An Experiment

Sitting in church last Sunday, it occurred to me that one reason for my detachment from church could be that I am not putting in the effort to make the worship service experience meaningful.  It is a worship service, after all. It is not a sit-back-and-do-nothing service, although I have fallen into the latter category lately. This is perhaps because I have lost interest in it. Or maybe being on Session, and intimately involved in all the ins and outs of how the service works, kills some of the magic. Whatever the reason, Sunday morning worship has become a chore, instead of a joyful experience. I go out of obligation and/or guilt, not because I really want to be there.

Yet, I want to want to be there.

C.S. Lewis writes, “When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more.” (Mere Christianity). He is discussing how to follow the commandment to love your neighbor, but goes on to apply this approach to learning to love God, as well. And I think it applies to church, for me, in this particular instance. So I decided to act like I loved church. I sang in the most worshipful way I could muster (the term “joyful noise” comes to mind). I really listened to the scripture readings and looked for words/lines that I could hang onto. I even swayed, ever so slightly, during the praise hymns. I would like to say that my experiment was a rousing success but that would be overstating things. It was better but that could just be because the pastor delivered one heck of a sermon.

I doubt it was a coincidence that the Call to Worship on Sunday was “We Bring the Sacrifice of Praise,” from Hebrews 13:15: “Through [Jesus] then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips that acknowledges his name.” Nancy Guthrie, in her book, Hoping for Something Better, explains this verse this way, “Praise becomes sacrificial when it is one step closer to what Jesus deserves and one step out of your comfort zone.” In other words it is “Praise that costs you something.”

She goes on to give some examples of what sacrificial praise might look like: Raising hands in praise, lying prostrate on the ground and crying out in tears, speaking of your love for Jesus with your family at Christmas dinner. Most definitely, the list above is WAY out of my comfort zone. So far out, in fact, that I can almost guarantee that you will not see me doing any of these things any time soon.

But what if I did raise my hands and cry? What if I was so full of joy I could not help but share it with others? 

I wonder.

All I can say at this point is that my experiment was enough of a success to warrant giving it another try next Sunday. Maybe I can learn to love church by acting like I already do. C.S. Lewis says that is how you start. And once I start, who knows where I might end up?