Some friends are kindly discussing this series, see here, here and here. I’m prompted to write this postscript to head off a potential misunderstanding.

Worship has fruits. These are not the uses of worship – if we aim for the fruits then we are no longer worshipping rightly – but if we get the worship right then we can reasonably expect the God of all grace to equip us for ministry.

In heaven – or after the resurrection – then all that we do will be worship, for God will be with us eternally. In the meantime, worship allows us to touch heaven and enables us to carry out the work of the kingdom.

It is a little bit like a musician taking time to tune their instrument in order to then play sweet music; worship tunes us in to the correct pitch. Of course, that analogy breaks down a little – pursuing it would mean that all that happens in heaven is the tuning of instruments, a little like the cacophony that precedes the symphony.

Yet whilst we are here in this sinful world, right worship, which relates us to God and sets us right with God, is the spiritual medicine which heals us and enables us to share that healing with the wider world.

So right worship is the prerequisite for right mission, for right proclamation, for right witness. Where the worship is confused and confusing all these other elements of Christian life are diminished and inhibited.

This is why the stewardship of worship is an essentially pastoral task – it undergirds all other pastoral work – and why it is properly the prime concern of the priest. If we get the worship wrong then everything else we do is diminished; if we get the worship right then everything else we do is enhanced.

So yes: let us be concerned with all the other things that Christians are called to do – with mission, with evangelism, with political engagement and care for the poor, with provocative lives that challenge the powers and call people to repentance. But if we are going to do that in accordance with God‘s will and not with our own… let us take our worship with ultimate seriousness, and love God with ALL our hearts, minds, souls and strength. God must come first, and if we seek His kingdom then all these other things will be given us as well.

OK, having cleared my throat, here are some further specific thoughts about the Sunday morning service at Greenbelt this year.

– structure – I thought the structure was pretty good. I can’t recall if it began with an invocation of Christ but, on paper, there was a good balance of word and sacrament, the hymns were appropriate to the theme and on the whole it was pretty solid. The service didn’t fall down because of the structure, although there was room to quibble about some bits (eg no Lord’s Prayer);
– the Word – this was the first serious problem with the service, in that the Scriptures were not read out in English. Sure, if you had a Bible with you (or if you had a good memory for Scripture) then you could tell what was going on, if not, you were alienated from what is (probably) the single most important element of Christian worship. Also, the ‘sermons’ were read out (and people had the text in the service sheets), this too was a mistake, although not so serious;
– the music – this was diabolical. The hymns chosen were good-to-excellent (new words to old and familiar tunes) but the implementation was a disaster and the best example conceivable of how not to enable worship. In the environment of Greenbelt on a Sunday morning – when there were some 15,000 people gathered together in a field – then the onus is on those preparing the worship to ensure that some sense of solidarity is generated amongst the diverse people present. This is most readily achieved by singing in unison – so, a familiar hymn which all could join in with easily. Sadly, the way in which the music was played (technical people can describe the details) achieved nothing but alienation amongst most of the people gathered together (certainly all the people around me; it may have been different in other areas). There was a strong sense of wanting to join in and sing, but being prevented from doing so, and this compounded the error of not having the Scriptures read out in English. In sum – there were some people doing things on stage but it didn’t have much integration with what the people were able to join in with;
– the politics – I’m probably more pro-Israel than the average Greenbelt attender, so the pro-Palestine theme was a bit jarring for me, but even taking that into account I felt that it was too specific and one-sided to work well as the theme for this service. The principal occasion for fostering unity amongst the people gathered was probably not the best time to pursue a politically divisive issue (the same could probably be said about criticising Tesco). It raises the question of what the worship was for…;
– the sacrament – this was the best bit of the official service. I thought that the ‘elbow bump of peace’ was creative (although, in the context of a lot of people alienated from the worship, laughing and bemused, it didn’t increase a sense of transcendence!) and the use of oil for anointing was excellent and moving, and I was fairly happy that this had replaced communion (which left people the option of a supplementary communion amongst themselves at the end, which we did). Also, the giving out of an olive seed at the end was a good, incarnational idea.

So, on the whole, some good ideas at the planning stage, which were only partly successful in implementation, but as a service of worship the music in particular killed it nearly stone dead. What makes it most bizarre is that the ‘Beer and Hymns’ is an excellent demonstration of what might be possible. The service could have been mind-blowingly wonderful. It wasn’t, and that is a shame.

For the record, given the comments made at the Greenbelt site, I am not a conservative evangelical (!!) and I have no idea who Tim Hughes is.

Previous posts in this series:
Intro
What makes worship distinctively Christian
Participation and Performance
Worship is Useless