Definition of Worship

Back in the 1970s, I attended a conference where James D. Smart, Presbyterian scholar and educator, gave a series of talks on worship. I came away with a definition of his that has proven enormously helpful to me in planning and leading worship, and I offer it here for discussion.

Worship
is what happens
when a community,
that has heard God’s call
for a people to serve God,
comes together
to renew its consciousness of that call,
to wait upon God
for the words
of understanding and strength
to obey that call,
and to offer itself
and its resources
in thankfulness to God
for the promise of a future
which always resides in God’s call.

That’s one loaded sentence. Unpack it, and you’ll find it’s very informative. For example:

“Worship is what happens….” Worship is a happening, an event, an occasion, a special kind of time set apart from other times, from other happenings.

“…when a community that has heard God’s call for a people….” The primary action is God’s call for a people who must answer. Worship is understood as a response to God’s call. That’s why an “invocation” is so wrong at the beginning of a worship service, invoking God’s presence, inviting God to our worship service. God has called us, not the other way around.

“…God’s call for a people to serve God….” The call is not just to come to God, but it is a call to service, the service of no less than God.

“…when a community…comes together….” The first thing people do in response to God’s call is to come together. Look at the vocabulary: “congregation,” “assembly,” even “synagogue,” referring to the “gathering” of God’s people. This is the first act of worship: to respond to God by coming together.

Then, the gathered community will do a series of things:

“…to renew its consciousness of that call….” Remembering who God is and what God has done in extending the call to the people. This is where the call of God becomes personal. We are called by God to service. I am called by God to service.

“…to wait upon God for the words of understanding and strength to obey that call….” Waiting upon God, listening attentively and intently to what God might say to us in Scripture, sermon, and other proclamation so that God’s Word becomes present in our midst—all of this characterizes the first major segment of Christian worship known as “the Liturgy of the Word.” Here we receive, one would hope, some understanding about the call, what’s involved for me and for us. More than that, however, we can expect to find in God’s Word present in the words we hear a power and strength of the spirit enabling us to be obedient in our service to God.

“…and to offer itself and its resources in thankfulness to God….” The church’s offering of itself finds fullest expression in the sacraments. In baptism, the basic Christian ordination to the common ministry of all God’s people, lives are committed to God’s service. In the Lord’s Supper, the Eucharist, we thank God, and commit ourselves to becoming “the Body of Christ in the world.” This, of course, is “the Liturgy of the Sacrament,” the Word of God enacted, the Word who is Jesus Christ revealed by the power of the Holy Spirit to be present in our midst.

“…in thankfulness to God for the promise of a future which always resides in God’s call.” Our gratitude is not only for what God has done, but for what God will do. Death has not triumphed, as the Word (spoken and enacted) makes clear. We have a future. This is inherent in God’s call, and the definition loops us back to the beginning: we are called together to serve God, and that service is filled with promise.

How well does this definition work for you in thinking about Lord's Day worship?