Worship

As pastor of Pascack Reformed Church, I welcome any opportunity to assist you in making your worship of God more meaningful. If you'd like to talk more about worship or about the life of this congregation, please call the church office and we'll find a time to get together soon. I look forward to your calls and to visiting with you. If you would like to discuss any aspect of Christian living, please call!


1.      "Why do these people show up?"

Think of worship as something like a business meeting. A successful meeting is one in which what needs to get done, gets done. As people created by God but estranged from our Creator, we recognize that our deepest need is to restore communion with God, to come fully alive in God's presence. So when we gather we practice a regular liturgy - something like an agenda - that creates a safe place for the human spirit to appear before God and open ourselves to God's presence with us in Christ Jesus. Our prayer is that as you walk with us through the service, you will find your help in God our Maker, your hope in Christ our Savior, and your wholeness in the Holy Spirit.


2. Why do we talk back and forth with a leader?

During the call to worship and at other places in the liturgy, we conduct dialogues based on the Scriptures and on ancient worship formulas. We do so because our life in God is always a dialogue; a speaking to God and a listening for God's voice. We say "our help is in the name of the Lord who made the heavens and the earth" as a reminder of the centrality of God in all of life. As we greet one another (the Lord be with you . . . . the peace of Christ be with you . . .) we begin to live out Jesus' new commandment to love one another as he loved us. When we 'lift up our hearts,' and when we 'wait upon the Holy Spirit and listen for the Word of God,' we express submission and willingness to be led into fuller truth by the voice and inspiration of God. When we 'give thanks to the Lord our God,' we recall that our moral center is gratitude to God for God's generous grace to us. All these dialogues and responses bind us to the communion of saints around the world (in space) and to the saints past and yet to come (in time).



3. Why is there music?

There will be much music and singing during the service. Music at the beginning and end of the service helps us center our hearts on God's presence in the gathered community. When we sing together, we all participate in praising God. The choir and soloist seem to offer song 'to' us, but in reality they offer their gifts to God on our behalf, to bless God with our finest offerings. We take our songs from many sources; we sing ancient hymns as well as those taken from the common hymnody of the American church tradition. We also sing contemporary songs drawn from the emerging and worldwide church, lifting up to God the new songs of God's people. Whether you can sing well or not is unimportant. God wants everyone to celebrate, if not to make a beautiful sound, at least to 'make a joyful noise!"

4. Must we confess our sin?

Reformed worship emphasizes God's grace, but we do include a confession of sin. Since our 'agenda' is to appear before God, we wish to be cleansed anew so that God might receive us with joy rather than with disappointment. Thus our worship service moves from forgiveness of sin to the good news of salvation to the robust life of service.Since Jesus' first sermon was 'repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand,' confession is an opportunity for us to intentionally turn away from sin and to turn toward God for grace. The creeds of the church do not define exactly what constitutes sin, or how it is that we all end up sinning. They do stress the importance of forgiveness, and that is a blessing we all need to experience. So when we confess our sin, we acknowledge the brokenness of the human condition, and we gladly hear that God's word is a word of grace and reconciliation; because of Christ's death for us, we are all forgiven, and forgiven all.

5.  What is a "Call to Freedom?"

Christian freedom is not simply license to do whatever one pleases. We are bound to one another within a covenant community, and the law of God instructs us in ways of living that preserve the joy and delight of life in God's kingdom. Following the pattern of the New Testament letters, after we hear the gospel (good news) of forgiveness through the cross of Christ, we hear the implications of what it means to construct our lives as forgiven people. That is why in our 'call to freedom' the minister says things that sound very much like commands. Our freedom is freedom to obey God's good commands. To disobey is simply to exhibit our bondage to conventional wisdom or the ways of the world. When we stand to hear the call to freedom
we hearken back to the experience of the Israelites who, following exile in Babylon, gathered in Jerusalem, stood up to hear God's law, and wept for sorrow over breaking God's commands, but were commended rather to rejoice in the Lord. (Nehemiah 8)

6. Why do we "pass the peace?"

This is an ancient element of the church's worship life that is finding its way back into Reformed churches. The Scriptures tell us that Christ himself is our peace (Ephesians 2:14). They also encourage us to greet the brothers and sisters with a holy kiss (Romans 16:16). So we greet one another in a way that befits the people of God; not simply with a 'good morning' or 'how are you today,' but by calling to mind the gift Christ gave his disciples in the upper room.

7.         Will I hear a word from God?

You may not hear a voice in the exact same way you hear a human voice, but we do believe that God speaks to us in worship. We wait upon the Spirit and listen for God's word as the Scriptures are read to us. The Bible - a collection of 66 books filled with stories, poetry, instruction, and other writings - is our rule of faith and practice. So we read from it each week because we are confident that God will use the written word to speak to us as God has spoken to God's people in the past. But God will not necessarily say the same thing as has been said. A minister speaks to us in the sermon, and draws out the implications of the Scriptures for our lives today. This is the living word of God, because the Holy Spirit speaks to us when we attend to what the person whom the church has set aside to lead our understanding of the Scriptures is saying.The words of Scripture and the words of the sermon both point to the ultimate Word of God, Jesus Christ. As God's Word in human flesh, he came and lived among us; fully divine, yet at the same time fully human. He comes to us still, as the Spirit witnesses to our spirits that we are the children of God.

8. Why does the church take an offering?

On the surface, the answer is clear: churches have bills to pay just as any other institution does. But when you look deeper, two additional meanings of the offering come to the surface. First, by giving we express our dedication to God's kingdom. The offerings we give not only serve to support the ministry of this congregation, but they find their way to support medical ministry to the poor, theological training, camps and conference centers, and other programs of the Reformed Church in America. By giving these gifts, we renew our commitment to the church, whose purpose is (preamble) Second, the money that we give as offerings is money that is offered in praise. It is not given in exchange, as though it were a tip or as payment for services rendered. Instead, our giving serves as a witness that the whole world belongs to God. The money we give to God is not placed directly into the economy. Instead, we entrust it to God's servants to steward it wisely, for the sake of God's kingdom. Thus, the offering is far more than 'the church asking for money.' It is an act of sharing our goods with others, and of giving witness in the world to God's goodness.

9.   What happens when we pray?

When we pray together, we answer God's speaking with us. We talk to God in simple language that expresses our thoughts and feelings. Whether the leads us in prayer or the choir sings a prayer song or we all recite a prayer in unison, we're all praying at once. The pastor doesn't pray instead of the congregation. He merely speaks to prompt us to pray together with him. God hears the silent praying of all the people as clearly as God hears the minister's words. The many prayers in the service have special purposes. Through them we confess sin, praise God, ask God for help, and thank God for blessings. Praying together in worship lays the groundwork for the prayer we do individually and in families during the
week.

10. Why do we end witha “benediction?”

The word “benediction” comes from two Latin fragments put side by side, “bene” and “dictio”. “Bene,” which we also find in such words as benefit and beneficial, roughly means ‘good.’ “Dictio”, from which spring diction and dictionary and dictum, carries the approximate meaning of ‘speaking’. (Or, "I speak good.")

Thus, at the end of the service, as was the tradition of the letters in the New Testament and the worship of the church for 2000 years, we close with the minister speaking good to us on God’s behalf.

Indeed, in this worship ‘meeting’ we have been re-created. We become who we are: the baptized and holy (set aside for God’s purposes) brothers and sisters of Christ, the new creation. So God pronounces upon us what God said also at the close of the first creation: “Look, it is all very good!” Carry that word of God with you as you leave worship, and live in the direction of God’s new creation, until we meet again. Until then,

The Peace of Christ be with you always!