“Everything. That’s what is at stake in worship. Everything. Indeed, the troubling, urgent message of scripture is that everything that matters is at stake in worship.” These words were penned by a mentor of mine, and they form the core of my convictions about worship. Although I have known and worked among this congregation for a brief time, you have quickly proven to me that these words form the core of this congregation’s convictions about worship, too.
First Baptist has a long heritage of thinking deeply about what happens during public Christian worship. I sensed this heritage as I helped Lon Schreiber move out of his office in the old education building and thumbed through the thousands of worship orders he had saved. I read about this heritage in the beloved pastor Edward Pruden’s essay about our sanctuary, “An Interpretation of Our Building.” There, Pruden emphasized the independence of Baptists in decision-making about worship and he wrote with humility as well as conviction, “As long as we are free to choose, we are at liberty to choose the thing which seems best suited to our needs at any given place and time.”
As we have planned and prepared to return to in-person worship this Sunday, December 5, we anticipate experiencing together the many elements of worship that this congregation knew and loved before pandemic and renovation: the beautiful sanctuary, the processional and recessional, the choir, robes and vestments for ministers and lay leaders, the organ, prominence of scripture reading, responding to God by giving of ourselves, the Doxology, an emphasis on the Word of God proclaimed, and communion at the first of the month. We will share each of these elements when we gather again this Sunday.
In our planning and preparation, the prayer of our re- opening team, staff, and perhaps you, has been the same as Edward Pruden’s prayer: God, how do we choose the thing which seems best suited to our needs at this given place and time? God, how can we best live into the vision of who you are calling us to be at the corner of 16th and O Street right now?
While God hasn’t given us a precise blueprint, God has prompted within us during our worship planning a renewed commitment to include every person no matter their age, race, or abilities; a desire to be good stewards of the environment; a commitment to engage issues of reparative and restorative justice; and the need to make worship accessible in a virtual space, among other things.
And so, this Sunday when we return to worship in person together, some things will be different. There will be printed worship guides available, but you will also have the chance to access a worship guide with a QR Code, and
you will be encouraged to recycle your paper worship guide—all to save paper. Rather than using hymnals, all music will be printed in the worship guide. This will enable online worshipers—who will not have hymnals—to participate fully in our music making. It also will aid us in using more contemporary and inclusive language in the texts we sing each week. To that end we also will introduce new language for The Lord’s Prayer, and we will replace the Gloria Patri with a hymn that serves as a commentary on the scripture readings we hear. We will also use music to create community by singing familiar Advent hymns with the piano as we come forward for communion.
Worshiping in person together again after 21 months of worship on Zoom will take some energy and effort from us all. But worship always requires our energy and effort. The root of the word worship is “liturgy,” which means “the work of the people.” In this sense, worship is much more like a gymnasium than it is a spa. We go to worship not to be pampered, but to exercise our faith muscles so they are strong when we need to use them as faithful Christ- followers in the world—or as Edward Pruden might say: “to choose the thing which seems best suited to our needs at any given place and time.” See you in the sanctuary.
Pastor Eric