Why didn’t the Geese fly?

Bishop and church leaders meet to discuss how Methodists should worship

By Leong Weng Kam

The controversial 19^th century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once described Christians as  geese when they go to church for their worship service  on Sundays. They listened to their high goose talk week after week about how what a high goal the Creator had set geese for He had given them wings.

But at the end of each week’s service, they would to waddle home from church, with their feet on the same old muddy path and wings flapping a little, as they returned to their pathetic existence.

 “Are we like the geese when we worship God?” Bishop Dr Robert Solomon asked some 40 church leaders from the three Annual Conferences when he met them at the Methodist Centre on Oct 9.

 Using the analogy of the geese as an illustration, the Bishop told the lay leaders, chairmen and vice-chairmen of Local Church Executive Committee (LCEC) at their biannual fellowship that it was possible for the worship service to express noble thoughts, intentions, and language without changing the lives of the worshippers.

“True worship transforms us as individuals and as a community,” he said. “Otherwise, we are just nominal or cultural Christians.”

In the end, the Bishop said we should all ask ourselves: “Have we become more loving of God and our neighbours?”

The Bishop started the half-day session on the Saturday afternoon by introducing the church leaders to the tradition of worship in the Methodist church which had its origins in the classic Anglican triad of Scripture, Christian tradition and reason as normative for doctrine.

John Wesley, he said, added the fourth norm of experience, though not equal in authority with Scripture. And it was with these four norms that Methodist worship was formed and evaluated.

 A special feature of worship in the Methodist Church, even in the early days in the 1780s, was the tension between strict liturgical form and a freedom of expression, both of which John Wesley had advocated himself.

It had resulted in a struggle within the church to reconcile the two since then.

On a lighter note, however, the Bishop said Methodists have always considered themselves a singing people. Their preferences for certain types of song and hymn and the manner with which they were sung had created some form of Methodist self-identity.

John Wesley, the Bishop noted, had given some rules on congregational singing, such as making sure that the tune fits the words of a song or hymn. For example, if the words are reflective, the tune too must be in a reflective mood too.

 After Bishop’s presentation, the group of church leaders were broken up into four groups to reflect on three questions related to worship: What is good in our worship services? What are the concerns about our worship? What steps can we take to improve our worship services?

A lively 40 minutes of discussion by all four groups followed when they raised the problems they faced regarding worship in their respective churches.

Dr Raymond C.S.Teo from Christalite Methodist Chapel raised the problem of worshippers coming in late for service in church, the lack of hymn singing, and those who refused to participate in the service by not singing at all.

Others raised the pros and cons of multiple services, both traditional and contemporary ones, within the same church, the problem of the young refusing or unable to sing the traditional hymns and concerns over the content of some new songs sung during worship service which lacked connection with God.

In conclusion, the bishop urged the church leaders to give adequate training to worship leaders in their churches “not to be performers but to lead the congregation to worship with songs”. He also said that singing and music are not necessarily the most important aspects of worship. Whatever we do, we must be touched and transformed by God whom we encounter in worship.

 Mr Yeo Pee Hock of Living Hope MC praised the meeting for being very fruitful and helpful. “We had the chance to raise our doubts about worship, and will go back with a better understanding of what true worship really means,” he added.

Leong Weng Kam, an Associate Editor of Methodist Message, is a member of Wesley MC.

Quotation: “Have we become more loving of God and our neighbours?”