The Church of the Redeemer is to be, above all else, a worship community. We are not saying that evangelism and community service, for examples, are not important. We would say, though, that worship of the Lord is of primary importance and provides the context for every other thing we do. It is our primary biblical calling. Here’s what Walter Brueggemann says in Worship in Ancient Israel:
…worship in the biblical tradition that eventuates in Christian practice consists of regular, ordered, public, disciplined resituation of the life of the community of faith and of each of its members in the presence of the God who has called that community into existence and who continues to call that community into a life of praise and obedience.
We believe that the Church is called together by God, not by people. We believe that we are gathered before him in specific ways to worship him and, in the process, to be formed by him as his own people. In worship – particularly through the course of our actions together in the Sunday liturgy – we are brought into a real participation in and enactment of the story of God’s mighty acts in creating, sustaining, and redeeming the whole created order in Christ by the Holy Spirit. We are, even as we present ourselves together before him in prayers and songs and sacraments, being saved and redeemed. Then we are able to go out into the world as agents of redemption, presenting our lives “as a living sacrifice, wholly pleasing unto God as is our reasonable service of worship” before him! Thus our one true mission is to worship the Lord. Our worship will extend to acts of service, to evangelism, to compassionate action on behalf of the abused. The center of it all, though, is the Lord whom we love and to whom we owe “regular, ordered, public, disciplined” but also joyous and redemptive worship.
How do we worship?
We believe that the scriptures give us many insights into the ways God has ordered worship throughout the life of ancient Israel and the Church. This biblical order of approach and adoration of God have been preserved in the catholic liturgies of the Christian churches (Eastern, Roman, and Protestant) and passed to us. The tradition of worship we have received is reflected in the Book of Common Prayer, a book shaped by scripture and tradition as a common foundation for prayers, Holy Communion and baptism, and the Sunday worship of God’s people. It is not the Bible, but it is mostly made up of Bible passages and keeps us disciplined in our worship according to patterns faithful, not to our whims or current trends, but to the “faith once delivered” to the saints.
The Church of the Redeemer is also a charismatic church. Grounded in Scripture and faithful to our godly tradition, we are also quite sensitive to the ways the Spirit “breathes” into our worship, bringing the presence of God and edifying gifts into our gatherings. If the liturgy is not “Spirit-filled”, there is no life in it.
What about music?
Whereas we are careful not to use “worship” as a synonym for “music”, we do believe that music is an important aspect of our worship. St. Augustine said, “he who sings prays twice”. Singing is an important way that Christians pray. At Redeemer we sing parts of the liturgy each week as sung prayer. We also sing many of the “classic” hymns from our tradition that help us to “make the word dwell richly among us”, rich theology in the form of poetry and song. We also sing modern worship songs and choruses, those easily accessible songs that help us to lift our hearts to the Lord. There are also times when our congregation will sing spontaneous songs, those “spiritual songs” St. Paul writes about, both in English and in “other tongues”.
What is most important in all of this is not our style or emotional tone, but the content of our scriptural response to God in worship. He, after all, is the one in our services most important and there to be pleased!
