I am a co-author for a campus newsletter here at Covenant that has just started up. Our most recent issue summarized the February Conference on Denominational Renewal. Below is my summary of Bill Boyd’s lecture.
Rev. Bill Boyd spoke on the topic of worship at the February conference On Denominational Renewal. While his talk was excellent it was largely illustrative rather than propositional, so I have a rather difficult job in being asked to summarize it. Boyd’s primary emphasis in the lecture was on worship as feasting. He used the images of a banquet hall and a lecture room to contrast what we as Presbyterians sometimes slip into in our thinking about worship with what a more Biblically informed conception would look like. Starting in Genesis when God gives Adam and Eve the whole world as their banquet hall and all that is in it as their food, and tracing the theme through the fall, when man decided to take the one bit of food that God had not given him, violating table fellowship, Boyd began tracing the theme of eating and feasting through the entire Bible. He moved quickly through the rest of Genesis hitting a few highlights throughout the Old Testament to Jesus who comes to eat with sinners and then offers them his body and blood to eat and drink that they might live. Finally Boyd reminded us that it is a feast to which we look forward in the Consummation, not a lecture. Boyd’s purpose in this was not so much to be critical of us as Presbyterians, but to remind us that this is the Biblical imagery. God wants us to think of worship as a time when we are invited to his dwelling place to feast with Him and one another. If this is the case then Boyd is right to point out that this is an area in which we can and are learning from those of other traditions as well as our spiritual forefathers who seem to grasp better than us what it means for worship to be a feast. Accordingly, Boyd cites Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann, as well as Bernard of Clairveaux and the Episcopal church as influences on the continued development of his thinking about worship. As I mentioned at the beginning of this review, Boyd’s approach was largely in keeping with his content: rich, relational and storied which makes his lecture a pleasure to listen to but quite difficult to summarize. However, there is one other aspect of Boyd’s lecture that I should mention. Boyd argues compellingly that faith in Christ, the Christian life, ought to make your world bigger not smaller. A full understanding of the Bible ought to heighten our aesthetic sensibilities, ought to increase our desire for and understanding of things like beauty, richness, and music. Accordingly our worship must reflect this. Worship that is bare, stayed, and stoic is not honest. It does not match what the Bible says happens in worship and it does not demonstrate the lavish richness of what we are invited to do and have done to us every week. This is why for example, although Boyd only hinted at it, citing the trend among new church plants, weekly communion makes so much sense given the logic of Boyd’s lecture. How can worship be a feast if we remove the eating and drinking? How can we fellowship appropriately with one another if we don’t commune with our Lord. If worship is pictured in the Bible as a feast and Christ has instituted the eating and drinking of bread and wine as a means of life how could we worship without partaking in this most glorious of all meals? While what I’ve given here is at best an eclectic account of a few of the most helpful points in Boyd’s talk I hope it’s been enough to convince you that it’s worth your time to listen to the lecture. It really is a model of conversation that stimulates further thinking.
I am ashamed to say that I am just now posting links to the lectures given at the recent Conversation on Denominational Renewal recently given here in St. Louis at Memorial Presbyterian Church. I have to say, nothing has made me more optimistic about the future of the PCA than these lectures in years. They are wonderful. Download them. Listen to them. Be invigorated by them. The charitable spirit, ecumenical hope, and future goals are a true inspiration.