The PCUSA has initiated a campaign to establish 1001 Worshiping Communities within the decade. From the program website:
We will seek to create a movement, bubbling up from within rather than directed nationally, engaging congregations and presbyteries together in fresh ways.
There is nothing more transformative than the people of God, gathered together to worship the risen Christ, and sent out to serve the world in Christ’s name.
God’s Spirit is moving throughout the Church, whispering the same things, inspiring new models, fresh vision, and an awareness that is bringing God’s people to understand and embrace again the truth that “It’s all about congregations.”
The most effective evangelism tool is to start new communities of faith. These new worshiping communities are the most strategic way to reach new generations, new residents, and new populations that established churches are not reaching.
Worshiping communities are defined by Acts 2:42: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”
I like this campaign. I support it. I want to see it succeed. I'll do what I can to help. I'll begin by challenging our conception of what a worshiping community is in order to broaden our vision for what is possible.
What is a worshipping community?
There are different ways for us to approach this question.
From some people, the local congregation is the worshiping community, and generally this is what is meant by the campaign's aim.
However, I do think that we should broaden our conception of what a worshiping community is in order to see that there are more avenues for creating new congregations that simply the actions of presbyteries and local congregations.
The broadening of our conception of a worshiping community may also bring us to a new understanding of what the Spirit of God is doing in our time and place.
In the simplest sense, it is a community that worships Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
Is it more than that? This simple description certainly describes many congregations.
In addition, there is leadership, governance, spiritual formation, outreach, stewardship, and fellowship.
This describes many groups that function within a congregation. A choir in this sense could be a worshiping community. A mission team that goes to Guatemala or Rwanda could be a worshipping community. A church's youth group certainly would be a worshiping community. A homeless ministry could be. The list could go on and on.
The result is that we define ourselves by our institutional structure rather than by our function as the people of God.
As a result, we see programs where we should see worshiping communities.
An Example
One of the most hidden and under-appreciated (IMHO) ministries of the Presbyterian Church USA are our college and university campus ministries and chaplaincies. I have been involved with this aspect of the life of the church for almost a quarter century.
Campus ministry is not very romantic, like a mission trip to an exotic tropical country. It isn't very visible like a church's youth group. It isn't a producer of larger numbers of worshipers on a Sunday morning.(Remember your college days?) It isn't a dramatic social need like hunger or homelessness. In the minds of many people, they are just college students, living through extended adolescence.
This is unfortunate. It represents a kind of thinking is limits the church from being a network of worshiping communities.
A Difference in Perception
To get at the heart of what a worshiping community is we need to make an important distinction.
When we describe an aspect of being a worshiping community as "a program" or "a ministry" of the church, we are conceiving the church as an organizational institution. We see it as a non-profit business.
However, if we look at a church or an aspect of a church as a worshiping community, our perception changes. Instead of an institution, we see relationships.
Go sit in our your youth group. Visit a campus ministry. Go on a mission trip. Join the choir. What you'll find is that these groups are more than programs. They are communities.
Our short-sightedness here is a product of the age we live in. That age is fading, and the era of community is emerging.
Five Standards for a Worshiping Community, a starting point
Based on what I've seen through my work with churches over the years, here are five that can be a starting point for discerning whether your church's "programs, ministries and groups" are worshiping communities.
1. A Mission that is an expression of faith in Jesus Christ, with a purpose beyond the group's benefit.
2. Participation is a setting for personal spiritual formation. Every participant, therefore, has the opportunity to contribute.
3. Prayer, biblical reflection and times of worship take place regularly.
4. The program, ministry or group, even as a part of a larger body, has a means of governing itself.
5. Fellowship and caring support for one another provides a context for being a community, rather than just as a program or committee of an institution.
These are sort of minimum standards.
I worked with a large church many years ago where we discovered that they were really two churches under one roof. One church was focused on spiritual growth, Bible study, prayer and support for one another. The other church was focused on outreach and service in the community and throughout the world. In the long range plan that was adopted, all groups within the church were asked to include in their life and work together, both Bible study and prayer, and outreach and service.
Seeing each church as a collection of small worshiping communities is how we strengthen the whole body. To treat each group as a worshiping community is to treat each of them holistically.
Shifting your programs and ministries into being worshiping communities.
If the General Assembly's goal of 1001 worshiping communities in a decade is to be reached, we then need to begin by shifting our perceptions about what the church is. Here's a starting point for your local church.
1. Acknowledge that every gathering of people in your congregation can be a worshiping community. Apply the five criteria above to each group.
2. Treat worship as a primary place for spiritual formation. Equip people to fully experience the grace and love of Jesus Christ in their lives through the context of worship. And to do this in every gathering point in the life of the church.
3. Give people the freedom and opportunity to grow their worshiping communities. Encourage initiative and imagination in seeing what God can do through each individual group. Give each group the opportunity to lead the church in worship.
An example in practice
I came to this awareness about worshiping communities by participating in one of the weekly gatherings of students in a Presbyterian Campus Ministry. In the space of a little over two hours, these students served dinner that they had organized and made for everyone, worshiped with song, prayer, reflection upon the Scripture, discussed their mission outreach plans for their upcoming semester break, and closed with requests for prayer and closing worship.
Sitting there I realized that I was witnessing the future of the church.I saw in them what I believe we all want in our experience of faith. These students were not being initiated into an institutional model of the church. They were being the church as a worshiping community. It was a very uplifting, revelatory moment for me.
What these students do, so can the people in your church. It doesn't have to be the decision of the Session. It just takes one person deciding that their group is going to develop this way. This is how grassroots movements begin. By the initiative of people who decide that their world can be different. You don't have to change the whole church, just the part where you are. When we do this together, our cumulative impact is significant. We begin by changing our perceptions and behaviors in the place were we are already committed and involved.
The future of the church is now.
The future is in seeing that thousands of small worshiping communities connected together in churches and presbyteries across the denomination need strengthening and support. It begins with each of us deciding to focus our efforts in just one place to help develop that place as a worshiping community.
My place is with our Presbyterian Campus Ministries. Where's your place?
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