Formation Through Worship

By: Jason Cook

At this very moment, whether you know it or not, you are being shaped and formed. Each image you view, the sound you interpret, the food you ingest, and the emotion you feel is shaping and forming you. All around us, the stimuli we passively receive are the most invasive and pervasive tutors: they shape and form us without our conscious knowledge.

These forces around us are so powerful and form us so thoroughly that to undo that work takes time. For 2000 years, Christians have gathered to worship a living God in Jesus Christ. Each Sunday across the world, saints have been actively pushing against the forces of the world that shape and form us. Christians have long held the worship gathering as sacred and an essential rhythm to actively push back against worldliness and ungodliness. 

This makes sense when you consider that historic Christianity has existed on the margins, primarily practiced by economically poor, culturally powerless, and global minorities. To gather as the family of God was to gather as a band of rebels and misfits who were at the mercy of those with more power. To be shaped and formed by the Holy Spirit mediated through the holy scriptures was the lifeblood of the early church. 

First-century apologist and philosopher Justin Martyr puts it this way: "When you hear that we look for a kingdom, you rashly suppose that we mean something merely human. But we speak of a Kingdom with God, as is clear from our confessing Christ when you bring us to trial, though we know that death is the penalty for this confession. For if we looked for a human kingdom, we would deny it in order to save our lives and would try to remain in hiding in order to obtain the things we look for.

But since we do not place our hopes on the present order, we are not troubled by being put to death, since we will have to die somehow in any case." - Justin Martyr 100-165 A.D.The church of the 2nd century was formed and shaped in powerlessness to guard and protect the confession of Christ as Lord with their very lives. They were shaped and formed to place their hope in a coming king and kingdom rather than here on earth. 

Formation through Advent This King has come once, as a baby in a cattle trough, and will come again in power. We desperately need to be shaped by that in a world and culture that thinks that foolish and untrue. But I have a problem: How is it that I can't remember the birthdates of my family without a calendar, but I can quote the Earth, Wind, and Fire's 1977 classic All ’N All without missing a beat [top 10 greatest albums of all time btw]?

Why is it so difficult for me to remember specific details of my wedding day, but I can still see and hear my grandmother's voice singing "Jesus! Jesus! Oh, what a wonderful child! "? Just last week, I forgot my bank account number, but the prophecy of a virgin's birth from Isaiah 9 is anchored in my heart. I have been formed and shaped by these people, songs, and scripture. Sunday gatherings shape and form a counter-narrative to the world. 

A narrative from God's word that allows us to find joy in the sadness of the world, peace in the brokenness of the world, hope in the despair of the world, and love within the apathy of the world. Those four virtues correspond to the four Advent candles, each one lit in successive weeks as a declaration of true power against the darkness we know so well. Sunday's shape and form a holy realism and optimism within us that wars against the deception and pessimism we ingest daily.  

In short, our worship services act as weekly inoculations against the sickness of the world. Formation Through Advent Worship At Fellowship, we are celebrating Advent with readings, corporate prayers, confessions, Christmas hymns because we want to be shaped and formed by a historically global and transcultural faith, from the margins, that anchors us within Jesus Christ while in the world.

For some, it may be uncomfortable, and a little unusual as this is the first time you've ever prayed with one voice in a church service. For others, this is the first Advent you've experienced the church tradition of liturgy without the traditionalism so often attached to it. 

These corporate elements remind all of us that our faith is personal, but it is not private. It is corporate and historic, and we are being shaped and formed into something, namely the image and likeness of Jesus Christ.