Preparing to Go Out to Serve

Worship as "Soundtrack"

The way we talk in worship affects the way we talk in the rest of our lives, and vice versa... The words of worship are like stones thrown into the pond; they ripple outward in countless concentric circles, finding ever fresh expression in new places in our lives.... Worship is a key element in the church's 'language school' for life.... It's a provocative idea-worship as a soundtrack for the rest of life, the words and music and actions of worship inside the sanctuary playing the background as we live our lives outside, in the world."

-Thomas G. Long, Testimony (Jossey-Bass, 2004), 47-48.

Worship as "Practicing the Moves"

Barbara Brown Taylor tells of her own experience as a little girl, learning ballet. In The Preaching Life, she remembers all the time she had to spend practicing the dance moves:

It would have suited me to spend the whole hour admiring myself in front of the mirror, but my teacher kept insisting that I come away from there to learn the basic positions essential to ballet. Under her tutelage, I learned to bend my feet this way and that, sometimes straining so hard I feared my knees would pop from their sockets. [I arched my back, I held my head up, I made perfect O's with my arms. I stretched and sweated over the positions until my bones ached and my muscles yelled out loud]. Then one day I got to put them all together, bending and rising and sweeping the air like someone to whom gravity no longer applied. I got to dance. ...

That memory sustains me in worship, where I practice the basic positions of faith. They are calledkyrie, gloria, credo, and sanctus [or praise, confession, thanksgiving, and dedication]. Each one requires my full attention and best efforts; each one teaches me a particular way to move, so that when God invites me to put them all together, I may jump with joy to join the dance.

Exercises

Questions to Ask in the Car on Sunday Morning

On the Way to Church:

• What is the central prayer I am eager to express today?

On the Way Home:

• What aspect of God's beauty did I see today?

• How did today "change my mind" in ways that help me think more scripturally?

• What was my central prayer in worship today? How did worship expand my prayer life, either in lament, thanksgiving, praise or petition?

• What song can I hum when I wake up tomorrow morning?

Things to Say to Your Ministers and Musicians After Church on Sunday

Instead of ...

• Impressive music today.

• Very clever sermon.

• What a nice song.

... consider :

• You helped me pray today.

• That sermon or hymn was not easy, but it was worth it.

• You let scripture change my mind about something today.

• I'll be pondering that thought (or humming that tune) all week.