Corporate worship (Christianity)

The act of corporate worship is both honouring God and at the same time enacting the self-understanding of each individual participating and of a specific people. Being a self is to honour, owe allegiance to and give one's life for some reality, some god which involves participating in some set of communal symbols through which one is enabled to become the self one understands oneself to be.

Christian worship is the portrayal of and dramatization for those gathered as the forgiven ones, the thankful ones and the dedicated ones as they must grasp themselves when God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit becomes their God. The implications of this are 1) participants in worship are not spectators but actors, 2) religious feeling may be the result of participation in worship but they are not the focus because it is the total person that is involved and, therefore, all feelings, ideas and actions, and 3) the god worshipped determines the structure of worship.

While there are private prayer and personal rituals, worship is necessarily corporate because of the self-understanding inherent in Christian faith. The person of faith recognizes that he must hear over and over again the word of forgiveness. And to hear it, it necessarily comes from another. Christians come together to worship to hear the word and to speak it to another.

Within the great variety of Christian worship the structure is basically the same. The first act has to do with confession and pardon; the second with praise and witness; and the third with offering and dedication. Some traditions place these together in the same ritual and others divide into separate ceremonies but all three are present in the life of the church. Neither the nature nor the order are arbitrary because these three acts in this sequence tell the story of a human who stands before the God in Christ. Confronted with the fact of one's guilt in failing God and man one is driven to acknowledge one's sin. This act of acknowledgement enables one to hear God's pardon which then throws one into a state of praise and thanksgiving. Freed from the bonds of sin one turns to the world dedicated to serve God and neighbour. Worship for the Christian is not a duty but a rehearsal of life lived in its fullness.