The Church of the Redeemer Wilson, North Carolina
Redeemer's Worship
Redeemer's Worship
The Church of the Redeemer is, above all else, a worshiping 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.
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.
- Walter Brueggemann,
Worship in Ancient Israel
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 – especially in Holy Communion on Sundays – we are brought into a real participation in and enactment of the story of God’s mighty acts in creating, sustaining, and redeeming the world. 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”. Thus our central mission is to worship the Lord. Our worship will extend to fellowship, 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 ordered worship for the Church. The biblical order of approach and adoration of God have been preserved in the liturgies of Christian churches (Eastern, Roman, and Protestant) and passed to us. The ancient tradition of worship we have received is reflected in The Book of Common Prayer, a book made of Scripture and shaped through long tradition as a common foundation for daily prayer, Holy Communion and Baptism, and the worship of God’s people throughout the believer’s whole life. 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 tastes or current trends, but to the “faith once delivered” to the saints. There are times to stand, times to kneel, times to bow, times to sing, times to add our “amen”. But the rules and postures are not the main point: in worship together we are opening our hearts to God’s grace and to be formed by him into the image of Christ.
The Church of the Redeemer is also a (gently) charismatic church. Grounded in Scripture and faithful to our godly tradition, we try to be sensitive also to the ways the Spirit “breathes” into our worship, bringing the presence of God and his edifying gifts into our gatherings. There is room in the liturgy to sing from our own hearts in the Spirit, to pray for and minister healing, and for the gifts of the Spirit.
What about music?
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 within 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”.
Incense
In the Old Testament, the Lord commanded that incense be offered after the sacrifices for sin and that incense fill the Most Holy Place before the high priest entered to make his offering of blood. In Revelation, incense is the prayers of the saints rising in heaven before God's throne. Following the tradition of the catholic and orthodox churches, we allow incense to rise as a reminder of Christ's sacrifice for our atonement, as a symbol of our prayers rising to heaven, and as a reminder of God's glory around us as we worship. We use a high-quality incense blend that is very natural and causes little trouble for folks with allergies. Look in our Resources section for Father Paul's book on the subject of incense, complete with a foreword from our bishop.
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, offered from our hearts. He, after all, is the most important guest in our services and most to be pleased!
