The Beauty of Worship, and Service

I hope you find the Instructed Eucharist this Sunday to be helpful and enlightening. It really is an awesome thing that our God does in The Holy Eucharist. I can testify to how the spiritual food of Christ’s Body and Blood has been my “Blessed Assurance” that “Jesus is mine” ever since I first stepped into an Episcopal Church with Laura on Easter Sunday in 1984. My heart could have become hardened by personal grief, anger at the world’s injustice, and political calculation. But the Holy Communion of bread and wine, shared with so many brothers and sisters, has soothed my heart all these years.

Nothing is more important to my sense of priestly ministry as the liturgical worship of this church. I would never call Rick Warren a liturgical Christian. But it is his Purpose Driven Church, published before the better-known Purpose Driven Life, from which Christ Church draws its mission statement. “Christ Church exists to respond to God by becoming an outward and visible sign of Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit through worship, evangelism, discipleship, fellowship and ministry thus fulfilling the Great Commission.”

Worship, Evangelism, Discipleship, Fellowship and Ministry. Those are the five basic purposes of a Christian church, according to Warren. And during John Carlisto’s time as Rector, Christ Church adopted those purposes. The order of those purposes, however, was our choice. Worship comes first. It is the source from which all the other purposes are fulfilled. Without worship that nourishes the heart and soul, we don’t have a chance of making any headway on the other purposes.

But if worship is the beginning and the source of the church’s strength, it is not the final purpose. Worship is the first purpose of the church. “Ministry” is the final purpose. And by “ministry” in the New Testament, is meant “service.” To minister to someone is to serve them. To be a minister is to be a servant.

So as a church, we begin by serving God in our worship, and conclude by serving our fellow human beings. If we focus all our service on God, but fail to extend that service outside the walls of the church, then we are getting spiritually fat. If we undertake service of others without forgetting who really has the power, and who we’re ultimately serving, we will inevitably burn out. Our strength for service will fail if we forget the source of our strength.

I hope and pray that the new church will be a beautiful offering to God, and that our worship will nourish us, and inspire us for service. The beauty of Episcopal worship, in our architecture, our music, our time-tested words, and in the taste of bread and wine, is unique among the communities that call themselves “Christian.” There is also beauty in the diversity of faces whom we serve. Through every face, we see the face of God who made them and loves them.

There is beauty in our worship, where we glimpse the mystery of Almighty God with whom all things are possible, even the changing of bread and wine. There is beauty in the faces of a community (or communion) of smiling faces, different yet one in Jesus Christ. Worship and Service are both the purpose, the reason why we get together and call ourselves a church. Let us embrace them both.