Tomorrow is the Lord’s Day. I expected to be in Philadelphia last Sunday. Instead, I found myself sitting in my recliner with my Bible and hymnal and following along with the live stream as Dane led worship at ROPC. I’ve never liked missing corporate worship on the Lord’s Day. It puts me in a bad mood and dims considerably the experiential joy of the holy day. The deficiencies of my unsanctified attitude notwithstanding, even when absence is necessary, it is distressing, and that is as it should be. If COVID had not thrown us all for a bit of a loop initially, our Session probably never would have started live streaming our services. It was something we had done a long time ago, at an earlier stage of our congregation’s story, and none of us seemed particularly keen to return to the practice. But COVID did happen, and for better or worse, we turned on the live stream. It’s not the same as being in the assembly of saints, and it must not be treated as a substitute or adequate replacement for it. But when providentially hindered, the opportunity to participate in the songs, readings, and prayers, albeit from afar, is unquestionably a blessing.
Live streaming corporate worship is not ideal—and not just because I have a face for radio and a voice for silent film. It is problematic because while those in the assembly are engaged in corporate worship, those who are following along online are engaged in common worship. These two are not the same thing. They are both precious. They are both biblical. They should both be a regular part of every Christian’s life. But they are not the same. We engage in common worship when we sing the same songs, read the same scriptures, and pray the same prayers asynchronously with our brothers and sisters throughout the world. Those of us who are accustomed to using the Book of Common Prayer for daily worship will readily understand the distinction. Those of you who make a practice of reading-singing-chanting the psalms every month on the traditional schedule understand that millions of Christians are doing so around the world in the same twenty four hour period with you. When you pray the weekly collect, when you read the Bible according to the lectionary published in the bulletin, you are doing so in common with your brothers and sisters at ROPC (and elsewhere), but you are not doing it corporately, even if you have those texts and disciplines in common.
We need to understand both common worship and corporate worship and actively engage in both. Your “quiet time” or “daily devotions” are not supposed to be yours. We need less individualism in our daily prayers and a greater sense of the commonality, catholicity, and concurrence of the Body of Christ as she prays each day. We also need to understand why common worship can never be enough. We are not made, ultimately, to worship separately. We are designed and destined to be united to Christ and in him to one another, to all believers, to join our voices together around the throne of God as we sing Holy, Holy, Holy. The Lord’s Day gathering is penultimate and incomplete. We do not see the entire Body of Christ visibly in our assembly each week. But we see many saints gather, and our gathering together anticipates the greater gathering toward which we are aimed and to which we already belong. –JME
