Worship should edify the Body, not split it.

Recovering the lost ground of worship (3)

Let all things be done for building up.
- 1 Corinthians 14:26

Worship on the green?
In some ways worship in the first Christian congregations must have been like a bivouac . It was a time of review and training, much like our colonial ancestors practiced regularly on their village greens, when the militia would come together to be inspected, march and drill, and practice their battle maneuvers in preparation for whatever threats might arise.

In worship the first Christians came together to practice their oneness by joining voices and hands in worshiping God, and by encouraging, embracing, and emboldening one another through the various offerings each member brought for the Lord.

In worship they would have practiced their witness to the Lord, been taught by one another as each had been taught from the Lord (Col. 3:16), reinforced their love for one another through affirmations and embraces as well as in sharing the bread and the wine. The highly-participatory nature of worship would have helped all to be enriched by the offerings each member brought to honor and exalt the Lord, and all would have thus been reminded that they were members of one Body, each with his or her own gifts, abilities, and callings.

The first Christians were taught to approach their times of worship in the expectation of meeting God in His glory, but also to offer to the Lord in such a way as to reinforce their vision and experience of unity and maturity in the Lord.

Growing churches
Paul would doubtless have taught the Corinthians, as he did the Ephesians, that a church is only truly growing when it is reaping the harvest of each member’s ministry and increasing in unity and maturity (Eph. 4:12-16). The service of worship provides a time for mutual edification and ministry as each member gives his offering to the Lord with a view to strengthening all the other members, and the church as a whole, in the unity and maturity to which God calls us.

A church is not being built up according to the agenda of the Lord Jesus (Matt. 16:18) merely because it attracts more people, builds a new facility, increases its budget, expands its programs, or modifies its approach to worship. Healthy, growing churches are those which are continuing to experience increase in the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, and in the maturity as a Body that makes it look increasingly like the very incarnation of Jesus Christ.

When the first Christians came together to worship they were to bear in mind that this was not a time merely for vaunting themselves or letting-it-all-hang-out-come-what-may. As they prepared for worship, and made ready the psalm, hymn, lesson, or interpretation they wanted to contribute, they would have to be thinking and praying about how their offering would help the church grow in unity and maturity. Their offering, at every service of worship, was to be a spiritual building-block in the edifice of the Spirit which God was erecting in their church. Anything that was merely self-serving, divisive, or non-edifying was to be left at home.

Paul exhorted the Corinthians in this matter, saying that since they appeared to be “eager for manifestations of the Spirit” they should “strive to excel in building up the church” (v. 12). The Spirit is truly present in worship not just when I’m feeling ecstatic or the preacher seems to be on a roll. The Spirit will fill our worship and make the presence of God evident to us when all together, with everything they have brought to worship, are working to build-up the body as a whole in unity and maturity unto the Lord.

In our services of worship there should be time and space to receive something from everyone, but everyone who brings something must at all times bear in mind that they are offering to God on behalf of all, not just themselves.

We will worship like believers did in the New Testament when we are able to keep our focus on Christ and to seek the unity and maturity of His Body through all we do.

For more insight to this topic, get the book, Documents of Christian Worship, by James F. White, from our online store.

Or read the article, “Improving Worship,” by T. M. Moore.