Wednesday, 09 July 2008

• Worship is Not a Spectator Sport

  by mr pine

  

  It's 9:45 A.M. on a typical Sunday morning at my church.  Time to start worship.  Is everyone ready?

  
  

  This was my best attempt at making a panoramic photo of the sanctuary at the start of worship one Sunday.  Is it daylight savings time?  No.  Was there a blizzard last night that dumped 4 feet of snow on the ground?  No, it doesn't snow that much in mid-August in Maryland.  Has the Rapture occurred?  I hope not, considering that's our two pastors in the front row of the first photo.  It's just a typical Sunday morning and everyone is late - as usual. 

  I took the liberty of diagraming the normal Sunday morning distribution of people at the start of service.  And before you say anything, yes, I did take the time to actually draw this out, and, no, it didn't take that long because of a lot of cutting and pasting.  The numbers are notes to identify certain people.

  

  1.  Pastor Kenny:  He usually presides over the service.
  2.  Pastor Walter:  Our head pastor, who sits in the front to jump into action at a moment's notice.
  3.  Random Deacon:  Usually if they have an announcement to make, there's a deacon waiting nearby
  4.  Brave Soul(s):  Usually this is Donald or Kyung.  They've taken the bold move of crossing "The Great Divide" (more on this later)
  5.  Random College Student:  This is the seat of choice for college students if they have to make an announcement.
  6.  Praise Team:  Often there are more people ON the stage than in the seats at the start of worship.
  7.  Random New Dating Couple:  It's almost universally true that when a couple starts dating at my church, they start migrating toward the rear of the sanctuary.

  Now, the landscape changes drastically by the time the sermon is ready to start... forty minutes later... where the number of people increase exponentially until we reach about 200. 

  

  This series of photos was taken right before the sermon started...  definitely a lot more people, but do you notice anything else rather strange?  This photo was not manipulated in any way.  This is how it looks every Sunday from the pulpit.  Indeed 97% (no exaggeration) of the congregation is sitting beyond the first five rows of the sanctuary.  I have another diagram of the distribution of this below.

  

  Beyond the first 4-5 rows of pews at Bethel is a space I call "The Great Divide."  Very few people sit forward of this "no-man's land," and I can't figure out why.  I don't see what's so intimidating about it.  It's not like the teacher is going to call on you more often.  Am I the only one who sees this and thinks that it's kind of ridiculous and really sad?  Am I the only one who is uncomfortable about what this says about our church?

  There have been a few shifts.  The praise team (6) has moved to the bullpen, and is now ready to play something when needed.  PK (1) and PW (2) have obviously switched positions.  The college student (5) has moved back to the masses beyond the Great Divide.  The newly dating couple (7) are now sitting a little further apart as to, again, not draw the stares of the masses.  And toddlers (8) have appeared out of nowhere and are running around the far-right rear of the sanctuary.  Somehow there is a mysterious void at position (9) that is uneven with the same section on the opposite side of the sanctuary.  Maybe because the side opposite of (9) is closer to the fellowship hall and the donuts.  I don't know.

  I have several theories on why people don't sit in the front and are so concentrated in the rear.  The strongest one is this:  Because people come so late, they don't want to draw attention to themselves, so they try to sit behind as many people as possible.  But this doesn't explain why even people who come on time refuse to sit toward the front.  I have several theories about this:

  1.  They're afraid that Pastor Walter might catch them nodding off - I guess this could be true, but 9:45 A.M. is pretty late even for late-risers.  Plus his sermons are pretty rousing and I believe that only the extremely sleep-deprived would actually fall asleep during one of his sermons.

  2.  They're paranoid about people looking at the backs of their heads - but we're Korean... we all look the same from behind.

  3.  People believe that they have to be holy to sit in the front of the church - OR (and this is probably more likely) they don't want to seem to be putting on airs by sitting in the front... that it's somehow more "humble" to sit in the back.  I think this is incredibly stupid and amazingly self-focused.

  4.  They don't want everyone behind them to see their crumpled up one dollar bill in the collection plate... the same amount their parents gave them to put in the collection plate when they were 7 years old.

  5.  People don't feel they belong to this church - I can see this... it's sad.  They don't realize that they can't avoid "belonging" to a church and fully worship God at the same time.

  

  6.  The skylight:  It doesn't help that this thing shines a bright beam of light down onto that center front section of seats.  It looks like an interrogation light.

  7.  We've all become spectators instead of worshipers.

  I have news for you.  You can not come to church to just spectate.  Worship is not something you observe.  It's not like supporting a baseball team by attending the home games.  The fact that we don't come to church on time, the fact that we barely worship while we're there, the fact that we gauge if it was a good service by what WE got out of it is a clear indication that we have no fear of the Lord.  You might as well stay at home. To say that "at least we were there" is assuming that we're doing God a favor by crawling in whenever we want.  Picture God in heaven saying, "Oh, look at my good and faithful servant so-and-so!... he finally made it out to worship service!... that was just SO great of him to bless me with that!"  You do not get points for just showing up; in  fact, you don't get points at all.  We worship God because that is what we were created to do, and because God is the only one worthy of our praise.

  Imagine for a moment if you were a visitor to our church and had no idea who God is.  What would the images above tell you?  What kind of witness to the world would this be?  If I were a visitor, I'd think... "this Good News that all these Christians seems so gaga over... it must not really mean that much that they can't even get out of bed early enough to come on time.. they must be quite embarrassed or afraid of it because no one is sitting close enough to hear it... and they must not like their pastor all that much because most of them are not sitting close enough to even throw a tennis ball at him."

  Also, the praise team is not there for people's amusement or entertainment.  Their main purpose is to lead us into worship, regardless of musical preferences. If you have the right spirit, you can have worship revival with a kazoo and trash can lid.  I think when we clap at the end of a rousing song, it's mostly out of habit or acknowledgement that we were entertained.  Rarely is it out of true worshipful response.

  I don't know how or if we can ever change, but we MUST.  Forget about selling all your belongings and going to Africa to save the world.  How can we go across the world if we can't go 20 feet to the front of the sanctuary? How can we give up everything we have if we can't even give up 20 extra minutes of sleep?  How can we say we love the Lord if we mock His worship?

  

  I leave you with an image of what the pastor sees while he's delivering the Good News every Sunday.  Those tiny specks in the distance, most of whom just arrived just several minutes prior, that's us.  Are we so ashamed of that Good News?  This is our witness to the world.

   

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