Aristotle’s (Christian) worship

Aristotle’s (Christian) worship

I go to plenty of Christian worship services. That’s the (usually) weekly gathering of God’s people as an expression of and preparation for the whole of life worship that Scripture commends as the acceptable respond to God’s mercy in Christ (Rom 12:1-2). It’s also an anticipation of life as part of the crowd in the throne room of God’s new creation.

That’s an opportunity to think about the essence of gathered worship – especially as I have just marked a bunch of student papers discussing services of worship and attended my first charismatic service last Sunday as part of celebrating the conversion of a Singapore nephew.

Aristotle has a useful distinction between substance and accident. The substance of a thing is its “stuff’ that must be there for the thing to be the thing that it is. The accident is the outward form of the substance. Substance is definitional and ontological. Accident is contextual and variable.

Here’s some accidental expressions of my recent worship experience:

·       The nephew’s church that was pitched at a young audience through the hipsters on stage, a mesmerising moving display on screen through most of the service, almost constant drum beat and four-note keyboard offerings;

·       The very traditional service that I often attend with vast pipe organ, robed choir, collared clergy, sung Lord’s Prayer and set “free” liturgy;

·       A friend’s church at which I recently preached in jeans and open necked shirt and where people raised hands, called out etc.

I respect the first because its where a nephew was found by grace. I love the second because it resonates with something in me – the music in that church touches me like no other. I love the third for its energy and life-connection – this otherwise fatigued preacher was energised.

Back to the student papers. They typically identified the following elements as core to gathered worship:

·       It’s about God, not the worshippers;

·       Worship should be first vertical (directed to God);

·       Worship should also be horizontal (foster fellowship);

·       Worship should edify God’s people (in all the senses of that word);

·       What we do should be Word-regulated and gospel-shaped;

·       Gathered worship is significant in itself and as preparation for life worship;

·       Essentials are:

o   Reading and preaching Scripture,

o   Prayer on multiple horizons (eg, Adoration, Confession, Thanks, Supplication)

o   Sacraments,

o   Singing

How do substance and accident relate?

Substance is easy ... it must be there for it to be called worship.

Accident is tougher, because it varies. Those variations will be a product of times and circumstances. Who is gathering? What is their sense of space and time? Do they privilege order and predictability or spontaneity and flexibility? And so, the questions roll.

How are these questions to be answered? Some different answers may be: let’s do as we’ve always done; let’s do as we’ve not always done; let’s do what I like; let’s do what most of the people like.

Here’s another way of answering those questions by asking some further questions. It fits with what some older Christians called the “general rules of the word”:

·       What will most glorify God? (1 Cor 10:31)

·       What will most build others up? (1 Cor 14:26)

·       What will least give needless offense to others? (1 Cor 10:32)

·       What is decent and in good order? (1 Cor 14:40)

We can add a biggy to these worthy questions:

·       What will most point people to Jesus and help them grow into him and in him? (Col 1:28; Eph 4:13-15)

A final observation: none of this is about me. It’s all about serving God and others. And that’s why the charismatic service that doesn’t “fit” to my style, the traditional service that I cherish and the service that energises me are not the point. The point is to ask what celebrates God and points people to his grace in Jesus. That’s no accident, Aristotelean or otherwise.