What is Worship?

At our church here in Chicago, we have been talking about the nature and purpose of worship. I was asked to respond to the question that is the focus of this essay: "What is worship?" Here are my thoughts. I hope they are helpful to someone! -Troy

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What is Worship?

reflections by Rev. Troy B. Cady

 

           

Intro & Thesis

 

What is worship? There is no easy answer to this question; however, we could start by acknowledging that to worship God is to glorify God.

 

But that begs the question: what does it mean to glorify God and how do we glorify God?

           

I suggest that, at its core, worship is devotion; whatever captivates your greatest devotion is what you worship. To worship is to love; a life lived in love for God and others is what brings God glory. To live in love is to worship God.

 

In this essay, I look at what the prophets, Jesus, and the apostles of the New Testament have to say about worship as I describe various forms of false and pseudo-worship in hopes of helping us understand worship in terms of devotion to God, love for God and love for others. 

 

The nature and forms of idolatry

To see how worship and devotion go hand-in-hand, let’s take a step back from the question of God-worship. It is possible to worship something that is not God or someone other than God. The Bible identifies this as idolatry.

            Whatever you are devoted to the most in life…that is what you worship. The fact is: many Christians in America today are more devoted to their political philosophy than they are to God. It is easy to make an idol of politics.

            Still others are most devoted to upholding a certain vision of family life. Though God desires us to be nurtured in the context of loving community, when we insist that such a community must look a certain way, we have made our ideal of family into an idol.

            In a similar way, if you devote your life to the accumulation of wealth, you worship riches. If you are most devoted to achieving society’s standards of success or popularity, you are really worshipping some arbitrary ideal of accomplishment or the ever-elusive high of gaining fame and human esteem. The sobering truth about worship in our society today is that humans have perfected the art of finding almost anything else to worship if it means they can avoid devoting their entire selves to God. 

 

Some common Christian idols

Ironically, a common object of worship for many Christians is the Bible. Let’s face it: when we would rather just talk about what the Bible says than to devote ourselves to God and practice God’s way of love for others, we are really worshipping the Bible…not God.

            In the same vein, Christians are even capable of worshipping the idea of worship. We do this most commonly by defining worship in reduced terms, equating it to the act of singing “worship” songs with other believers once a week (typically on a Sunday morning for about an hour). Many Christians have come to worship worship by insisting their worship be offered in a certain way and with a certain style. If it is not in our preferred form (usually singing) and style (usually a particular genre of music), it doesn’t feel very worshipful to us. This is not to diminish the value of singing our devotion to God; it is simply to remind us that worship is so much more than singing.

            I think one of the saddest expressions I have ever heard in my life is when Christians talk about the “worship wars” that take place in the church today, as if worship is something to fight about. When we start fighting about worship, we could well wonder whether we have, in fact, stopped worshipping God. 

 

What Jesus says about true worship

In John 4, Jesus addressed our propensity to substitute God-worship with the worship of the trappings of religion itself. In this text, a Samaritan woman asks Jesus where (and, consequently, how) the true God-worshipper should worship. Jesus’ reply is telling. He says that true worship is not about where you go to worship (“neither on this mountain [in Samaria] nor in Jerusalem”), but true worship is about the spirit.

            In other words, the real place of worship is in your heart. Worship is simply the act of devoting our hearts (the entirety of our being) to God. 

 

To worship is to love God

This picture of true worship coincides with what is perhaps the greatest confession of all time. Significantly, it is a confession that has been used for millennia in communal worship settings: 

“Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”

                                                                                                            (Dt. 6:4-5)

 

            Perhaps the best way to define worship, then, is to define it in terms of loving God. After all, to love God is to cultivate our devotion to God. As such, this confession to love God with all of our everything represents the height and depth, the breadth and length of our worship to God. To the extent that we love God in everything and with everything—to that extent—we worship God. 

 

Where and when to worship

It is no mere accident that the text in Deuteronomy 6 goes on to describe where we are to practice loving God with our everything. Not surprisingly, the location of this kind of devotion is…everywhere. And the time is…all the time: “…when you sit at home…when you walk along the road…when you lie down…and when you get up.” More than the tabernacle, the temple, the synagogue, or the church building, the text tells us that the true place of worship is in “your hearts.” In other words, every place and every time is a place and time to worship. As the poet Wendell Berry says, “There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.”

 

How (not) to worship

But how do we show our love for God? There are many ways to do this but the Bible is clear that one can do many religious things to express one’s devotion to God while still missing the very heart of worship.

            God addressed this with these words spoken by the prophet Isaiah: 

“These people come near to me with their mouth

    and honor me with their lips,

    but their hearts are far from me.

Their worship of me

    is based on merely human rules they have been taught.” (Is. 29:13)

 

            In light of God’s never-failing love from one generation to the next, it stands to reason that really all God ever wants from us is to show our worship of him by simply loving him in return. More than our songs, more than our tithes, and more than our study of the Bible…God just wants us to love him in return. If those religious activities help us to love God, great; but church history has shown that Christians can be very good at practicing their religion while at the same time failing to love. While it is true that love for God is often expressed through musical praise, generous giving, and listening for God’s voice by meditating on Scripture, it does not follow that these activities are inherently acts of true worship. True worship is a matter of the heart, not a matter of mere ritual performance.

            This is why Jesus echoed the refrain from Isaiah 29 when he addressed the Pharisees of his day. His words to them were bold because the Pharisees were the ones who were regarded as the most devoted to God, the true God-worshippers. But Jesus exposed their hypocrisy by appealing to the heart of worship in their own tradition. In short, Jesus wanted them to see how they were very good at doing all kinds of religious things for love of God, but had, in fact, neglected love for their neighbor.

            In Matthew 15, Jesus identifies how the Pharisees even used their own devout religious observance as an excuse to mistreat their own parents in old age. In Matthew 23, he describes how the Pharisees faithfully tithed as an act of worship but “neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness.” He admonishes them: “You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.”    

            Jesus’ critique, then, gives us a clear answer as to the best way to show your love for God: it is to love your neighbor. 

 

How the apostles describe worship as love

The apostle Paul describes this very dynamic when he says that the entire law is summed up in one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Galatians 5:14)

            That is quite a striking statement. In essence, he is telling us that if we can only keep that one command, we will also be keeping the command to love God. But…how could this be? Could it really be that simple? All we need to do to love God is to love our neighbor?

            The apostle John explains (in refreshingly simple terms) how this could be so: 

“God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. We love because God first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.” (I John 4:16, 19-21; italics added)

 

            For this reason, any act of service you render to your neighbor is an act of service to God himself. To put it another way: to serve another is to render worship to God. That means…when we share food with the hungry, we are really worshipping God; when we companion the lonely, we are really worshipping God; and when we help heal the infirm, we are really worshipping God. Anything you do to love your neighbor…you are doing as an act of love for God.

  

Worship: living for God’s glory and neighbor’s good

In the local church where I serve, we often like to say that the church exists “for God’s glory and neighbor’s good.” It’s a lovely sentiment, but Jesus, and Paul, and John take this idea a step further. They tell us that when we live for neighbor’s good, we are really living for God’s glory.

            Again, the prophet Isaiah speaks to this: 

“‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,

    ‘and you have not seen it?

Why have we humbled ourselves,

    and you have not noticed?’

 

“Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please

    and exploit all your workers.

Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife…

    Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,

    only a day for people to humble themselves?

Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed

    and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?

Is that what you call a fast,

    a day acceptable to the Lord?

 

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:

to loose the chains of injustice

    and untie the cords of the yoke,

to set the oppressed free

    and break every yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry

    and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—

when you see the naked, to clothe them,

    and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Then your light will break forth like the dawn,

    and your healing will quickly appear;

then your righteousness will go before you,

    and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.”

                          (Isaiah 58:3-8; italics added)

 

            It is important to notice that this text about the true worship that happens when we love our neighbor concludes with an image of God’s glory breaking forth like the dawn. If worshipping God means glorifying God, this text helps us make the connection that the glory of God breaks forth when (and only when) we worship God truly by loving our neighbor.

            I was saddened the other day when a friend told me an experience she had one Sunday at a church she attended. After the service, all kinds of people were trying to get out of the parking lot when a man in a large luxury car became upset at her for getting in his way. He was so upset he told her to f*** off with his middle finger raised at her. And this is just one example. As a pastor, I have seen firsthand how church people can enjoy a lovely worship service one hour and the next treat their fellow congregants or pastoral leaders like dirt without so much as an apology ever being offered. What a sham we have made of the idea of worship! How we have cheapened it. When churches have lovely worship services but church members do not even share God’s love with each other, what is happening in the church service cannot really be called worship. Our true worship is displayed in learning to love one another and extending that love to all. 

 

In conclusion: God’s glory and the common good

In contrast, I want to conclude now by sharing with you a story that illustrates just one of many ways God’s glory breaks forth when we simply serve the common good. It was a conversation I had just this week with a small group of people I know. One of the group members happens to be a teenage girl who wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Times, advocating for sane measures in school policies in hopes of protecting the vulnerable in the midst of the pandemic.

            As we shared our elation with her on being published in such a prestigious newspaper, we returned to the theme of worship that we have been learning about for some weeks now. And I mentioned to her that advocating as she did for the sake of others was really an act of devotion to God, a way of worshipping God. She said that hadn’t occurred to her but, as she thought about it more, she became animated and excited. I wish you could have seen the glow on her face as she took in the good news of that truth—that anything we do can be done as worship unto the Lord.

            This young woman really knows what it means to worship. She knows firsthand that we really can worship God with our everything at all times and in all places and in all kinds of ways. All we need to do…is love.

            Since God himself is love, may we always remember that the very glory of God is the life lived in love. Let us worship God, then, in spirit and in truth. Let us live in love. 

Essential Services?

Essential Services?

reflections on reimagining "church"

by Troy Cady

            Last Friday the President of the United States authorized the reopening of churches, synagogues, mosques and other places of worship for regular services. As we are in the midst of a pandemic, he identified these gathering spaces as places where “essential services” are provided.

            Since this announcement, I’ve followed with interest (and with some sadness) the various responses I’ve read from my brothers and sisters in Christ here in the United States. On the one hand, I am delighted by the countless ways local congregations have creatively adapted in the midst of this crisis. On the other hand, I am saddened by the way I’ve seen Christians tearing each other apart and I am saddened by actions that indicate to me little more than a selfish and consumeristic disposition. The church is called to serve not our own interests, but rather to serve the common good. 

           

A little background

I write this as someone who spent 12 years starting new churches in Europe and the past 10 years serving in various capacities vis-à-vis local congregations and regional initiatives. It is no exaggeration to say that the 12 years I spent in Europe and the years I spent as a regional coach/trainer here in the United States have transformed my vision of the various shapes the church can take.

            As a start-up leader, the teams I led had the advantage of experimenting with the way “church” looks and feels for both regular church-goers and for those who are not accustomed to “going to church” regularly. This experimental mindset carried over as I transitioned from Europe to the United States, and I am proud to say that those I have had the privilege of coaching in new endeavors have relished the opportunity to think of “church” in different forms. Though the churches these innovative folks are leading today do not resemble what normally comes to mind when most people think of “church,” I am happy to say these new forms of “church” are thriving in their own right and serving the common good in ways that are truly inspiring.

In what ways are church services “essential services”?

Because of my experience with experimental forms of “church,” I have to ask myself: “In what way may we understand ‘church services’ to be ‘essential services’?” Put another way: to what extent are “church services” essential to the life of the church, anyway?

            When I was working in Europe, I and the teams I led came to the conclusion that (at least for our context) “weekly church services” not only were NOT essential to the overall vitality of the church, they proved to be a distraction in our efforts to embody what it means to truly be the church. We discovered that churches could spend all their time planning church services (and putting so much emphasis on going to church services) but completely miss the point of what it really means to be the church.

How we experimented and what we learned

So, we decided to try an experiment. We asked ourselves: “What would it look like to strip away the ‘weekly church service’ aspect of being the church and reimagine other ways of being the church?”

            Before I describe what we learned from this experiment about the relationship of the church’s ultimate essence to the programmatic aspect of weekly church services, I would like to mention that we did not entirely jettison church services, nor did we dismiss the importance of “gathering.” Some of the churches I led met monthly or twice a month for a large group church service—and we DID practice a weekly rhythm of intentionally gathering in various formats for worship, learning, fellowship and outreach.

            With that context in mind, I can attest that nothing upsets Christians (especially evangelicals) quite like the act of messing with their cherished Sunday morning singing and sermon-hearing. It is sad to me that we have come to associate the word “church” so much with “church services” that, were I to ask 100 Christians how they could sustain life together as a church without depending on weekly church services, probably 99 of them would not even be able to envision such a phenomenon (or at least envision it in a way that is sustainable and life-giving). In fact, I wager that most would think something like: “What’s the point? What would we do without church services? Isn’t that what the church does? We hold services. That’s how it has always been.”

            I’ll be honest: this lack of imagination and willingness to try something different troubles me and grieves me deeply. It smacks of selfishness and consumerism. And it is one of the reasons I feel that in this season of crisis (and once the season has immediately passed) most churches will experience a temporary “revival” (of sorts) for a short period of time but will gradually succumb to “business as usual” over the long term—content to serve the “needs” of those who enjoy church services, but deaf to the deeper calling of the church to serve the common good over her own interests.

            Out of years of experience with alternate forms of church, I assert that weekly church services, in fact, are NOT essential to embody what it means to be the church. That’s not to say the church doesn’t gather. That’s not to say the church neglects worship. And that’s not to say the church neglects teaching and fellowship. But it begs the question as to the mode of our gathering, the form that “gathering” takes. And it begs the question as to how worship, learning, community and outreach take place. These dynamics that enable the church to flourish and sustain herself do not need to happen in the context of a “church service” and I have seen first-hand that, in fact, “church services” are one of the worst ways for these dynamics to be nurtured.

Rooting out the dysfunction

Part of what troubles me about the “traditional” form of church is that church services too often simply reinforce a consumeristic (passive) relationship between a church’s congregants and the church’s “hired leadership.” This set-up is dysfunctional in at least three respects.

           

1. It becomes a sick system whereby a church’s congregants exercise control over the paid staff to deliver a good enough service or a) the staff person will lose their job, and b) the congregant will just go find another church where they will get what they want. It’s capitalism in the guise of religion and it is a disgusting disease that has plagued the American church for some time now. You can be sure the Spirit of God grieves such a condition.

2. The other side of this sick system of control, ironically, goes the other direction, too. Some people put their paid staff on such a high pedestal that they become incapable of thinking for themselves and “feeding” themselves. Thus, in many churches, the pastor wields a level of control that borders on “abusive” (and, indeed, crosses that line too many times).

            It is idol worship “in the name of Jesus” (if that were possible). In this scenario, people equate the pastoring (shepherding) function of the church so much with one individual (usually the “lead” or “senior” pastor) that the church fails to activate the many pastors/shepherds (and other gifted individuals) in her midst.

            Ironically, this happens because we have put such a high value on the word “pastor” that the church has, in fact, cheapened the word, stripping it of its fuller meaning.

            What’s even more tragic is that the word “pastor” does not even occur in the Bible. The one place you will find it in English translations is in Ephesians 4, but some feel it is mistranslated from the Greek manuscript. In every other instance where the same Greek word is used, it is best translated “shepherd.” Yet, in Ephesians 4, we substitute the word “pastor.” It is sad to note: that single, small choice has caused incalculable harm to the church. Wrongly understood, it is one of the reasons most Christians divide the church into two categories: “pastors” and “laity” (which means, “the people”).

            But the church is not to be divided like that. Every person in every church has a gift to offer and no gifts (and no people) are to be treated as more important than others. And whenever anyone exercises their gifts they are to offer them humbly to others as acts of self-emptying service. The text in Ephesians 4 which I have referenced goes on to say that God gives these various gifts to the church (to ALL the people in the church) to “equip” and “build up” the church so she may reach full maturity (that is, so she may flourish).

            But, in a scenario wherein people put the pastor on a pedestal (and, hence, cannot function without their “pastor”) the exact opposite is happening. Instead of the church growing up to full maturity, her members continue to be dependent on this “special” individual, thereby perpetuating a co-dependent relationship that is (I must say again) sick, sick, sick.

            If one tries to change this system, people begin to protest that they need to be “fed” more and they are not being “fed” very well. This complaint, however, misses the point of what it means to grow to full maturity. When someone grows to full maturity, they should be able to feed themselves. The fact that churches today have so many congregants who need to be “fed” all the time by this one “special” person tells me the church is filled with Christians who, quite honestly, have never grown up—perhaps because they’ve never had to grow up…because they keep being fed by their “parent.”     

3. When church boils down to a few paid professionals providing a service for others, it sets up a scenario where the practice of faith equates to mere intellect and emotion. This is why our experience of church today amounts to little more than a time and place where we are reassured in simply “believing” the right things (thinking “correct” thoughts about God) and getting filled back up emotionally so we can cope with the “hostile forces” of “the world” in which we live. This is precisely why many churches fail to nurture significant relational connections between the church body and the communities in which they are situated. In other words, churchgoers are too often very good at living within their own little church bubbles.

            I contend this is why so many of those who leave the “traditional” church experience their exodus as a world-enlarging phenomenon. Sadly, many churchgoers opt to sustain “the known” (that is, the structures within which they feel comfortable) out of an unconscious desire to feel safe and secure, never realizing how the very system by which they are propped up emotionally and intellectually is the system that is holding them back from truly flourishing both individually and collectively. That is why, to most regular churchgoers, what I am writing feels threatening, dangerous, even heretical.  

            A church without weekly church services? Preposterous!

            All I have to say is: you will never know what’s possible until you try it…and you can trust that, even if you fail, the Spirit of God is still big enough to keep you safe and secure in the love and grace of God.

Church: just imagine!

The reason I am writing this now is because I believe the church has a great opportunity to try something new. What do we have to lose? It’s a great time to experiment. So, I want to encourage church leaders and churchgoers to activate your imagination as to just what the church can become.

            In my own context, I’m happy to say the congregation in which I serve has been trying something new in terms of our gathering rhythms and structures. It’s far from perfect, and we have many improvements to make if it is to be sustainable and life-giving. But we are on the way and we are learning as we go. And we can extend grace to one another (and patience) in the going.

            And, surprise, surprise…we are already seeing good fruit being borne as various members of the church use their gifts to build each other up and reach out to others. To be honest, when I have read each week what is happening in our smaller (decentralized) gatherings, I’m inspired and humbled by the amazing things people are doing. The church is coming alive. And we’ve only just begun! Just think what’s possible if we continue imagining new ways of being…months and years from now.

            Church: I invite you to re-think the truly “essential services” God is calling you to offer…humbly…creatively…not just for ourselves…but for the common good.

            Amen.

………………………

Troy Cady serves part-time at Grace Covenant in Chicago. He also runs a ministry called PlayFull whose mission is “to help people and organizations play from the inside out”...imagining new and free ways of being and living. 

When Children Ask Tough Questions

Photo by Irina Murza via Unsplash. Creative Commons License

When Children Ask Tough Questions

reflections by Troy Cady

A friend posed a question some days ago about helping children process the problem of suffering. Two questions related to this include:

1. “If God is good, loving and all-powerful, why is there still so much suffering and pain in the world?”, and

2. “Why doesn’t God answer my prayers?”

I offered my friend a preliminary response, but then realized I didn’t speak to her specific question—which was whether anyone knew of any books that could help children process these questions. So, I am circling back now and adding these thoughts. I decided to share them here in case they may be of benefit to anyone else.  

Grace and peace,

Troy

………………………

            Dear friend,

            I am so grateful to you for starting this dialogue. I realized later that I didn’t actually address the question you were asking, which has to do with books that engage this concern. Sorry about that!

            In my opinion, the Godly Play story-method does the best job at providing space for this conversation with children. As you already mentioned, however: the big drawback to that approach is that many people do not have access to Godly Play.

            With that in mind, a few books come to mind that could perhaps equip families in this. Forgive me ahead of time if you are looking for children’s books. I haven’t been able to think of any, but maybe this list will be a help. That said, there are books adults could read that would be a help in nurturing a variety of relational skills that I find crucial in having conversations like these with children.

A book on practicing the Examen

The first resource I recommend is a short book called Sleeping With Bread: Holding What Gives You Life by Dennis Linn, Sheila Fabricant Linn and Matthew Linn. This book does not directly address the kinds of questions you are talking about but it commends to us a lifestyle of paying attention to both consolation and desolation in the human experience. When this kind of “paying attention” to both the dark and light becomes a habit, it can help us see the grace that is there even in suffering, pain and unanswered prayer (which are forms of “desolation”).

            Of course, you already know about this under the name of the Examen; I recommend this book, however, because of its accessibility and simple depth. Even children can practice it and this book describes the Examen in such a way that parents could easily find a way to practice it with their children.

            Practicing the Examen in community can help children process the problem of suffering in that the Examen process itself simply opens up space for conversations to be had without forcing any artificial responses. It also provides a language for talking about the mystery of life as a continuous mixture of light and darkness. It is a function of faith to search for language to describe what we are thinking and feeling, so this practice does that really well.

Two more books on childhood spiritual development

The second book I have enjoyed is The Mystery of the Child by Martin E. Marty, but it is somewhat academic and not all the chapters are helpful. The reason I like this book is that Marty does a good job of articulating the “problem-centered” approach to formation vis-á-vis the “mystery-centered” approach.

            I suggest that most discipleship materials we have been exposed to over the years take a “problem-centered” approach to formation. This approach has oriented us to an “assurance” model, where the primary concern is to be sure that there are certain (“right”) answers to specific questions. Of course, it is good to lay foundations, to reinforce truths which are unchanging and rock solid. Children need such a foundation, if trust is to be established. However…

            The problem with the assurance model is that it can only take us so far in our spiritual development. On this front, I encourage others to become familiar with James Fowler’s work Stages of Faith, as he describes that ultimately what we are aiming for in spiritual growth is a more reflective approach that views paradox as a pathway to becoming a more compassionate and empathetic person in adulthood.

            According to Fowler, one does not reach such a “reflective” approach to faith until adulthood but, in my own work with children, I have seen first-hand that they are able to enter into the realm of “mystery” even more fully than adults.

The mystery-centered approach to formation

Indeed, the word “mystery” is what Marty proposes as the basic building block when it comes to childhood spiritual development. He notes that with a problem-centered approach, we tend to employ strategies of “control.” With a mystery-centered approach, however, the primary mode is to explore, wonder, and practice curiosity. The process of formation can meander and the goal is not so much to train someone to produce a certain, specific answer but to form in us a practice of wondering that will better help us live into any number of mysteries as we age, the issue-at-hand included.

            Marty advocates a mystery-centered approach because he notices that when we treat spiritual formation in a problem-centered way it is not long before we start treating the child herself as a problem that needs to be solved. In a problem-centered approach, not only do we feel the need to control the answers, we also become inclined to control the one who is seeking answers. I have unfortunately seen first-hand how both children and adults can be marginalized by the problem-centered approach when their thinking does not conform to the “correct” way a leader thinks everyone should think. In the problem-centered paradigm, belonging is predicated on thinking the right way and producing the right answers. Those who think and say the right things are included and those who do not…end up feeling excluded, unaccepted.

            But people are not problems to be controlled; we are—all of us, at any age—mysteries to be loved. This will sound like heresy to many but I advocate an approach to childhood formation that is less concerned with providing right answers and more concerned with practicing healthy process.

A good book on healthy process

To those of us who are inclined towards a problem-centered approach, letting go of our need for right answers and letting go of our desire for everyone else to share those right answers is perhaps the hardest thing we will ever have to do in this life. That is also why I advocate that, to make space for children to wonder about these mysteries, we primarily need to help the adults in the child’s life prioritize process over content.

            I recommend Edwin Friedman’s insights on “family process” in this regard. His book Generation to Generation addresses this issue well. He observes that if we are to do only one thing to navigate such anxiety-laden issues, we would do well to simply cultivate a non-anxious environment through leaders who embody a non-anxious presence.

Ministry in the home as non-anxious presence

This is the secret, by the way, to the Godly Play process. Godly Play’s value lies not so much in the specific content of the stories that are told. It has more to do with cultivating a peaceful, non-anxious space where children (and adults!) can fully wonder about the mystery of faith. To cultivate this, there are all kinds of non-verbal, environmental factors at play which we could incorporate into the home. Here are a few:

            1. “Make a circle in which we are surrounded by the story of God and God’s people.” The circle structure itself levels the relational playing field (putting everyone at ease) and the surrounding stories encourage a feeling of security, as if we are being held safe within a story that is so much bigger than we are.

            In this regard, I suggest turning to stories in the Bible itself. There is ample opportunity to wonder about the problem of suffering that way. Parents could either use a Bible with pictures in it or they could look up art online that they could use to accompany their reading. In any case, getting beyond just a propositional understanding of the matter and encountering it via a story is crucial.   

            I say this because the story mode itself helps us get beyond a problem-centered approach and automatically places us in the realm of mystery. We do find answers to our questions, to be sure, but the answers come to us in context and they are of a different order than problem-centered answers. We discover propositions that are rooted in life—propositions that offer incarnational interpretations (suited to one’s specific sitz im leben).

            Keeping in mind that most people do not have access to the specific Godly Play experience, I suggest families can still access the “circle-principle” at home. “I wonder how each family would do that?” one could ask. Just that wondering question alone could help families cultivate this ethos in ways that are suited to their unique situation. That said, here is another practice to encourage healthy process:  

            2. Practice plenty of silence. When I am working with children, we always have a moment of silence before engaging the story-at-hand. And, as we tell the story, we pause so there is time to enter into the story by having space to reflect.

            I wonder what difference it would make to help children practice a bit of silence when questions like these come up? I wonder how we would do that?

            Silence is able to help us listen more deeply, so it can not only help us listen to the child better but it can also help the child listen for what God might say (or ask!) in response to their question. I wonder what would happen if we replied to a child’s question about suffering this way: “Good question! I wonder what God might say or ask about that?” or “I wonder if God has a story about that?” Then, just leave a little bit of silence for the child to think about it.

            The child might not be able to come up with an answer, but that is okay, too. The question itself would plant the idea in their head that God might have something to say about their question. Children who have no idea how to answer such a question may simply put the question aside for a while and then circle back to it later when it comes up again. Silence, listening and patience go hand-in-hand. With that, here’s another value to practice:  

            3. Respond by wondering. When I work with children, I always encourage them to wonder. Wondering questions are open-ended questions where children do not have to feel anxious or compelled to provide the right answer. It is evident to me how some children have been so trained in the problem-centered approach that, when it comes to wondering, I can see them looking at me as if they want to make sure they can really say what they think or feel. This is why non-anxious leadership is so crucial. The leader’s primary goal is to be a non-anxious presence in order to cultivate a non-anxious environment. The main concern is process over content, milieu over “learning objective.”

            To cultivate an environment of wondering, we need to trust that the child will learn what the child needs to learn when the child needs to learn it. True learning cannot be forced. Anyone who has ever crammed for a test can confirm this. It is one thing to learn the right answers to meet the demands of a specific moment in time; it is quite another to learn out of sheer desire. In the former, our learning is only temporary and causes no long-lasting effect. In the latter, learning is truly life-changing.

            This is why, when a child asks a question during a time of wondering, the leader is encouraged to wonder right with them, to put the question back to the child. The goal is to whet the appetite for more learning. By replying “I wonder what you think about that” or “Yes, I wonder how that could really be” the teacher will find out how ready the child is to really find an answer. If the child is really ready, they will be driven from within to keep seeking. If they are not really open to an answer (if the question is somehow only superficial for them at the present time) they will most likely drop the inquiry and move on to something that more truly interests them.

            In any case, if an answer is really needed, we can trust they will get an answer in a timely way and in such a form that suits the child’s place in their spiritual journey. Trust in the process is key.

Why adults get nervous by tough questions kids ask

My suspicion is that adults grow nervous when hard questions like these come up because many of us are operating ourselves under an “assurance” or “problem-centered” model. When we cannot produce neat, clean answers, it is very unsettling. We worry not only for the child, but we worry for ourselves.

            I also suspect that those who have spent lots of time and energy coming up with certain answers know deep down that our answers are not so air-tight as we pretend they are. There is an internal frustration that builds when the questions just keep coming, when the questions keep poking holes in our so-called answers.

            There are, of course, many different ways we try to cope with such a frustration, but the most tragic outcome is when our own frustration hurts the child’s own learning. If we are to minister to families well (children included), an argument could be made that the first order of business is to help the adults in the household make peace with uncertainty and to model a non-anxious (trusting) response to hard questions.

The deeper question behind the question of suffering

This leads me to a final observation. There is a question behind the question, underneath the problem of suffering. The question hits right to the core of our being because ultimately what we are asking is whether the world is a safe place to live. Are we safe and secure? Is there someone who will be able to take care of us when all human efforts have reached a limit?

            It is really the pre-verbal question we all have from the moment of birth. In gestation, we experience the world as a place of complete safety, where we are both secure and nourished. While it is true we may be aware of chaos without, we all experience the womb as a place of shalom within—where all that we need is provided and there is no thought spared for worry.

            But when we are born, it is only a matter of time when we will experience the world as shocking and dangerous. We are vulnerable, so our bodies automatically muster whatever is available to survive. From our very first day of life we intuitively know that we are in need of protection. We are not able to survive on our own.

            When we become aware of how dangerous life can be as we age, we are essentially drawing on these primordial fears from infancy. “Is the world a safe place?” And we begin to develop the capacity to extrapolate from our own experience, becoming aware that—even when we feel personally safe—there are countless others who, at any moment in time in any number of other places, are experiencing the world as an unsafe place.

            “Where is God in the midst of all this?” we wonder. If God is supposed to be a parent to us, why has s/he left us abandoned, exposed like this? Does s/he care more about some people than others? If so, none of us are safe. We are all vulnerable.

Why the parent-child interaction matters

In keeping with the reality noted above, we can see that the parent-child relationship shapes our concept of God more than any other relationship. This dynamic is so fundamental to human experience we can observe it embedded even in the ancient code by which the Hebrew people lived thousands of years ago (and still live by today). It is no mistake that the fifth “Word” of the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments) speaks to one’s relationship to one’s parents.

            We know from Scripture that the ten Words were written on two tablets and many scholars see the two tablets in terms of one’s relationship with God (the first tablet) and one’s relationship to other humans (the second tablet). At first glance, it appears the fifth Commandment (about the parent-child relationship) would be included with the second tablet, but many scholars assert it is a first-tablet command because when we are children our parent is a godlike figure to us. I find it interesting that modern psychology confirms this, as well: our concept of God is directly related to our parental relationship.

            I mention this by way of underscoring that I believe the biggest way we can help children grapple with the problem of suffering is by helping parents be a “good god” to them by the way we carry out our mandate to love them and nurture them with care. This is why it was wise of you to include the matter of “unanswered prayer” along with the problem of suffering in your original inquiry. Both issues have to do with one’s sense of safety and security. “Is there a God who listens and answers?” To the child: if a parent doesn’t know how to listen and respond, then why would God?  Listening and responding in a spirit of wonder for these sacred mysteries will do more to “answer” the child’s question than anything else.

Why we need God and why good parenting isn’t enough

This, of course, does not mean bad things won’t happen. There is no way that we as limited human beings can keep bad things from happening. But this is why we need God. Because, even when bad things happen, we believe there is One who is able to hold us as we are born into another world…One who will receive us in love to a world where there will be no more danger, or suffering or pain or death. Somehow, we learn through all this that, though this world is a dangerous place, we can still trust—and trust gives us enough hope to carry on. Trust is not predicated on the absence of danger; in some strange way, it is defined by it.

            How the God of the world to come indwells, surrounds and gives us hope for living in the present dangerous world is the very mystery we are living one day at a time. It is a mystery so big, we can never run out of wonder for it.

            I realize that much of this does not directly answer your question, but I share it nonetheless because, quite frankly, I don’t know how to directly answer your question. But I can wonder about it and encourage others to wonder about it, too. Thanks again for raising the question.

Peace and grace to you,

Troy

Love in the Time of...Coronavirus

Photo by Harpreet Batish via Pixabay. Creative Commons License.

Love in the Time of…Coronavirus

reflections on suffering and the kingdom of God

by Troy Cady

            In Acts 1:3, we read that after Jesus rose from the dead he spoke with his disciples about “the kingdom of God.” This was not a new topic for them. Indeed, from the very beginning of Jesus’ time with them, it was this very subject that was the primary theme of his teaching.

            So, we would expect that, by the end of spending about three years in the company of Jesus, the disciples would have grasped what Jesus was trying to say about the kingdom of God. But this was not the case—not even after his death and resurrection.

            The suggestion that the disciples still did not understand the nature of the kingdom of God is evidenced by the question they asked Jesus in Acts 1 just before his ascension: “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” (v. 6)

            Notice that the disciples had misunderstood Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom of God so grossly that they did not even know how to form a proper question about it. They may as well have asked him what the color blue tastes like.

            This misunderstanding astounds us even more in light of the fact that they had had the benefit of hearing Jesus put it all together for them after his resurrection. Throughout the Gospels, we can trace just what it was they didn’t understand about Jesus: their consistent stumbling block was the fact that the Messiah would suffer and die.

            Jesus’ suffering and death contradicted everything they had previously thought about the Chosen One, the anticipated Messiah who would reconstitute them as a great nation once again. But his suffering was the very thing he warned them about during his ministry and it is what he explained to them carefully after he had risen from the dead.

            Perhaps the disciples thought that, now that Jesus had conquered death, they could put behind them his teaching on suffering and death. Hearing their question about the restoration of Israel, that seems to be the case: now they could get on with establishing the kingdom as they had always understood it.

How Jesus clears up their misunderstanding in Acts 1

So that we do not miss it, however, the author of this text (Luke) presents Jesus’ teaching in a way that contravenes the disciples’ understanding. This is apparent both by the content of what Jesus says and the very structure of the conversation Jesus has with them.

            The conversation has just three simple parts to it: Jesus speaks (part 1), the disciples speak (part 2), and Jesus speaks again (part 3). In part 1, Jesus tells them to wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit and in part 3 he tells them again about the Holy Spirit (specifically, that the Spirit will give them power to be his witnesses at home and abroad). In between these two parts, the disciples ask their question about the kingdom of God.

            The interchange is a little humorous in that it reminds me of the game show Jeopardy where the contestants are given the answer and then try to provide the corresponding question. It is either laughable or just plain pathetic that none of them have a clue as to just what the important question really is.   

            In verse 3 we are told Jesus was teaching them about the kingdom of God and then in verses 4 and 5, he gives them the answer by teaching them about the Holy Spirit.

            But in verse 6 they reply with a question that shows they are still thinking in terms of the old paradigm. So, Jesus gives them the answer again in verses 7 and 8, which suggests to us that the kingdom of God and the empowering work of the Holy Spirit within them go hand-in-hand.

The Holy Spirit as the key to life’s most difficult tests

This text reminds me of certain teachers I had in high school and college who explained at the beginning of the semester that we would have two big tests during the term for which the teacher would give us all the answers ahead of time. All we needed to do was listen carefully for the answers (the key, if you will) to the tests.

            The Holy Spirit, one could say, is the key to endurance when we face the tests of life and the key to understanding rightly the nature of the kingdom of God. The disciples want to know when the kingdom will be restored, so Jesus points them to the work of the Holy Spirit, who enables them to be Jesus’ witnesses.

            The Holy Spirit, then, ties together all that Jesus had taught them by word and deed about the kingdom of God as he had embodied it in his life, death, and resurrection. The Holy Spirit will be the one through whom they experience the kingdom of God.

How we still don’t “get it” today

This teaching, as basic as it sounds, hardly makes sense to us today, in fact. I say this because all too often I hear Christians talking about the kingdom of God in terms that betray its very nature. More precisely, whenever we hear Christians say that we are “building” God’s kingdom or working to “extend” God’s kingdom, we can be sure we have completely misunderstood Jesus’ teaching about it.

            To be sure, we come by this misunderstanding honestly, since in Acts 1 (and other texts) it is apparent the disciples had construed of the kingdom of God in the same way. They were under the delusion that the kingdom of God was something we would usher in once we got beyond this present life—as if the kingdom of God would suddenly appear on the other side of a series of tragic, if surprising, events that turn out all right in the end.

            This was the very idea Jesus sought to correct in his teaching before his crucifixion and it is what he taught them about after his resurrection: that the kingdom of God is not something we experience on the other side of suffering. It is a reality that abides in the midst of suffering. It is here now, available to us if we will just receive it by faith. The kingdom of God does not deliver us from suffering; it sees us through suffering, giving us the capacity to endure suffering as Jesus did—for the joy set before him.

            That is why, when Jesus was teaching his disciples about the kingdom of God in Acts 1, he also needed to teach them about the Holy Spirit—for it is only by the power of the Holy Spirit that we are able to endure in the face of suffering.

What the kingdom of God does not do for us

God’s interest is not to provide an escape for us from suffering. God’s work is to make available to us the charism of the Spirit through whom we receive a kingdom that can never be shaken—because it is a kingdom that is within our hearts. No amount of suffering or pain can take away that kingdom. It cannot be destroyed.

            Jesus had already taught about this and Luke recorded as such in his Gospel account of the life of Jesus: “Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, ‘The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:20-21)

            I find it fascinating that the text in Acts 1 corresponds to this text in Luke 17 in some rather important aspects. Notice that the disciples in Acts 1 ask essentially the same kind of question as the Pharisees in Luke 17. And notice that after Jesus ascends in Acts 1, the disciples are portrayed as a group “looking intently up into the sky” as if the kingdom they were seeking would now come about simply with their “careful observation,” (Luke 17) looking for the kingdom of God “out there” somewhere. Meanwhile, Jesus had been teaching them all along that the kingdom of God would be within them by the power of the Holy Spirit.

            To help them live into this reality, two people dressed in white appear as the disciples are looking up into the sky. And the two people say to them that they don’t need to keep looking because Jesus will come again in the same way he left. (Acts 1:11)

            It is as if the two people were telling them, “Stop looking for the kingdom of God to come suddenly from ‘out there somewhere.’ Stop looking to the sky for the kingdom of God and start living in it right where you are in the present time.”

            The rest of the book of Acts, then, explains in detail how the disciples learn to live into the present reality of the kingdom of God (which is right in our midst) as they are plunged under (baptized in) the influence of the Holy Spirit and then go forth in the Spirit’s power to proclaim Jesus’ lordship in the face of incredible suffering and sacrifice.

How the life of a disciple of Jesus recapitulates the life of Jesus himself

It is important for us to notice that the kingdom experience of Jesus’ disciples is not somehow distinct from the kingdom that Jesus embodied in himself. On the contrary: Jesus’ very life, teachings, death and resurrection provide us with the kingdom pattern after which a Christian’s life is to be conformed. In other words, if Jesus (our Master) did not escape suffering and pain (even as the kingdom of God was embodied in his very person), then we shall not escape pain either.

            This sounds like depressing news, but the good news of Jesus is that the same Spirit that gave him the power to endure suffering (for the sake of love and for the joy set before him) will give us the power to do the same.

            Our response to the presence of the kingdom of God here and now, then, is not to stand around looking into the sky for our own personal deus ex machina. The appropriate response (that shows we really understand what the kingdom of God is all about) is to be about the good and gracious work to which we have been called here and now, suffering and pain notwithstanding.

Love in the time of…coronavirus

As it is the Easter season, I was struck today by the way in which this ancient text from Acts 1 speaks to our current situation in which most of the world is trying to come to grips with the incredible pain and suffering that has been caused by the spread of the coronavirus disease.

            Here in the United States, where so many people are dealing with the deleterious effects of isolation and the physically harmful effects of the disease itself, it is as if we are all asking when “life as it should be” will be restored. But this is essentially the same question the disciples were asking in Acts 1: “When will life give us a break, already?! When will a sense of normalcy be restored and the suffering come to an end?”

            It is significant that Jesus did not entertain that question when the disciples asked it. So, my guess is that no clear answers from heaven will be forthcoming when we ask it, too. Instead, he will respond by reminding us of the kingdom of God that is already available to us in the midst of our suffering and pain. This kingdom is made present to us by the indwelling work of the Holy Spirit who is the witness testifying to our hearts that Jesus conquered death itself, let alone the pain and suffering that operate as precursors to death.

            As if to compensate for our propensity to miss the point of the Gospel, the Spirit comes alongside us (from within us), even as we are looking outside us for some kind of magical change in the world, and says: “Why are you just standing there waiting? Don’t you know you’re not going to be delivered that way? Don’t you know that, if you want to follow Jesus, you’re going to face the same difficulty he faced? But, take heart! Because you will never be alone in it. And I will give you the strength to endure. Your job is not just to wait for a better day. Your calling is to participate in the eternal kind of life right here and right now—and to share that life…that love…that hope and grace…as much as you possibly can…with everyone you meet, everywhere you are. The kingdom is restored, but not in the way you think. The kingdom is restored…within. This is a kingdom that can never be shaken, even when it is most severely tested.”

………………….

Troy Cady serves as the President of PlayFull, a ministry whose mission is to “help people and organizations play from the inside out.” To learn more about PlayFull, visit www.playfull.org or look for the book PlayFull: Play as a Pathway to Personal & Relational Vitality on Amazon in paperback or Kindle format.