 Presbyterian Leaders’ Forum 
A Message from the Stated Clerk God is spirit, and those who worship God must worship in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). This understanding is foundational to the third of the “Great Ends of the Church” emphasized at the 210th General Assembly (1998). The Book of Order (G-1.0200) states that one of the church’s chief “ends,” or purposes, is “the maintenance of divine worship.”Worship supplies a framework for the General Assembly. This year, the “Reunion of Reunions” of Presbyterian racial ethnic educational institutions prefaced the Assembly with a dynamic evening of praise and celebration. Churches of the region swelled the congregation at our opening communion in the Charlotte Coliseum. Meditation and self-dedication permeated the daily worship and the periods of prayer at the beginning and end of business sessions. The commissioning of missionaries and installation of other church leaders were conducted in a spirit of devotion and the seeking of Christ’s will for our lives. Responsibility for the maintenance of worship is not limited to the General Assembly. All governing bodies, including the Session, are charged by our Constitution’s Directory for Worship to order worship in ways “faithful to the authority of the Holy Spirit speaking in and through Scripture” (W-3.1001). As in other areas of our lives, Presbyterians strive to achieve a proper balance between “ardor and order” as we worship. The Directory tells us, “In worship, the church is to remember both its liberty in Christ and the biblical command to do all things in an orderly way. While Christian worship need not follow prescribed forms, careless or disorderly worship is both an offense to God and a stumbling block to the people” (W-1.4001). Later, the Directory reminds us “that all forms of worship are provisional and subject to reformation. In ordering worship the church is to seek openness to the creativity of the Holy Spirit, who guides the church toward worship which is orderly yet spontaneous, consistent with God’s Word and open to the newness of God’s future” (W-3.1002). We do our best to serve the Lord in worship, yet we depend on the Holy Spirit to render this experience fresh and revitalizing for each new generation. The gospels indicate that Jesus was not impressed by ritual for its own sake. When he challenged worshipers in a Galilean synagogue with hard realities, they threatened to push Jesus over a cliff (Luke 4:21-30). When he overthrew the money changers’ commerce in order to restore the Temple as a house of prayer for all people, this action was added to the indictments against him (John 2:14-19; Mark 14:55-58). It was neither in Galilee nor Jerusalem, but on a mountain in Samaria, that Jesus defined the nature of worship (John 4:19-24). Coming into God’s presence in spirit and truth transforms our lives and, through us, the life of the world. May the church fulfill its calling to maintain divine worship, ever being reformed by the Spirit in accordance with the Word of God.
Clifton Kirkpatrick |
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The Presbyterian Layman, July/August 1998 contents |
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