Wisdom From All Directions
One of the most well-known ancient proverbs from scripture is a push to humility: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”
So, in that spirit, I’d love to share wisdom from nearly 25 years of worship leadership—not because I’m incredibly wise, but because God has granted me wise mentors, diverse experiences, brilliant peers, complex contexts, and plenty of failure along the path God laid out in front of me.
I hope this series will serve as an invitation to think well about our gathered worship. Perhaps you can share with your fellow worship planners and leaders, adjusting them for your context or arguing with them altogether. No doubt you’ll have your own nuggets of wisdom to add as well. Please share them with us at Reformed Worship, contact@ReformedWorship.org.
GLORY DAYS
I have the privilege of serving as an assistant coach for my 8th grader’s football team. I’ll admit that I don’t love the overly long bus rides to away games, with football players, cheerleaders, and coaches all shoehorned into a single yellow school bus, sometimes three to a seat.
One benefit from that time, though, is the chance to hear my fellow coaches share glimpses into their lives, particularly when we get to playing what I call “glory days,” telling old tales from our own teenage football experiences. That was the case on the last bus ride, as we regaled each other with tales of the game-winning plays and shocking injuries that brought us acclaim in our middle school hallways. The game-saving interception. The legendary leap over the would-be tackler. The time the ambulance had to come on the field. (That was for me—I’m fine!).
On the surface we’re playing “glory days,” but we’re really sharing pieces of the journey that has shaped us into who we are and how we see ourselves.
WE ARE STORY-FORMED
Humans tell stories. Stories entertain, but stories are also how we make sense of life. We understand our lives narratively. Summarizing work from a peer-reviewed journal of psychology, author and professor Dorothy Suskind states, “how we tell our story provides a window into how we make sense of our experiences, assign meaning to our existence, and create unity in our life’s arc” (“The Power of Story: How the Stories We Tell Shape Our Lives,” Psychology Today, September 25, 2024).
And for those of us who are Jesus Followers, it’s a joy to understand our stories—to “assign meaning” and “create unity in our life’s arc”—in light of God’s transcendent gospel story.
The liturgy, at its best, beautifully tells the story of the good news of Jesus.
Blessed is the worship leader who treasures telling the gospel story through the liturgy.
Every week, we retell the true tall tale of the triune God inviting us to be the people of God once again, through the person and work of Jesus Christ.
GREAT STORYTELLING
There is a form to great stories, which you probably learned about in high school. (I’m sure you’ve seen the graph!). An inciting incident is a catalyst for action, rising action reveals increasing conflict, the conflict all comes to a climax, after which there’s a resolution.
Our liturgical movements follow this pattern as well. God calling us into worship is a catalytic event. Being in the presence of the Holy God illumines the conflict of our sin and our need to confess. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the climax, which is named in the assurance of pardon, the proclamation of the Word, and at the table. And as gospel resolution takes hold, we are blessed and sent back into our world.
The liturgy is great storytelling! It’s the story that defines who we are. And because we are forgetful people, it’s a necessary joy to retell and remember this story together each week.
DIFFERENT WAYS TO TELL THE STORY
One thing that’s beautiful is that there are endless ways to tell the story.
The gospel is a diamond, and each week we get to turn the diamond just slightly to see the light shine through the prism at a different angle, in a different way.
Every church has some sort of liturgy—the words, gestures, songs, symbols and their order or arrangement—that the people “do” together in worship. The liturgy I grew up with in my hymn-singing baptist church didn’t intentionally tell the gospel story. Neither did the liturgy of my contemporary megachurch in college. I came to the historic liturgy later, in my 30s. This aspect of remembering the gospel each week together through the liturgy is one reason I came to deeply appreciate the historical forms.
But Christians have found myriad ways to be storytellers over the centuries, and there are still fresh ways to be discovered. There are new ways to pray, to sing, to be silent before God and with each other so that we can find ourselves within the gospel of Jesus Christ, reminding each other once again that once we didn’t know mercy, but now we know mercy; once we were not a people, but now we are God’s people!
THE STORY NEVER GROWS OLD
Your church family needs this story. You get to help facilitate the retelling of this epic love poem each week to the friends and family you love.
But you need this story for yourself as well. Never let your heart become cold to the gospel climax, to the Word made flesh, God-with-us, to the one who gave his life for us and conquered sin and death through his death and resurrection.
Each week, take a look at the liturgy you’ve helped put together, or you get to help lead. Is it good news? Is it THE story? Then it’s good news for you, too. Treasure that beauty, find your own story in it, and then proclaim it boldly and vividly like it deserves.
Wisdom for Worship Leaders Series
Let Scripture Speak
To Plan or To Improvise
Participation over Pageant
Prayer is Not A Transition
Space Matters
Rest
