Are We Merely Playing Church?

In Lucy Maud Montgomery’s novel The Story Girl is a scene in the orchard where the children play church, complete with a sermon preached to the young audience. I don’t know if they sang songs or prayed, but when we think of church, those things are included. As Christians, and especially as people in ministry, we have become very familiar with how to do this thing we call church.

What I have been asking myself lately is: “Am I merely playing church like these children in the orchard? What does going to church really mean, and how can I reflect what church is really supposed to be to our people?”

Would those children have been doing church more by lifting up a basket, praising God for his provision in the food and then sharing them with others?

What we have come to define as church is what has become the outward expressions of what we call corporate worship. Understanding the true meaning of the words used for worship and fellowship in Scripture has given me cause for thought in regards to what it means to get together as a church.

We come together as believers in Jesus to give reverence to God with our faces down; to offer service to Him with our hands up and out; and we come together to have communion with one another and Him with our hearts open.

The words used in both the Old and New Testaments for worship mean to bow down and to serve. Many times I have felt the desire in one of our meetings as believers to get on my knees in prayer or praise, but I have hesitated because it’s not the expected thing to do in my church community. I have to ask myself if I should have obeyed that moving in my spirit instead of fearing others, but I do know that I can be bowing in my heart even if my body doesn’t reflect that just as much as I can bow down physically with my heart being far from that attitude.

I love how this concept is described in Exodus 33:10. When Moses went to the tabernacle to meet with God, it says the people rose up to worship. This indicates it’s not the posture that matters so much as the attitude. Even though they rose up, they were bowing down—worshiping. They rose up to bow down. Our attitude of reverence and obeisance to God is what matters, whether we are rising or sitting or lying down or working or playing—in all things we must worship Him. This is not limited to a certain time and place.

Not only do we bow with our faces down when we worship, we offer service to God with our hands up and out. This happens in so many ways, either when we meet together as a church Body or throughout the week as we serve them and our families and people in our community. Serving Him certainly is not limited to watching the children in the nursery or singing and playing an instrument or percolating and pouring coffee after the service, but it is how we can serve Him when we are together.

When we bow down in reverence and reach out in service to our God, then we can have true fellowship with one another.

In fellowship we have communion with one another. We are partners in worship and service. When we have fellowship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit we have that true communion with one another (see I John 1:3). The implication is that only those who are walking in the Light, worshiping and serving Him can then have true communion with one another (see I John 1:6-7).

This is more than socializing about the weather or our kids or the latest political scandal, as much as those things can help us build relationships with one another. If I or our people merely come to church for this, we may as well join the country club or the local Kiwanis group or the Lions or any other organization that does good things for the community.

Christian worship and fellowship have one underlying purpose, to give obeisance to, to do homage to the Lord of the Universe. It is in this that we find true joy and peace and intimacy with God and one another.

So, how do I encourage this in my own heart and in the hearts of our people?

First, I need to check my own heart every day—do I truly have no other gods before Him or am I worshiping lesser gods, those of self-promotion or self-interests or hobbies or fill-in-the-blank?

Next, is my service given out of love for Him or because of fear of what others might think if I don’t say yes to that particular ministry? Has my service become out of balance with my worship so that I am doing things out of my own strength and not his?

I love how Joanna Weaver describes this balance of worship and work in her book “Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World”. She describes this balance between the two ends in our lives like riding a teeter totter. At times we’ll be more on the worship side, at other times more on the work and service side.

But, she says, “being balanced is not so much a matter of staying in perfect equilibrium as it is a matter of finding the right rhythm for our lives…. As long as my heart is set toward both service and worship, I don’t have to feel guilty when my life seems to settle longer on one side because I know I’ll eventually push off from that spot and spend some time on the other” (p. p. 181-82).

If my heart stays centered on Christ, I can keep the right balance between worship and service, getting into the rhythm of reverence for God and service to Him.

Finally, I can stop playing church if my heart towards others is one in which I am seeking to connect with them at a level of intimacy that is truthful, spiritual, and loving. Merely discussing how nice the decorations looked at the ladies meeting is not true fellowship with another Christian woman, though that might be part of our discussion.

As believers we must desire to go to the heart of the matter with one another, and that requires vulnerability, faith, perseverance, and maybe even repentance at times, in order to be in true communion with one another. At the same time, we must recognize that apart from remaining connected to the Holy Spirit in true worship of Him, we will be unable to walk in the Light of partnership and intimacy with other followers of Him.

God, keep us from coming near to You with our lips but being so far in our hearts from truly worshiping You and communing with one another (see Isaiah 29:13).

Forgive us for too often playing church instead of doing the real work of seeking and serving You and one another.

Anyone like an apple? I just picked a basketful.