What is Worship at Memorial?
Worship is a posture of the heart. What we worship is our non-negotiable, whatever that non-negotiable may be. Our god is the thing in which we trust, the thing we look to for our identity and security, that one thing that—should we ever lose it—would devastate us. As fallen creatures, we tend to build our identity on image (how people see us), on acceptance, on a good reputation, on control of the world and relationships around us, on our personal comfort, or on being right. “We give primacy to friends, lovers, community, success, duty, morality, autonomy, rationality, authenticity, justice, and a host of other significant facets of life.” These become gods to us, defining how we act and how we feel. When we lose them, we feel diminished. Everyone continually worships—lives for, ascribes ultimate priority to, seeks significance from—something or someone. Humans are incurably religious. We were made to find our significance outside of ourselves. As Christians, we believe we humans are most free and most fully human when we build our identity on (worship) the real God who made us, rather than these lesser gods (idols). Make-believe religion may offer some level of emotional solace in life, but if it is not actually true, then it is living a lie. It is the true God that must be reckoned with. Only an encounter with the actual intelligence behind the universe will bring our lives back in line with the cosmos as it was intended to be in the beginning. Building our identity on his unconditional acceptance of us in Christ—that is, worshiping him on his terms—becomes the center of a holistic life of Christian worship.
We also believe that God established worshiping together—worship services—as a regular means of renewing his covenant (his committed relationship) with his church. God is a mysterious and invisible Presence in the assembly of his people. He is not just there to be glorified, but also to renew his relationship with us—as individuals and as a people. The one serving in a worship service is God. He is serving us with his liberating gospel, giving himself to us sacramentally in holy communion at the Lord's Table, receiving and hearing our prayers, changing our hearts and renewing our souls by his Holy Spirit. We understand that our worship is never impressive to God apart from his grace, but that he accepts our worship because he looks at Jesus and pardons us instead. We come to worship God as humble sinners seeking grace and resting in God's promises. Everyone is there for the same reason. We're all broken sinners looking for grace.
We understand that biblical worship (in the language of the Psalms) invites the nations or goyim—those who may not yet know the grace of God—into God's presence to worship. We seek to make the Memorial community into an emotionally safe place for those who have questions but aren't yet sure where they are with God or Christianity. We expect there to be people at various places on their spiritual journey. On a Sunday morning you might meet someone who has never been inside a Christian church before and is curious about what we do here, or you might sit next to a former Buddhist who has had a relationship with Jesus for over thirty years. You can belong among us even before you believe as we do. This is not a sign of weakness in our convictions, but of security. In fact, many among us first met God after worshiping at Memorial.
Though we are not Roman Catholic, we understand that we are not the first generation of Christians. We understand ourselves to be a Reformed and reforming branch of the one catholic church that Jesus founded in the first century. Therefore we worship within that ancient pattern of Christian worship established in the first centuries of Christian history: the three-part service of God's approach, of the Lord's Word, and of the Lord's Table. From time to time you will find us confessing the ancient creeds of the church, singing the very ancient Gloria Patri and Doxology, and praying litany prayers (like Psalm 136) and the Lord's Prayer (the Our Father). We try to limit announcements and instructions, and instead spend our time putting ourselves under what we call the three ordinary means of grace. The primary means by which the Holy Spirit changes us are through Scripture, the sacraments (baptism and the Lord’s Supper) and prayer. So our worship focuses on these three things. Even most of our songs are prayers.
Though we still sing seventeenth and eighteenth century hymns, we also sing new songs and new arrangements of old songs that reflect the language and sounds of the postmodern city. We believe true worship is missional worship—worship in the voice of the city. Consider the sounds of the Central Corridor of St. Louis: classical music at Powell Symphony Hall, alt-country at Cicero’s, rock at the Pageant, Jazz at the Bistro, the U. City Drum Circle, the Sheldon Concert Hall. All of these are the sounds we long to bring to Christ in worship, so that worship becomes a form of urban renewal, an offering of the city’s culture to the One who renews it.
The diversity represented in our congregation is a unique gift to the urban church. We could plan worship that would turn us into a church of people who all look alike, but we prefer to plan worship that welcomes the 90-year olds as well as the many 20- and 30-somethings. Sometimes, we sing a song—not because it is moving to all of us—but because it is helpful to the great-grandmother or to the 7-year old. In such cases, we offer to God our love for each other as Christ commanded and modeled (1 John 4:19-21). Jesus willingly left the best worship in heaven to worship in first century synagogues for our benefit, and so we're willing to sing some songs we may not prefer if such songs may benefit someone else. Self-denial is an act of worship. We may therefore sing back-to-back from the 5th century Liturgy of Saint James and 21st century songs from Indelible Grace.
