If the shared actions of the gathered people of God need to made relevant to each individual that participates it implies that sufficiency is inherent in those participants and the corporate activity is lacking.
This is a contemporary notion.
Corporate worship is framed from the perspective that sufficiency is found therein, and the need is located in those who participate.
From Diary Of A Pastor’s Soul:
What the soul needs to thrive is to be connected to the God who created it. Only then can we feel like our lives have a meaning and purpose that transcends merely “showing up” every day. but to find this holy connection we have to be moored to our Great Faith, which is so much sturdier than my little spirituality. We need a faith inherited from thousands of years of prophets, apostles, martyrs, theologians, and nameless ordinary people who’ve already faced everything in life we possibly could but who stood up in worship every Sunday to say, “I believe…”
Not only does this Great Faith give us a sturdy inheritance that was hammered out on the anvil of adversity, it also catches ups up in a better story than we can possibly script for ourselves. The point of worship is not to make the inherited tradition relevant to me, but to make me relevant to the high drama of God’s work in the world. The tradition claims that my life began not when I graduated from college, got married, got a job, or a better job, or finally figured out how to retire. It didn’t even begin when I was born. According to the opening words of the Bible, life starts with the words, “In the beginning, God …” And according to the end of the book, it ends with a holy vision of God being at home among mortals, a river of life, and a tree with leaves for the healing of the nations. Everything in between is more the unfolding of this sacred dream. And since we get to participate in that, we’re always moored to a story worthy of our fleeting years.Diary Of A Pastor’s Soul, M Craig Barnes, Brazos Press, 2020, pgs 113-114.
I’ve never heard it expressed this way, but this sums up why I call the spaces I work in ‘study’ and not ‘office’.
mgpcpastor's blog 