For: The Institute Of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt

I read a passage by Dan Wilt this week, on the Nature of the Human Being. In it he described the early Celtic Christians’ approach to community: they welcomed people into their family by offering them the chance of Belonging, Behaving, and Believing – in that order, which is the important bit.

They received newcomers gladly into their community and understood that ‘years of friendship with (them) and the presence of the Holy Spirit opened the way for real change’ in how they behaved. The end result of this process would hopefully be that they came to believe in the God whose holy Spirit was woven into their relationships and actions.

I love this beautiful example of a right approach to community and sharing faith with others. There is a sharp contrast between this and the more often seen approach in modern churches, which is: at the point of profession of belief we give someone a list of rules for how they should behave, before allowing them to eventually belong, if they keep to the rules.

Personally, the Celtic Christian approach resonates a lot more strongly with me. Although you may not get the quick wins and rack up the number of ‘members’ initially; the long-term fruit is many people whose lives are deeply filled with the Holy Spirit, in word and deed.

I was thinking about how this might affect our approach to leading worship.

If we are assuming that the people we are leading are all at different stages of following Jesus (from guests who knows nothing of Him, to those who would profess a deep faith and relationship with Him), this means we need to reassess how we do it.

We need to model the grace and acceptance of Jesus in the way we lead. Practically, things such as explaining what we’re going to do, why we’re doing it, what might happen (in terms of spontaneous singing, speaking in tongues, etc), giving people the freedom to stand, sit, kneel, dance, without being self-conscious – all reduce the possibility of there being a clique who know all the actions, while the others watch mystified.

In terms of the songs we sing, there is something to ponder here too. Should we also reflect this process of belonging to believing in our worship times?

I think there is definitely a place for songs that affirm our sense of community, while acknowledging that God is the reason we are gathered together. Also for songs that talk about the desire to do what is right, and call on the Holy Spirit to change our hearts and minds, in the context of supporting one another as a family.

I am also led to consider NT Wright’s teaching in the context of our songs that declare truth and profess our faith. He states that ‘worship makes you more truly human’; we grow nearer to being ‘fully alive’ as someone made in the image of God. This is a process, not just a one-click transformation. As the Celts viewed behaviour and belief to be things that grew organically, in community, maybe we need to also reflect that continuing ‘new creation’ at work in our lives – in our songs.

Dan Wilt, Essentials in Worship Theology, The Nature of the Human Being (New Brunswick, Canada: Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St Stephens University) 2008

Tom Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense (San Fransisco: HarperCollins Publishers) 2006