Urbana 2000 Convention
Worship Builds CommunityA few months ago, a man older than I (he's around 50) shared with me that it used to be quite common for groups of people in our society to get together for the sole purpose of singing. These sing-a-longs were not necessarily religious in nature, they were simply gatherings of people who lived in the same community or had similar values. Singing together was a way for them to relate to each other. They built their relationships and expressed their commonness of location, worldview, hopes, and dreams, through having a common and participatory musical experience.
This is like the role music played during the civil rights movement in the 50s and 60s. It was often through singing together that protestors of injustice built bonds with each other and found the strength to continue on with their struggle. And in the 60s, the "hippie" movement also used singing together as a way to express and experience similarities and common desires.
Religious or not, singing together has always served to bring people together. These days, however, we don't sing together much in North-American culture. Except in one very profound context, of course - worship.
Our singing together in worship (and other participatory acts of praise - like praying together) has great potential to bring us together. (And you may have noticed that it has the power to divide us, too.) As we lift our voices together, we symbolically express that we are one body in Christ. When we pray a common prayer, or read a scripture together, we live out God's call to be unified. Worshipping together is a primary way we encounter God's will for us to be his unified people.
Our corporate worship is not only an expression of unity. Its quality and depth also sometimes reveal the level of unity of relationships between us. In other words, if it's hard to sing together, or if worship is a sore spot in your community of faith, then there may be bigger issues at hand. If there are worship wars waging around you, there may be deeper needs for reconciliation to explore. Ultimately, if we can't worship together, there simply may be a lack of love between us.
The type of relational negotiation that goes into establishing common worship is very much like the give-and-take of daily life together. You do it that way and I think it should be done this way - so what do we do? We listen to each other. We share our values from our hearts. We give on non-essentials. We choose to respect others views. And we grow in humility and character through learning from each other and loving each other.
When we can truly worship together, we grow in our unity. It should be made clear that the point of worship (be it singing or any other form) is to glorify God. However, in his mercy, God also makes it good for us as his body. Worshiping together plays the function of unifying "separate voices into a single voice of purpose - praise" (J. Nathan Corbitt, The Sound of the Harvest, Baker, 54). When we worship together and when the experiential unity of the worship event is reflected in our daily lives of faith, we experience God's desires for us to be his united people. Matt Frazier
Urbana Worship Team Leader
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