New Worshiping Communities

A Theological Exploration

Vera White, Charles Wiley

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780664263096
• eBook ISBN: 9781611648461
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

What is the church to make of the many new expressions of worship springing up across the nation and the world? A gathering of academic theologians, New Worshiping Community practitioners, and leaders from within Presbyterian councils met at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary to start the conversation. New Worshiping Communities documents those discussions and provides theological and biblical foundations to the 1001 New Worshiping Communities movement in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

The participants in this conversation have sought to put flesh on the bones of what a New Worshiping Community is, by defining it as:

New

• Seeking to make and form new disciples of Jesus Christ
• Taking on varied forms of church for our changing culture

Worshiping

• Gathered by the Spirit to meet Jesus Christ in Word and sacrament
• Sent by the Spirit to join Gods mission for the transformation of the world

Community

• Practicing mutual care and accountability
• Developing sustainability in leadership and finances

1

Communities of Grace and Gratitude

What’s the point?

That’s what a lot of folks inside the church and outside the church are asking about Christianity, about church, about faith in Jesus Christ. And here we are talking about the importance of forming new worshiping communities, communities formed around Jesus Christ. What’s the point?

New worshiping communities are not a technical fix to what is ailing the church. They are not a technique that any community can apply in order to flourish. New worshiping communities are a contextually appropriate way to embody the gospel of Jesus Christ in a world that needs this good news. Thus it is important that we spend some time reflecting on the nature of this gospel and how we communicate it and live it.

THE GOSPEL SUMMARIZED: GRACE AND GRATITUDE

So much of the way we talk about the church is small—not in terms of size but of vision. We end up talking about the nature of the church in ways that are not compelling, not life-changing. Our message is not big enough for our vision. How might we conceive of and practice church in a way that is compelling and life-changing? What emerges from the core of our identity that compels us to practice Christian community, proclaim the gospel, and work for justice?

We believe that the theme of grace and gratitude provides this compelling message. Grace and gratitude succinctly and winsomely describe the charism, the gift of the Reformed tradition. Within the church ecumenical, different traditions have gifts that they offer to the wider church. We in the Reformed movement learn the discipline of not conforming to the surrounding culture from the Mennonites, an appreciation for God’s presence in the sacraments from Roman Catholics, a commitment to engage the structures of society from the National Baptists, and the exuberance of the Spirit from Pentecostals. Grace and gratitude are our gifts to the wider church.

This description comes alive in Brian A. Gerrish’s book Grace and Gratitude, in which Gerrish explores John Calvin’s theology of the Lord’s Supper. At the table, the relation of God and humanity is exhibited. God calls us to the table and feeds us with Christ himself, and we are sent forth in gratitude for God’s gracious movement toward us. The relationship broken by sin is restored at God’s initiative—we offer our thanks with our whole lives. More than a characterization of Calvin’s theology of the Lord’s Supper, grace and gratitude are a simple yet deep description of Calvin’s entire theological vision.

Grace and gratitude are our theological and spiritual vision. They give us an expansive vision of God. What is our picture of God? The gracious one who comes to us in creation, in the law, in the prophets, and ultimately in the person of Jesus Christ. The God who sustains us with the ongoing grace of the Holy Spirit. The God who calls us through the church. The God who is for us.

Grace

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

The apostle Paul greets worshiping communities with these words throughout his epistles. In a very real sense, this is a summary of the good news, the gospel, of Jesus Christ. God’s grace has come to us in the person of Jesus Christ, a grace that is with us, is near to us, surrounds us.

We live in a time when grace is needed but isn’t necessarily part of the everyday language of most people. Grace is important enough that we must try to recover its meaning. Grace expresses the character of God in a way that is especially important in our context where the church often functions as a symbol of guilt and obligation.

Why grace?

A profound articulation of grace comes from the French baptismal liturgy developed by the Huguenot church in the Reformation:

Little one, for you Jesus Christ came into the world:

for you he lived and showed God’s love;

for you he suffered the darkness of Calvary

and cried at the last, “It is accomplished”;

for you he triumphed over death and rose in newness of life;

for you he ascended to reign at God’s right hand.

All this he did for you, little one,

though you do not know it yet.

And so the word of Scripture is fulfilled:

“We love because God loved us first.”¹

That is grace.

Be with You

What makes this such good news is that grace is directional rather than static. Paul’s statement is also a blessing: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.” It is the direction of God toward human beings before we ever thought to turn toward God. It is the movement of God toward us when we are moving away from God. It is the movement of God toward us when we are oblivious. It is the movement of God toward us when we don’t care.

Grace comes to us in the person of Jesus Christ, the one who ate with sinners, welcomed children, and identified with the dispossessed. Grace comes to us, lives among us, envelopes us.

Transforming Grace

This grace that comes to us as we are does not leave us as we were. Our encounter with Jesus Christ transforms us. Reflecting on this mystery, the sixteenth-century church leader John Calvin spoke of grace as having a double effect.

The first effect is to take away our guilt from sin. For centuries, Christians have proclaimed the good news of the forgiveness of sins as unabashed good news. Everyone knew they were sinners. The question was whether they were saved from that sin. However, not everyone shares that common conviction now. In a real sense, we must begin with the profound gift of grace grounded in God’s overflowing love for us. Over time, through the proclamation of the gospel, the Holy Spirit will work in the hearts of people so that they will begin to see the depth of their sin and become even more grateful for the grace shown to them in Jesus Christ.

The second effect is transformation. Grace takes away our guilt, but it also transforms us. In 2 Corinthians, Paul writes that those who are in Christ are new creations. This transformation isn’t fast, unfortunately. While we may want everything now, it doesn’t work that way. John Calvin used the image of crawling on our hands and knees. We get somewhere, but it isn’t fast or without effort.

Gratitude

What is the appropriate response to grace? Gratitude. Gratitude for our lives, for our treasure, for our community. Gratitude that compels us to share the love of Christ in the community and to do justice and love mercy for all God’s children. Karl Barth wrote, “[Grace and gratitude] belong together like heaven and earth. Grace evokes gratitude like the voice an echo. Gratitude follows grace like thunder [follows] lightning.”² If God is, in essence, grace, then we are, in essence, gratitude.

We hear grace and gratitude in the last clause in Question 86 of the Heidelberg Catechism:

Q. Since we have been delivered

from our misery

by grace through Christ

without any merit of our own,

why then should we do good works?

A. Because Christ, having redeemed us by his blood,

is also restoring us by his Spirit into his image,

so that with our whole lives

we may show that we are thankful to God

for his benefits.³

The answer to Question 86 addresses one of the perennial questions in the Christian tradition: If we are saved by grace, then why do good works? Why do we have to do anything? The succinct answer in the Catechism can be expressed in an even briefer form: You don’t. You don’t have to do anything. We live lives of faithfulness because we want to, because we are grateful. St. Augustine described the Christian life in these words: “Love God and do what you want.”⁴ That is, when we love God, our wants are transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The theological and spiritual vision of grace and gratitude, central to our core identity, is an enduring legacy, worthy of our time and engagement. While institutional survival is not sufficient for our investment, seeing new and existing worshiping communities shaped by grace and gratitude is. We want to see communities shaped by grace and gratitude.

Stanley Hauerwas says that good theology does not necessarily lead us to good ethics but that bad theology eventually leads us to bad ethics. Gratitude sounds like a feeling where comfortable Presbyterians sit around and talk about how grateful they are for their stuff and how motivated they are to give away some of it. Gratitude is not fundamentally a feeling. It is a disposition; it is a profound thankfulness that is a response of faith to a God of grace.

If gratitude is the shape of our lives in response to a God of grace, then we can ask the question of what gratitude looks like in specific cases. We’ve thought a bit about what gratitude looks like in the context of polity: It looks like shared leadership for the sake of the gospel. There are so many crucial areas of ministry where we can ask these questions:

What does gratitude look like in the context of structural racism?

What does gratitude look like in the face of persistent sin?

What does gratitude look like in the context of people living paycheck to paycheck?

What does gratitude look like in the formation of children to follow Christ?

What does gratitude look like in a world where some don’t have clean water?

What does gratitude look like in a context of government-sponsored violence?

Communities of Gratitude

One of the geniuses of the 1001 New Worshiping Communities initiative is that it embraces a nonlinear approach to the establishment of new worshiping communities. In the past, the effort would go into forming new congregations, and new congregations had a definite shape. Attempts to establish new congregations would begin in a predictable sequence: The first formal act of the community would be a worship service. After attracting a congregation to this worship service, the community would form, and eventually it would engage in formation around the Scriptures, would be involved in caring for one another, and eventually would reach out in mission. The 1001 initiative doesn’t prescribe such a rigid sequence. A new community might begin by engaging in mission together or by gathering together around caregiving or Bible study. It might begin with a group of friends looking to extend to others their love for Jesus Christ, or it might begin with a group of strangers who come together around common commitments. Worshiping together might be the first act in the progression of this community or the last, or it might emerge somewhere in the process.

We find the phrase communities of gratitude helpful in describing this nonlinear development of the worshiping community. Because gratitude encompasses the entirety of the believer’s life in response to a God of grace, it also encompasses the entirety of the community’s life in response to a God of grace.

What does this gratitude in the community look like?

A Confessing Community. A people assured of God’s grace in Christ is a community that is enabled to confess its sin. However, in the old model, we assumed that everyone knew they were sinful and that the job of the Christian community was to give them space to confess their sins and receive assurance of forgiveness. Worshiping communities now engage many people who don’t think they’re sinful and thus have no sense of their need for forgiveness. We need not panic, thinking that the gospel does not apply here. In an odd way, in this moment, part of our ministry is to teach people that they are indeed sinful. It may sound funny, but we offer people a gift when we help them learn that they are sinful and in need of forgiveness.

How so? John Calvin said that the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves are intertwined. When we encounter the holy beauty...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Communities of Grace and Gratitude
• 2. NEW: What’s New in New Worshiping Communities?
• 3. New: Forming New Disciples
• 4. New: Forms of Church
• 5. WORSHIPING
• 6. Worshiping: Word and Sacrament
• 7. Worshiping: Sent by the Spirit
• 8. COMMUNITIES of Care and Accountability
• 9. Communities: Sustainability
• 10. The Future of New Worshiping Communities
• Notes