Trevor Hoffman, Teaching Pastor
What's really going on in our Sunday worship gatherings?
How might we answer that question? We could say we're worshipping the Lord. We might say we're encountering God. We're serving our neighbors. We're a community of saints bearing witness to kingdom come. We gather to express praise, give thanks, and celebrate Jesus. We could say that our gathering is to encourage the saints and singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. We could even say that we gather in order that unbelievers might observe our love and worship and find themselves drawn in by God's Spirit.
If we said any of those things, we'd be right — and biblical. But there's one significant, under-emphasized reason Christians gather for worship week in and week out: developing muscle memory.
Football Drills
I remember running a very particular drill in my high school football days. I was a running back, which meant my job was to run the football to the end zone to score points. This drill consisted of each running back being tossed the football, a coach moving in one of two directions, and the running back making a cut instinctively away from the coach to the open field. I was horrible at it. I thought too much about it. I always second guessed my instincts and I accidentally ran my coach over more than once. What was the point of this drill? To help lug heads (like me) form their ball-carrying intuitions. It was to develop muscle memory.
Whether we realize it or not, our habits are making us into certain types of people. The things we eat, the things we do, the things we don't do, the practices we engage in daily — all of these are forming us into particular types of people with specific intuitions and reactions.
The Power of Habit
Historically the church has recognized the power of habit in our formation by emphasizing spiritual disciplines like prayer, giving, fasting, silence, solitude, and bible study. These habits train and form us into certain types of people. They do so by rehearsing truth over and over again, while also including our bodies. We bow our heads and pray on our knees, not out of some sense that this increases the effectiveness of our prayers, but in training our hearts to posture themselves rightly before the Lord.
Christians all over the world gather weekly to do these disciplines corporately. These liturgical elements, as they are called, are all a part of our practice as Christians. That is to say, they are reps aimed at helping us become a certain type of people with certain intuitions.
Each Sunday we try to get reps at things like:
Honoring God as our creator (in our call to worship)
Confessing our sin and preaching the gospel to ourselves (in our confession and assurance)
Showing hospitality and serving our neighbors (in our passing of the peace)
Being grateful that God speaks to us (in our response, "thanks be to God!")
Tasting and seeing that the Lord is good (in taking the Lord's Supper)
Being receptive to the blessing that comes from God's Word (by extending our hands in the benediction)
Every element is intended, not only to help us express our worship, but to help develop the muscle memory needed in our day-to-day obedience to Jesus.
What about dry ritual?
Now we might hear that and say to ourselves, “That all sounds swell, but what if my heart is dry? What if I don't feel like doing these things? Isn't there danger in it becoming rote?” Absolutely. The Lord has no patience for empty ritual. But there is a difference between mindlessly performing acts, as if they somehow possessed magic in themselves, and embracing these practices as the means by which our hearts are restored back to health. Sometimes the best thing I can do is these habits in faith especially when I feel dry, asking the Lord to restore the joy of my salvation. We remember that our worship gatherings aren't only about expressing our hearts; they're also about training them. It's about living the prayer from Mark 9:24, “I believe; help my unbelief!”
May the Lord bless our gatherings!