The Unique Glory of Gathered Worship

Several years ago, there was a well-known evangelical worship leader named Michael Gungor, who very publicly “deconstructed” his faith and left the church. He’s recently resurfaced, and posted this on Instagram about his re-entry into church life, and his new project, The Mystic Hymnal:

There’s just something about community that feels important and fundamental. I can go meditate by myself in the forest all day long, and it’s beautiful and sacred, but there is just something unique and sacred about actually being in a room with others, and more than just being together — singing together. There’s something about singing together that is just incredibly powerful, healing, and unitive.

Gungor is creating a compilation of songs that attempt to recreate the beauty and joy of congregational singing, but without the framework of orthodox evangelical theology. 

While the creation of a doctrine-less hymnal is obviously misguided, I believe the notion of a former worship leader who abandoned the church, and now deeply misses worship, reveals an important reality that Gungor intuitively recognizes: the unique glory of gathered worship.

It’s true that Christians should live all of life as an act of worship (cf. Romans 12:1), but there is glory and joy in the church’s corporate worship meetings that is not repeatable in any other context. There is a beauty and power in gathered worship that is utterly unique.

Two Glorious Realities about Gathered Worship

1)   In gathered worship, God draws near to his people.

God is present everywhere, of course. He is omni-present, not limited to any one place at any one time. And he is perpetually present, by virtue of the indwelling Holy Spirit, with every believer individually. But there’s a distinctive way in which he abides with his people – draws near to them – corporately,  when they gather in his name for worship.

Maybe the most remarkable thing about the unique presence of God in corporate worship is that we don’t have to convince him to draw near to us. We don’t have to get his attention. In fact, we’re here at his invitation! When the church gathers, we have an audience with God Almighty, and he delights to draw near to his people by grace in several ways:

The Spirit-Inspired Word – The Holy Spirit inspired the Scriptures (2 Peter 1:21), and God still speaks to his people when they are read and preached (2 Timothy 3:16). As God’s Word is read and proclaimed to the gathered church, we hear from God himself. He makes his presence known by his Word.

Our Prayers – God inclines his ear to hear the prayers of his people (Psalm 34:17; 1 John 5:14). Of course, this is true when we pray individually, but there’s a special grace that God bestows when his people pray together. In prayers of praise, of confession, and of intercession, our covenant-keeping God draws near to his people to listen to their prayers, and responds according to his wise and fatherly heart. 

The Lord’s Supper – While the bread and wine in Communion are symbols, there is a sense in which Christ is spiritually present with the church as we “proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26) in this ceremony of remembrance. In our observance of the Lord’s Supper, he draws near to his people in assurance, comfort, conviction, and commission.

Our Praises – Psalm 22:3 declares of God that he is “enthroned on the praises of Israel.” The verse invokes an image of the God of Abraham seated in the midst of his covenant people, as they shout their joyful praises to him. In fact, it is their praise that functions as his throne. When we gather for worship, God is enthroned on our joyful singing.

Old Testament scholar C. John Collins says, “Yahweh, the maker of heaven and earth, the holy God, dwells in the midst of his people and is especially present with them in their gathered worship.” Do you desire to know God’s presence, to hear his voice, to experience his nearness? Then gather with the people of God and declare his praise together!

2)  In gathered worship, heaven and earth overlap. 

A somewhat mind-boggling aspect of the unique glory of gathered worship is that when a local church comes together, they are not alone. Not only because God is present, but because their praises and prayers join the eternal throng of worship taking place in the heavenlies. In other words, heaven overlaps with earth as the saints on earth gather to worship God! 

In Hebrews 12, the author contrasts the New Covenant experience of Christians with that of God’s people in the Old Testament. While they were summoned to a mountain that could not be touched, that burned with fire and flashed with lightning, New Covenant believers have been invited to boldly draw near to God, and to join the assembly of the godly in heaven.

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

- Hebrews 12:22-24

Worship takes place simultaneously on a heavenly plane and an earthly plane. When the church gathers to worship God on earth, they are joining the “souls of the righteous made perfect,” and entering “the heavenly Jerusalem,” along with a vast company of both saints and angels, to celebrate the redemption purchased by Christ’s blood.

Also consider John’s glimpse into heaven’s throne room in chapters four and five of Revelation. It’s a scene of gathered worship! The angels and the redeemed surround the throne, enjoying God’s presence and proclaiming the excellencies of the Lamb who was slain:

Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, 

“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!” 

- Revelation 5:11-12

The old hymn “The Church’s One Foundation” summarizes this truth poignantly:

Yet she [i.e., the church] on earth hath union with God the Three in One
And mystic, sweet communion with those whose rest is won

When we gather to worship God, we are joining the voices of the chorus of the redeemed in heaven, who are ever declaring, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come” (Revelation 4:8)!

Conclusion 

The first tier of Parkway’s mission statement is that we aim to make disciples of Jesus Christ who delight in him. The primary and most obvious means of delighting in Christ as a church is gathering in his name to enjoy his manifest presence among the saints, and to join the song of heaven.

The glory of the church’s gathered worship is so great that even a former worship leader who left the church is aware that there’s no other setting on earth that offers the same experience. Michael Gungor admits, “As beautiful an experience as [singing along at a concert] can be, it’s not quite that experience that I had in hundreds of church services where the lines between you and me and the Divine and all our voices melt into this one, glorious Loving Presence. There’s just nothing like that.”

Gungor is wrong – tragically wrong – to abandon the gospel, and it is folly to seek to recreate the experience of corporate worship apart from the person and work of Jesus Christ. But he’s right about one thing:

There’s nothing else like it.