Worship and Theology Intertwined

April 3, 2022 • Fourth Sunday in Lent
Scripture Reading: Galatians 3:26-28 & Romans 12:1-5, 9-10 (The Inclusive Bible)
Pastor Jeff Wells

[You can view the full worship video recording at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhRQw-qSRlo

The apostle Paul called on the members of the church in Rome – and by extension, all followers of Jesus – including us – “to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. Don’t conform yourselves to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your minds….” Do our worship and our theology “conform to this age” or do they transform us and renew our minds? What is the relationship between what we believe, how we worship, and how we live? As a progressive Christian church, how do our beliefs about God and our interactions with God and the world shape the decisions we make about every aspect of our worship? 

As I see it, worship and belief intertwine in a complex relationship. Belief and worship shape one another and, together, they shape and are shaped by how we live in the world and how we experience the world. Also, our life together in this hybrid community is shaped by our individual and collective histories, by the particular and unique collection of individuals in this one body we call the church, by our openness to change and transformation and, of course, by the ways we listen and respond to God’s luring and leading. 

My own beliefs and theology have changed a lot – shaped by history, relationships, spiritual experiences, and by the culture in which I have lived in for nearly 65 years. They have influenced what I worshiped, the ways I have worshiped, and what I have believed over time.

I don’t remember much about the two Methodist churches in which I grew up. However, I do have strong memories of participating in the Methodist Youth group at that church. How many of you had the experience of being in a church youth group? If you did, I highly recommend a song titled, “Youth Group” by a wonderful Queer artist named Semler. The verse in the song that made me laugh out loud says, “Youth group lock-ins are a really strange concept that youth group leaders seem to really like. It’s like, “Let’s take some repressed hormonal teenagers, and put ’em in church and hope they find Jesus overnight.” 

When I was 15, our youth leader, Dan Biddick, took us to a Christian revival gathering 100 miles away in Madison, Wisconsin. It was in a big indoor arena. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of young people attending. I don’t recall a lot of the details, but I remember that toward the end of that event, the preacher called for anyone who felt moved to come down to the front and give their life to Jesus. And I did. And pretty soon after that, I became a high school Jesus freak for about a year. Yes, I was that kid who carried a Bible around with my school books. When, much later, I decided to go to seminary and seek ordination, my sister reminded me that I had talked about becoming a minister. But it turned out to be a fling. When I was 16, I got a girlfriend who wasn’t interested in church and, suddenly, I found her much more enticing than Jesus. Also, I was becoming radicalized by the social and political environment in the early 1970s. I was certainly breaking from my cultural upbringing and being transformed, but not in the direction of Jesus. Then, in the late 1990s, I experienced a profound spiritual reawakening and a call to ministry. 

In seminary, in the early 2000s, I was exposed to more liberal or progressive theological views and worship practices than those I had known as youth. By the time I was commissioned as a United Methodist minister in 2005, I was already quickly evolving away from the sort of worship and theology I had grown up with. So, when I was appointed as pastor in a United Methodist Church on Long Island, I was chomping at the bit to introduce some of the things I learned in seminary. Some folks in the congregation were quite progressive and receptive, but others were quite conservative and resistant to change. So, I got push back when I started referring to God as “She.” Then, there was the time I used a beautiful and creative re-imagining of what some call “The Lord’s Prayer.” The chair of the Worship Committee threatened to report me to the District Superintendent! 

We moved away from singing hymns only out of the United Methodist Hymnal, though we still used some of the older hymns. Also, the choir began to sing a mix of classical and contemporary choral music. There were a lot of fans of the Contemporary Christian Music genre in the church and we formed three different praise bands. Also, we introduced a lot of songs by Mark Miller and even some of the songs from cultures around the world that Jorge helped to collect and publish when he led the Global Praise division at the General Board of Global Ministries. 

Worship in that church wasn’t blended, it was a mess – as was its theology. But we tried to meet the spiritual needs of those in the congregation as it existed then, while also expanding their theological and worship horizons. That church was transforming, slowly and sometimes painfully, but in very important ways. 

Of course, neither my own evolution nor that of the congregation I served happened in a vacuum. For decades, churches had been evolving in the direction of more contemporary worship styles – and not only evangelical “praise and worship.” That reflected changes in theology as well. There was more at work than merely a desire for different music or language. Many in that congregation and in the wider United Methodist Church wanted to move toward being a church that was fully welcoming and celebrating LGBTQ+ persons. That impacted what we did and said and prayed and sung in worship. 

The Church of the Village was formed in 2005 as the consolidation of three Methodist congregations in lower Manhattan. It has evolved a lot in a relatively short span of time. From the beginning, COTV called itself “a progressive United Methodist community.” When I arrived in 2015, I found a congregation that was much more homogenous, ideologically and theologically, than the church I had served on Long Island, but whose worship was, in many ways, just as eclectic. The congregation espoused a generally progressive Christian theological stance and took strong stands on LGBT inclusion and other social issues. At that time, the chancel choir still had four paid professional soloists. It also had a gospel choir. The music director was much more classically oriented and I recall he was not happy when the worship planning team began introducing more contemporary songs and hymns.

This week, I reviewed some worship bulletins from 2015 and 2016 and one thing that stood out for me is that the title “Lord” used to refer to God or Jesus is all over those worship services. Today, we rarely use that title in worship because of its patriarchal connotations. That came first as a theological shift and then show up in a change of language in worship. 

Many of us have had to break away from being brought up seeing God as male and Jesus as white. Again, there has been a profound cultural shift that has impacted theology and worship in many religious spaces. 

Our beliefs and commitments influence the songs we choose to sing. Yet, also, the songs we sing repeatedly over time, shape who we are and solidify and confirm our beliefs. The same is true with prayers, liturgical language, preaching, and the scripture lessons or other readings we choose for worship. Worship and belief are intertwined and their influence is mutual and bidirectional. 

Even how we sit in this space is an expression of our beliefs and theology. Sitting in a circle breaks down barriers and hierarchies. That’s one reason we removed the pews a few years ago. It is also why we do not usually preach or read scripture from the pulpit or lectern. Even more importantly, it matters a lot who gets represented among those who lead worship. We are very intentional about all of these things because we are committed to living out our inclusive, anti-racist values in our worship.  

One thing I love about worship in the Church of the Village is that we are not afraid to experiment or change. So, these days, when we want to use an older hymn, but some of the theology expressed no longer fits our beliefs, we write new lyrics. If we cannot find a song that says what we want to express, we write a new one. Also, you may not even realize it, but over the past few years, the Worship Vision Team has dramatically reshaped our liturgies for Communion and Baptism and Receiving New Members to reflect our evolving theology. 

Friends, I have barely scratched the surface on all of the ways worship and theology intertwine and impact how we live together as a community. So, I hope many of you will join me in the conversation after worship. I want to hear how you experience it. How has your theology and connection to worship changed over the time? What have been your good or not so good experiences of worship and theology in other places? If you have been around for a few years or a few decades, it would be powerful to hear you share your own experience of how worship and theology change over time in our community. What is especially meaningful for you about worship at the Church of the Village? Please come for a vigorous and wide-ranging conversation. 

I often hear from folks who find their way to the Church of the Village how healing and life-affirming it is to find a community that is committed to intentionally and continually evolving and growing, theologically, liturgically, and spiritually. As imperfectly as we might implement it, we are, in fact, in the business of not conforming ourselves to the cultural soup in which we swim, but being transformed by the renewal of our minds – by being counter-cultural and wide open to the beckoning, inspiration, and love of God.

Copyright © 2022 by Jeff Wells
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