Faith Works 9-29-18

Faith Works 9-29-18

Jeff Gill

 

Changing the angle of vision

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When you try to see things from God's point of view, it can be a bit of a stretch.

 

Honestly, we're just not cut out for that perspective. It takes abilities we just don't have, though we can catch glimpses and inklings of it.

 

What we can do is change our usual angle. In so many ways (seats in church for instance) we can get stuck on a single point of view.

 

As I mentioned last February, I've found that I have a mild neurological disorder which can become a major problem for someone who mostly talks in his work. It's called spasmodic dysphonia, and there's a treatment if not a cure which involves periodic injections . . . into my vocal cords. Yes, it's as much fun as it sounds.

 

And I trade some improved function in the months to come, as I recently did for a goodly stretch, for a brief period of relative incapacity. In short, I can't talk above a whisper for a week or so.

 

What I did last Sunday I commend to any other preacher, lay speaker, or church leader in any form who gets used to one particular vantage point. I sat in the back. And it was a learning experience in many ways.

 

I learned that at our second, larger service, 20% of the worshiping congregation arrived after the stated time of service. I don't know what that means, or even if I should do anything about it, but it's interesting. I had vaguely noticed an increase in late arrivals, but from up on the platform from some time before the beginning, you don't really experience it. Sitting in the back, what we call the narthex or entry room before the worship space (or nave, but no one in our church calls it that), I got a very clear picture of the trend. Perhaps more to come on that subject!

 

And I heard the singing very differently. Congregational singing, whether in contemporary or traditional style worship services, is a much debated topic. How to encourage or enhance singing by the people in the seats. John Wesley complained in the 1700s that the parishioners tended to not sing out very well; Martin Luther included in his reforms reducing the focus on choirs and more popular hymnody. It's still a challenge, quite frankly. Do we just give in and let the choir or praise band or organ or whathaveyou take the lead, or are there ways we can promote more singing from the congregation?

 

I also got to sneak up and enjoy children's church. The younger ones leave after the children's message in our later service, and have a program in a chapel then an activity room all their own (and kudos to everyone in the church I serve who have improved and beautified that space). I had been told the outlines of how this has been going the last few months, but it was a joy to get to be in the room and join in a bit with their part of the service.

 

Honestly, I'd done this before under various opportunities, but in this last week to have the whole worship service from the opposite angle of the church experience was a great chance to know what our community looks like and feels like. I commend it to anyone, and don't wait until someone has stabbed you in the throat with needles for an excuse!

 

What sticks with me most, though, was to just hear the words spoken around me, and the songs sung, and share in the elements as they were passed, and to not have a part in the leadership of the day. I'm used to singing out to help boost the music, being a worship leader in speaking first, and having a voice in the whole affair. It is indeed a very different experience to simply participate, to be entirely receptive in the worship without any active role at all. It's not that it's better or worse to be one or the other, it's that this is the way an overwhelming majority of people experience worship, and I think I needed to be reminded what that aspect of being church is like.

 

Sometimes, we need to just be. To be in worship. And nothing more. May we all have that opportunity at some point soon!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's likely to be talking again all too soon. Tell him about your experiences of silence and listening at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.