout this book that arise from my experience in the church and through education in church-related colleges and seminaries. First, I believe that laity have an important ministry not only in the world but also in the church, including ministries of worship leadership.¹ Second, I believe that pastors have the task of equipping the saints to do this ministry; this is a teaching function of pastors and a discerning function as they seek to uncover the gifts God has placed in the congregation.² Third, I believe that our seminaries and church-related colleges are important resources for local congregations and that they are often untapped. The old notion that seminaries are out of touch with local churches has not been true in my experience nor among those of my colleagues; while we are dedicated to scholarship and passing on the tradition, we believe in a living and lively church, where God's people gather to be a redeemed community together, to struggle with what that means, and to invite the world to kin-dom³ living, and we are happy to help resource that engagement. That leads me to my fourth point: I believe that how we talk about God and each other and the gathered assembly matters. When we are talking about small congregations, it is important not to continually use the words less than; using that phrase has a negative connotation for churches that are just the right size for today. When we are talking about God, it is important to remember that Jesus turned the world upside down through his radical ministry, which included all sorts of people that society said were of no consequence, through his healings, in calling God the intimate term Abba (equivalent to Papa or Daddy), in grace, in death, and through resurrection. Our language should challenge the norms of society, just as Jesus' language did. Fifth and finally, I believe that worship is an incredible meeting-place for God and humanity, which strengthens us and prepares us for Christian living in this world and ultimately for never-ending worship in the next.

      C H A P T E R   1

      Worship: A Convergence or Meeting Place

      In [Jesus Christ] all things hold together. (Colossians 1:17b)

      Jesus Christ, the Center

      Many things come together in Christian public worship, yet they are all held together and make sense because of Jesus Christ. In worship we enter into the story of God incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ in human history. It is the power of the Holy Spirit that draws us to God, to community with each other, and to worship.

      T. S. Eliot said it well in his 1934 play The Rock: What life have you if you have not life together? / There is no life that is not lived in community / And no community not lived in praise of God. Christian worship is focused on praise of God, in acknowledgement of the One who has brought us through trials and sorrows, whose scriptural promises have been proven true for countless persons in history and across the world, who has made a difference in our lives. Worship is something we do with others in community, for we are relational beings, who find identity, love, and belonging through being with other people. When we intentionally come in community into the presence of God, we are blessed.

      What Is Converging in Worship?

      So, what are some of the pieces that come together around Jesus Christ in Christian worship?

      Worship is encounter with the Trinity. We have an experience of the Holy as Trinity—our Creator, our Redeemer, and our Sustainer—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—the community that is One, that is God. Of all the relationships we have in worship, God is the priority, for it is in loving God that we are moved and strengthened to love our neighbor. Worship that is centered in the Trinity is death-defying, life-giving, emancipating. It has egalitarian vision and sustains kin-dom living practices for the sake of the world.¹ Worship that is trinitarian bridges church and world and the generations, spans the globe and history, does justice and loves kindness, because it is God who holds it together. It is spirit-filled, energized, solemn, joyful, and a means of grace.²

      Worship is biblical and traditional. It relies on the strength of God's promises. Therefore, we need to know the biblical story better than we know the newspaper story. Knowing our tradition and past tell us who we are and where we have been and can give us powerful resources for worship. Two Greek words help explain what being rooted in scripture and tradition does for Christians: Anamnesis is the word that we translate as remembrance, as in the verse "Do this in remembrance of me (Luke 22:19, emphasis added). This is remembrance that brings the past forward into current time; in one way, what Jesus is saying is, Do what you have learned from the past to know I am present among you now." The second word, prolepsis, comes from the future/ kin-dom orientation of scripture, and the sense of already and not yet, which our lives have; other words used to describe this concept are anticipation and foretaste. While one hand reaches out to the past to bring it into the present, the other hand reaches out to the future to bring it into the present; thus we form the primary symbol of our faith, the cross.³

      Worship is sacramental. Not only is worship the essential context for baptism and communion, it is also a means of grace. In baptism and communion, we have a heightened sense of God being with us, which is the mystery pointed to in sacraments. Yet every worship time may also be a point of meeting God, because God is always ready to reveal Godself to us. And, when God meets us, we experience the undeserved gifts of acceptance, forgiveness, mercy, compassion, kindness, justice, and love that are God's grace to us.

      Worship is communal and contemporary. It occurs through a caring community who experience God's presence, who celebrate, weep, struggle, and

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