Southern Baptist Copvention, 19G3 For Release: 2:50 P.11. Ilunicipal Aeditorium--iiansas City, Mo . Monday, May G kJ. C. ~ields,Press Representative Theo Sonrmerkamp, Press itoom I4anager "TI'S LOST CHORD OF I~QRSHIP" (An Address to thc Religious Education Conference) Dr. John R. Claypool Sometime ago a fine member of cur church called me in obvious distress. She asked that I coine by as soon as possible, for an acute problem had developed. When I got to her home? she rzlated tearfully that her only daughter had just announced that shc wnc joining the Episcopal Cl~urch. The girl. had been an active, Baptist all her life, and had just graduated from one of our denominnt;ional ~cho~ls..When I inquired a littlc nlore fully inta the exact details, I found that she was-,a person of keen artistic sensiti-irity, and; j4n her words "CGLI~~110 longer find magning in the folksy, infamal, irreverent approach to worship that characterized Bap'iis t ~raccice.I1 I assured ~hcmotber &at 'this was not an ultimate tragedy, and that we could be thankful that some part of the Body of Christ was able LO minister to her daughter. This was. far better than he; dropping away from Christianity altogether. Yet I cannot: deny that I came away from that conversation with a heavy heart. If this were an isolated case, it would be on? thin;, But you lcnow as well as 1 do that this type of exodus is approaching alanning proportions, And much of the crisis seems to center in the realm of tforship. We Bsptists are losing some of our very finest young people over this one issue alone, and therefore I w~lc~mcthe opportunity to share with you about this cruc'ial concern. I know porhirle in Baptist theolagy or pol! ty that dictates that this slzould happen, The development: of effective worship is certainly in tlre realm of aur but we do need to take "an agoniz;ing reappraisal" of this lost chord in aaptist life - the practice of meaningful orsh ship. 1 Let 11s begin by getting clearly in mind a definition of th3.s reality. I expect the? rizht here is the root to a great deal of our prcblerns -. we do not have a clear- cut u~derstsdingoE the nature and purpose a£ worship. As you may already lno~r,the English word fcr worship litrally means "worth-shipat' and this definition contains the clrne nf i.ts essenti.al. character. To worship is to adventure into the realm of ultimate worth. It is an experience in which one steps back from life and considers the end and purpose of it all. 1.t: is sitting dotm before the Mystery and contern: plating the very ,£pc~ndr.tionsof cxi? tence . Tn a real sense it is asking all Qvez again: "ITl~lla~Ls. r@a&lyimp~tant in lifc?" and then recornnittine one's self to that wuch one has'found. Wo.cship is a two-fold act: cla~ifyingthe basic values wd dedicating one's self to them anew. It is both receiving and giving, a taking-in and a giving- out, Of course for the ~hristi~,this .uorship brings one into the presence of God. He is the UltimaZe Value, and worship becomes living fellowship with the Personal.. As someone has summed it up so well: "Worship is bringing all that you know of yourself to all that you kllow of God .I1 I like this definition very much, far it reflects the dynamic and continuing nature of this experience. "All that you knoQ o£ yourself!' and,, "all that: ysu know of God" are "open-end," growing realities. These move and change just as all Ijvivg eptities. And this is an aspect of worship that must be clearly understood, I'i is not something you do once and never have to repeat, It is the aoh- tinuing act of the soul, at necessary for spiritual on-going as food is for the body. ' Tlre 'invitation of: Jesus was a dynamic one. He said: "Come, follow mat! (John 1: 43). This is no fixed state, bu"L awvirg pilgrimage. Therefore, the need for worship is . a conti-nun1 thing; it: is "the life of the soul .'I A radio station out in the middle west received a strange request one day. An old nheepherder who Jived al: alone on the great plains wrote a post card. He said that his only sources of amusement were the radio and his old violin. The latter had gotten out of,tune, and he wondered if at a certain time the station would be good enough eo sourld the noSe 11.4." They complied with his request, and a few days later there came a word of grdtitude. This to me is a fine illustration of what worship is all about, The instruments of an inner lifc ix~evitabiygel: o~tof tune. We were not made to go on forever out of our own resources, Perj,odical'ly se need to readjust the basic strings, and worship i,s the uccas~onwhen- Ghe note, of Reality is struck and we are tuned again to God. 2..."The Lost Chord of Wo 9hip" The New Testament makes this "I-Thou relationslzip the very heart of spiritual reality, In the Fourth Gospel, it is written: "This is life eternal, that they should knowThee, the only true God, and Him that thou didst send, even Jesus Christ" (John 17:3). This is not knowing about or working for or believing certain abstract facts. This is the knowledge of personal relationship, the meeting of spirit with Spirit: where real fellowship takes place, Worship is the only means of cultivating such a relationship and thus stand at the pinnacle of importance in Christian activity. To sum up, then, when we speak of worship, we are talking about the human relation- ship with the Eternal. It is a rendezvous with the Ultimate, a venture into the realm of worth, a continuing discipline whereby the growing knowledge of what we are is committed to our growing understanding of what God is. It is meeting, encountering, lcnowing the Living God in a relationship of depth. In light of the ideal of what: worship ought to be, I want us to examine care- fully the worship practices of most of our Southern Baptist churches. Let us look at it first from the perspective of the pew. How does the typical lay person regard the experience of worship and how does he approach it: I fear that most of them are blighted by two erroneous concepts, and thus are unable to achieve the highest in this realm. The first of these errors is that worship 9basically an occasion where goo& someone else perform. There is little sense of personal involvement or participation. Instead of thc service being a stimulant that provokes you to pray and confess and search and hear, it is rather an activity in which you are a detached spectator. I make this indictment of our worshipers on the basis of my own personal experience. I was born and reared in a Southern Gaptist climate, and probably have been to as many worship services as anyone my age. But I am here to testify that: I was almost through college before I realized that there was meaning in any pare of the service but the sermon, I regarded the other forms of worship as preliminaries. I sang the hymns at best for the sound and without any realization of their meaning. In fact, I can remember exactly the first time the text of a hymn struck home. I was in a mood of real depression, having trouble finding any meaning in my spiritual life. We were singing the great hymn "Row Firm a Foundation." The last stanza somehow leaped out at me: "The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose, T will not, I will not desert to his foes. That soul, though all hell, shall endeavor to shake, T'11 never, no never, no never forsake!'' This was a direct word to my situation. I sat down and read the other verses and found that here was more truth than was in some whole sermons, Yet all these years 1 had never realized this potential. I am sure I had sung "How Firm A Foundation" many times before, 'but the words had never penetrated my mind. Or again, I remember the first time public prayer set something in motion within me. I bad been taught to bow my head and close my eyes, but usually 1 let my mind wander or simply listened to the person praying. This one night the man's prayer called forth a response. Deep called unto deep, and I found myself pouring out my soul with and through the man praying. Only then did I realize why the preacher always said: "Let us _aL1. pray" or called on someone "to lead in prayer .It The idea of personal participation in public prayer had never occurred to me before. Now I do not believe that my experience is greatly different from a great host of Southern Baptists. Perhaps some have had their spirits awakened to this exciting adventure, but most of the ones I know still regard worship as a religious rally where they attend as spectators. Little wonder that we have such problems with noise and irreverence. We act in the sanctuary just like we act in a gymnasium because we regard what we are doing in the two as very similar.