Don’t get hung up on Form
So here is my life advice for the day: Don’t get hung up on form. Let me explain. When we come across something precious and dear to us, we naturally put in a container. We do that for good reason. Putting something precious in a container preserves and protects it. It ensures that even more people could share in the joy it brings or in the beauty it beholds. Content and containers belong with each other. Think guitar snugly protected in its case. Good, right?
But sometimes people become hung up on form. Form often becomes more important than content. Content often evolves to such an extent that the old form in which it was put cannot contain it and can actually harm it when we try to squeeze it in there! Religion at its worst is when form are valued more than content.
As Church we have come to point now where wonderful content needs to be put in a adapted container. Our worship teaching and fellowship has been put in a container we call the Sunday Worship service since for forever. It is a beautiful container. Its repetitive nature has a way to install life giving rhythms in our lives. Theologians from orthodox background would go as far as to say “Liturgy is Life”. But with the Covid 19 threat, we are now obliged to respect the authorities who put in place measures in the best interest of vulnerable citizens. We need to do our part to partake in these efforts and protect people. We need to let go of our beloved form while still carrying our fellowship, teaching and worship content out to people. That calls for a new container. For most churches it means switching to an online form of worship.
New forms opens up new possibilities. As my mentor Leonard Sweet, points out for many years now, the church needs to move away from an old and worldly performance focused way of engagement to a more participatory focused way of engagement. Online worship services can help us to make that switch. Interactions available with live streaming like comments and polls, opens up all kinds of opportunities to turn engagement up a notch. Even if we get to return to the good ol’ local worship “in the flesh” kind of form, things that we learned in this period might help us to make also these services more participatory.
Church attendance doesn’t save us, Jesus does. It does edify, discipline and equip us though. Form isn’t our Redeemer; the content of the gospel of Jesus Christ leads us to Him, not the form. Form does help us, but its not what it is about. So, I urge you to be open to engage this weekend with a form you mind find strange and awkward at first but that you will most probably come to appreciate and enjoy after some time and learning. Do what you can to download, log in and participate in your local church’s online gathering. Help dear grandma to get on board with you. It is an easy way to make history. It might turn out to be just the kind of wineskin we need to drench the thirst of a new world coming into being…