The Unintended Messages of Worship Services
Will Mancini
How can it be that a gathering to glorify God doesn ’ t produce the disciple- making fruit that the worship service itself intends ? How is it that worship for the purpose of mission can actually frustrate mission ( and true worship as well )? It does so by communicating silent messages to participants that are much more powerful than the messages spoken in words .
The medieval church adopted a Latin motto : Lex orandi , lex credendi . Translated , it means , “ The law of prayer is the law of belief .” What the church regularly does when it gathers to worship and pray — before , during , and after anything is said — communicates more about what the church believes than what it says during the gathering . The context through which the church is communicating communicates more than the content itself .
I would restate this idea today to say , “ How you do worship services somehow informs everything else about following Jesus .” We can compare the idea to Marshall McLuhan ’ s
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