God S

Worship is not

BEHAVING By Joel Sierra

ome churches include in their staff of volunteers the role of ushers: persons who greet people as they come in, give them a printed bulletin and help them fi nd a seat. Some ushers also take it upon themselves to help maintain reverence and quietness of the worship service. .Restless teenagers and noisy children are among the more frequently ministered to by ushers in their silencing task. Ushers like to see everyone sitting comfortably and in quiet reverence during worship. However, they would have a diffi cult time trying to make God behave in worship.

In Mexico, like in many other countries, Baptist worship is

known to be reverent, well organized, calm and sober. This is so because the worship service is carried out under the premise that we are in the presence of God who is attentively listening to our praise, therefore we must keep silent before the throne of glory. The thought of God listening to our praise is what makes us work hard in every part of the service. We have been taught that everything we do in worship is for God. So we practice for God to listen to our performance. We have turned the worship service into a spectacle whose special spectator is God. However, this divine “spectator” is not behaving; God is not quietly and passively listening during worship. God is not behaving in worship, sitting quietly like the family

“grandma” having a delightful visit, slowly rocking back and forth in her chair listening to her grandchildren recite heartfelt poems, sing favorite hymns and speak elegantly about ideas and doctrines. Instead, God is working actively during worship. God is moving from one place to another, poking someone’s ribs, pulling someone’s sleeves, whispering in someone’s

God is not

a quiet spectator of our rehearsed shows.

. . . let’s keep in mind that God is constantly working and speaking to people in ways that escape us.

ears, touching someone’s heart, probing someone’s will, inviting, challenging, calling, waking up moral consciences, helping people see new visions and possibilities of life in hope and joy. At the end of the worship service God must be exhausted from all the work done, knocking at the door of our hearts. So when we “perform” in worship, either as members of the choir or as preachers, ushers or any other role, let’s keep in mind that God is constantly working and speaking to people in ways that escape us. God is not a quiet spectator of our rehearsed shows. God is not behaving the way many of us expect God to, and we rejoice in that wonderful fact! Churches live because God is not only silently and quietly

listening to what we say or sing. The life of the church depends on God’s actions of justice and salvation. When we gather for worship, we are entering into an encounter; we are being talked to, addressed and awakened by God. God’s initiatives and ideas are implanted and sown in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, and if we are paying attention and devote ourselves to keeping the Word of God that comes to us in every worship service, then we’ll see how the church moves on and is alive. We’ll see how the mountains move. Mission starts in worship as we let God “misbehave” and not remain in silent observation of our religious motions and pious gestures. Go on, God. Move among us! Talk to our hearts and give us an opportunity to respond. Your churches will move on in bold mission and witness of the life of Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit for the transformation of Your beloved world. Amen. Joel Sierra, from Mexico, pastored First Baptist Church of Managua, Nicaragua, and is a vice president of the BWA.

become a user of the lectionary . . . there are some topics that I would probably shy away from as being too diffi cult. Because I had accepted the discipline of using the lectionary I can’t avoid them. They come up and I have to actually do the hard work to proclaim these things.” Because of his belief that a fi xed liturgy has a place in the life of Baptists, Nettleton, who holds a master’s degree in liturgical studies from the Melbourne College of Divinity, manages the Laughing Bird Liturgical Resources website (www.laughingbird. net) that provides worship resources to other Baptists. The website is a mixture of prayers, scripture paraphrases, sermons and music

written by the music director of South Yarra Community Baptist Church where Nettleton has been pastor since 1994. “Movement and structure are important because that is what

tells the story,” Nettleton declares. “Within a well structured worship service there is a sense of being walked through the story of our faith, our own experience of salvation, where the story is being rehearsed and written into us.” When a worship service has no discernible structure, “either it goes nowhere or the danger is that people begin to interpret a story into it, usually unconsciously, and that story may be a very unhelpful story.”

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