Dear Blooming Glen Friends,
"By the grace of God, we seek to live and proclaim the good news of reconciliation in Jesus Christ. As part of the one body of Christ at all times and places, we hold the following to be central to our belief and practice:
6. We gather regularly to worship, to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, and to hear the Word of God in a spirit of mutual accountability.”
The most recent Anabaptist confession of faith, known as the "Statement of Shared Convictions of Global Anabaptists," was adopted in 2006. I helped to host the meetings of the Mennonite World Conference General Council in Pasadena, California that adopted a seven-point confessional statement that Anabaptists leaders from national church bodies around the world agreed was a sufficient summary of our common beliefs. This statement doesn't replace our "Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective (1995)," but it does provide us with a starting point to define our faith identity as Mennonites in relationship with sisters and brothers around the world.
Christians gather. It is an imperative of our habits and practice of global Anabaptist discipleship that we come together with regularity to worship God, remember Jesus through the symbols of bread and cup, and explore the scriptures together.
Worshipping God is simply doing those things necessary to acknowledge our ultimate allegiance to God. Worship is the offering of our loyalty and faithful commitment to the God who created all things, redeemed all things, and sustains all things. Worship is often thought of in our culture as music (and maybe the arts). Our language often speaks of worship as participation in song. Of course, music is important – and Christianity is a sung faith (much to the chagrin of my music teachers – who every time I sang, encouraged me to play football … ). Worship though, is much, much more than singing. Worship is offering. Offering our voices in praise. Offering our voices in lament. Offering our resources in aid to the poor. Offering our resources to sustains institutions that serve God. When we gather to worship, we gather to offer God all that we are and all that we have in order that God’s mission of repairing all the creation we broke.
Worship – that act of offering – leads us to remembering. We are a eucharistic people – we give thanks and remember Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. In the symbolic meal of bread and cup we remember that Jesus offered all he had – body and blood – for our salvation and for the repair of the creation we broke. When we gather with bread and cup, we do not gather to occasionally remember how naughty we’ve been. We gather to frequently celebrate how amazing God’s infinite and matchless grace is in our lives.
We gather to offer. We gather to remember. We gather to hear. God’s Word speaks to us in sermons, and in silence. God’s Word speaks to us in lyrics of song, and in visual designs. God’s Word speaks to us in testimony and in hope. Listening to God’s Word is not a passive, individual spectator sport. Listening to God’s Word is an active participation in exploring together as Christian community what God said to His people in ages past, and what God is saying to us in the present moment.
All of this gathering is done in the paradox of voluntary mutual submission. No one, not even the eternal King of the Universe, can compel anyone of us, for one solitary moment, to submit. Submission – what our Anabaptist forebearers knew as Gelassenheit – is a voluntary act of the soul. It is when we give away our demands to own – our things, our narrative, our perspective, and give into God’s gentle ask that we offer him all that are and all that we have in worship, remembering and listening to God’s promise to repair and reconcile all of creation back into what He created it to be.
My friends, it is easy for us to think that worship is transforming if we sing the modern (or nearly modern) genre of the day. It is easy to think that worship is transforming if the preaching “dumbs it down.” It is easy to think that worship is a passive experience we can watch as spectators. Real worship, true worship gathers us and invites us to offer what we have, to remember whose we are, and to listen to one another and the Holy Spirit speak to us.
May we a church that gathers for true worship, surrendering our willfulness to the God of all mercy, love, and grace.
Pastor Jeff
jeff@bgmc.net
PS - I’ll be at the A&N Diner, Monday morning, October 23, 7:30-8:45 am. However, I’m leaving for Hesston College fall board meetings on Thursday, October 26 and I’m scheduled to return Saturday, October 28, so feel free to meet up for coffee on your own, but I’ll be away.