What is the proper balance between the corporate and the individual in worship? How do we maintain both form and freedom in our worship of the living and true God? When the Triune God meets with his people in the assembly of the saints, how should we respond?
Joel Irvin called my attention this morning to a line from the OPC Directory for Public Worship:
“The unity and catholicity of the covenant people are to be manifest in public worship. Accordingly, the service is to be conducted in a manner that enables and expects all the members of the covenant community — male and female, old and young, rich and poor, educated and uneducated, healthy and infirm, people from every race and nation — to worship together.” (DPW 1.4)
We’ll be talking in the coming months about how to exemplify this better in our worship, in our fellowship, and in our witness.
In recent months I’ve heard a growing murmur of people saying “Thanks be to God” after the scripture readings. Some people have asked whether we should add a corporate response. My sense is that we have enough “corporate responses” where everyone is expected to say the same things together. We have sufficient “form” — but perhaps what we need is a little more explicit “freedom.”
So if you want to say “thanks be to God” after the reading of the scripture — please do! And don’t feel bashful and timid! If you are thankful to God for what he says, say so! And when I say, “the bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” you may answer, “Yes it is!” Or when the preacher (myself or anyone else) says something to which you want to say “Hallelujah!” or “Praise the Lord!” — then go ahead!
There are some who believe that the congregation should only speak together with one voice (either in prayer or song) in the worship service. But I would argue that the dialogical principle (the back and forth between God and his people) does not mean that we must sit in utter silence as the Word of God is proclaimed. You hear of people shouting and sighing and weeping and rejoicing in OT worship — and I doubt that every response was carefully planned and crafted by the priests! I have often referred to the sermons of Augustine — where the congregation was audible in its responses to his preaching.
And just so you know — if nothing changes and we still have a few mumbled “thanks be to God” here and there, that’s fine too. My point in writing this is simply to communicate clearly that our emphasis on corporate responses does not mean that we want to avoid individual responses.
