Relevant Worship

Rev. Josh Patty

Regional Minister & President

Famed 20th Century theologian Karl Barth reportedly said that good preachers have the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. The point – by him or those who tell the story – is that worship should connect timeless teaching and current events in our lives. In other words, worship needs to relate to our lives in practical ways.  

I remembered this when I came across a comment from Nancy Ammerman and Carl Dudley. They are researchers of religious leaders and religious communities at the Hartford Institute (which has a large 5-year grant to study the impact of COVID on religious communities). “One of the first things we discovered about adapting congregations was that they simply notice what is going on around them. Declining congregations often barely realize that the world has changed.”

There are many implications to their insight which might guide congregational leaders. I wonder how this “noticing” impacts and changes our worship.  Some things have happened gradually. For example, expectations of appropriate dress – for both worship leaders and participants – have significantly changed over the past 30 years. Others might be more noticeable, especially the first few times. As we move closer to a cashless society, many congregations now explicitly offer online giving through a link, app, or QR code.

If we are noticing what is going on around us, how should our worship adapt? Should our prayers sound different? Are there different ways to invite prayer participation, such as how we invite and share joys and concerns? Do we need to shorten certain pieces of the service? Do we need more repetition in a world of half-listening multitaskers? We should continually ask these questions and experiment with answers, so that our worship remains relevant.  

Sometimes we will adapt. Sometimes may choose specific things to be countercultural. (I suspect our best preaching counters expectations nurtured by digital content.) Whatever we do, we must ensure that our worship does not become stale, dated, out-of-touch.

“Remember Your Baptism” Videos

The complete Lenten series of short videos on baptism is complete. The full playlist will remain on our regional YouTube channel.  You are welcome to use it for future classes or worship services. Imagine if you could show a short video in worship each week to help the congregation better experience what a baptism class is learning.