Article 7: Worship by the Church

This article states that we need to pay attention to our worship. It affirms Word and Sacrament as the activities in which the people of God most profoundly encounter and are confronted with the risen Christ. Worship is not just something people do for God, but an encounter with God. This article speaks against a kind of "consumer" type of worship (worship that fills up our spiritual gas tank), or a worship built on attraction and pragmatism.


VII. Worship by the Church


"And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness." (Acts 4:31)
"'God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.'" (John 4:24)


We believe the church's corporate worship joyfully binds hearts and minds together to praise, glorify, and honor the Triune God. In public worship, the Risen Christ through Word and Sacrament, the means that most profoundly reveal divine grace and truth, encounters the congregation. The centrality and substance of Word and Sacrament are the criteria by which worship is best evaluated.


We reject the assumption that the church's worship should be determined by the expectations of culture, the needs of individual worshipers, and the latest fads in religion. 

Article 6: Ministry of the Church

This article states that Word, Sacrament and Order are essential to church. Now I think there are creative ways in which these three are expressed. As the quote from Lumen Gentium suggests, the church, as a body called together by God, is a sign and instrument of the union of God and Creation. Christ's presence, in the form of both Word, Sacrament and Order, is the ministry of the church. All other practices flow from the presence of Christ through the Holy Spirit in Word, Sacrament and Order.




VI. Ministry for the Church
"The visible church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men [and women] in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments duly administered according to Christ's ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same." (Article XIII, Of the Church, The Articles of Religion of the Methodist Church, The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church [2008]. Most churches have similar doctrinal statements.)
"The Church, in Christ, is like a sacrament -- a sign and instrument, that is, of communion with God and of unity with all men [and women]." (Vatican II, Roman Catholic Church, Lumen gentium 1 [November 21, 1964])


We believe the Church is of God. The faithfulness of the church is made possible by God in Christ working through Word, Sacrament, and Order (including doctrine and morals). As shepherds who are servant leaders of the flock guided by the Holy Spirit, clergy through Word-and-Sacrament ministry serve the church in worship and life. Faithful laity, guided by the Holy Spirit, serve the Gospel in their places in the world, as well as in the church.


We reject the assumption that the ministry of the church, her leaders and people, should rely primarily on organizational, business, or political models, and that the church should preach, teach, and live in a way that seeks to remain culturally inoffensive.