Talk:Christian worship
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[edit] May 2008
I've been doing some editing to contemporary worship and have linked it in here. I renamed the "contemporary" section "present day" to avoid any confusion, and also deleted a paragraph that was rather biased. I added a reference for my addition, which looks rather lonely as there aren't any others in this whole article! But I'm not an expert on matters relating to worship outside of contemporary evangelicalism so can't help here.
I have to say that the "present day" section seems extremely POV and probably needs a complete rewrite, but I'm not the person to do it. Also, I couldn't help noticing that all the photos in this article are of very "traditional" styles of worship featuring elaborate vestments, icons, and altars. I don't have any statistics, but I would say that this is completely unrepresentative of christian worship today. It's also very western-centric and omits, for example, african, asian, and latin american christianity. I hope someone will be able to correct this bias. Sidefall (talk) 15:39, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I removed one image that was linked on several other pages and replaced it with a picture of a contemporary worship band. I'd rather have something that showed a congregation as well, but couldn't find anything suitable. I think this helps correct the POV in the photos, but I still think better pictures are needed. Sidefall (talk) 16:25, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I've reverted a couple of edits by an unregistered user, who had removed the picture of a worship band and included some text which I felt wasn't NPOV. Sidefall (talk) 04:29, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
I've also reverted a couple more edits by a (different) unregistered user that replaced the worship band picture with one of a methodist communion service. I have nothing against methodist communions, but the photo wasn't vastly different to others in this article and didn't really suggest anything readily identifiable as worship in the 21st century. Whether you approve or not, the most notable aspect of worship in recent years has been the widespread shift to contemporary music and worship bands, which is why I feel that this photo is most relevant. (I would prefer one of a band in a church, but couldn't find one). Would appreciate discussion is you feel differently. Sidefall (talk) 07:44, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Older comments
I have begun to expand the "history" section of this article. I will work on it as I have time and inspiration. If anyone else wants to jump in, feel free, (especially if you know what you are talking about <g>). If you do jump in, please consider addressing the following: Paul's instruction regarding the Lord's Supper was in I Corinthians, which seems to indicate a beginning of the break between the sharing of the common meal and the celebration of the Eucharist proper; the relationship between the "grace" said over the "cup of blessing" at such meals and the development of the Christian Eucharistic Prayers, particularly the concept of "remembrance" as found in both (see J. Jeremias, "The Eucharistic Words of Jesus"); the text of the Didache; the earliest extant texts of such prayers, particularly those of Hippolytus and Addai and Mari, as well as later texts, including that found in the Apostolic Constitutions as well as St. Mark and St. James; Justin Martyr's description of the Eucharistic celebration; the relationship between the synaxis and the Eucharist, as well as further discussion of the relationship of both to Jewish worship. You may also wish to discuss Clement of Rome's comments on Christian worship and those of Ignatius of Antioch and Ireneus with regard to the Eucharist. An excellent resource is "The Study of Liturgy," either third or fourth edition.
- We need to be careful to map out the differing Christian traditions of worship here. The Eastern (Orthodox) vs Western (Catholic) tradition is mentioned. The further we get to the 20th century, the more branching we get with traditions. So the Reformation led to many different liturgies being established over Europe. For instance, compare Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer to the German Mass (Luther), the Zurich liturgy (Zwingli), the Strasbourg liturgy (Bucer), The Book of Common Order (Knox) and the Geneva liturgy (Calvin). If we create stubs for each tradition, then we can eliminate conflict of different traditions and theologies.
A very helpful book on the topic is "Engaging with God:A Biblical Theology of Worship" by David Peterson (Leicester: Apollos, 1992; Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1993). Peterson wrote the course on Worship which I'm currently studying. Haoran 00:39, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Since this is the agenda I have laid out for myself and for anyone else who wants to jump in, I will probably leave discussion of the hours, etc., to others.--Midnite Critic 15:26, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
If there is an appropriate place, I have begun to create a page for religious ministries which deals with various ministries that take place a church, and it might be relevant to link these two pages together. --Avery W. Krouse 01:39, August 31, 2005 (UTC)
As a Bible student, I (Ray Downen) want to add that the concept spoken of here is not at all what the Bible describes as worship by Christians. Our worship is our daily living, not rituals or liturgies. The "central act of Christian identity" is to love others, even our enemies. We are called to serve, and particularly to serve by spreading gospel truth throughout the world we know. Our faith also is shown by sharing, by caring what others think and what others need that we might be able to give them. Rituals are no part of real Christian worship. Liturgies most often take Christians away from the service to which we are called.
- While I can appreciate your POV, Ray, you may want to do some research on the history of Christian worship. If what you say is true, that for the true Christian "daily living" is opposed to ritual worship, then it would seem that Christianity failed quite early on, since history records that while early Christians were loving their enemies, spreading the Gospel, and serving others, they were also worshipping in the Divine Liturgy, the Mass, the Liturgy of the Hours, and a multitude of other worship rites. They pretty clearly regarded this as worshipping God "in spirit and in truth," and one can see ritual in Christian worship for many, many centuries.
- It is only within the past couple centuries that Christians have begun to shun liturgy in major numbers (though they are still in the minority—most Christians still worship liturgically), and even the most non-liturgical end up developing distinct patterns of worship in their churches and communities. They may not call them "rites," but they are, even though there may be no liturgical books explaining them. —Preost talk contribs 01:48, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
- Ray, thanks for your viewpoint/reminder. As you study the earthly ministry of our Lord, you will notice that He participated in both formal worship in the synagogue (even reading from Torah), as well as loving others during His daily life. And He probably did not see much of a dichotomy between the two. (Scottyokim 22:46, 1 March 2006 (UTC))
I believe more needs to be said about contemporary worship styles in this article. Whether one agrees with contemporary worship styles or not, it is currently a major factor within Christianity.--Niceguy2all 04:14, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
i think more on different denomiations of christianity should be explored in greater depth. The stuff on the page is fairly basic or 'the tip of the iceberg' Tyranno 5 11:34, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
I haven't really looked at the content of this article properly, however I think that there is another issue that should be mentioned. Firstly, note that the idea of worship being how we live our lives, expressed in everything we do, has entirely no basis in the Bible. Anyone who bothers to take a look at what the Bible actually says should be able to see this. Worship is a specific thing we do. Even when Jesus was talking to the Samaritan woman, he said we have to worship God in Spirit and Truth - he didn't say through everything we do. Worship is still a specific thing we do, and saying everything we do is worship devalues worship itself. Yes, we must live our lives right, but that is not worship. Anyway, the actual issue I wanted to bring up is the difference between the word 'worship' in common usage, and in the Bible itself. In the Bible, the word generally translated as worship means to bow down - bowing down was an important thing back then (eg Shadrach Meshach & Abednego), and still is in the practice of other religions (eg Islam, Buddhism) today. What we call 'worship' today (singing and whatever other rituals and stuff we do - although I guess usually people are just referring to music) is actually specifically referred to throughout the Bible as 'service' (the word means work). The message was "don't bow down to their gods OR serve them". The term "church service" is actually entirely accurate. Unfortunately, the only way to remove the confusion would be for everyone to cross out worship in their Bibles and replace it with "bow down". So I propose a very brief section that identifies the view that worship should be everything we do, as it is such a popular idea today, and also distinguishes between the Biblical use of worship to mean bowing down, and the conventional use of the term, which this article actually deals with --Alister
[edit] Introduction
Does anyone else thing the introduction to this article is almost meaningless? I'm not even sure if it's proper english; I'm not a theologian, but I thought at least the first few paragraphs of an article should be comprehensible to lay-people!!!
[edit] Encyclopedic rewrite
The "Theology" section needs a significant rewrite. It is not really encyclopedic and especially in the "New Testament" section, is substantially POV toward a low-church Protestant perspective (i.e., worship no longer has anything to do with a temple, the ritual of the OT is all over with the NT, etc.). 70.105.194.198 14:10, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
