A Book Review from Books At a Glance
by Jeffrey Erickson
The authors of this book, Matthew Kaemingk and Cory B. Willson, feel that church congregants lead lives detached from the worship services they attend on Sunday mornings. At the root of this problem is that pastors present a spiritualized faith that has nothing to do with what people in the pews do for the other six days of the week. They feel that this makes the Sunday morning attitude at best, a sort of escapism from the repression congregants feel throughout the rest of their lives.
They propose that instead of exalting God as Lord of the heavens and looking forward to eternity, worship services should focus on God’s earthly bounty and living an ethical life now. The focus of this book is Sunday morning worship. The authors want to redirect pastors towards understanding the working lives of their congregants better and to offer ways that worship services can be changed to better relate to these lives.
Part 1: Foundations
Chapter 1: Worship that Forms Workers presents the book’s challenge—developing a form of worship where faith and work come together. The authors feel that worship is the heartbeat of the church. They are concerned that this beat only occurs once every seven days. The other six days, congregants languish in lives that seem to have nothing to do with their worship. They propose worship as a place where everyone can come to offer thanksgiving and praise, address their sins and rebellion against God, and share their anger, sadness, and frustration with God about their lives. They add that worship is where people come to bring the fruits of their labor and make petitions to the Lord. Nothing about a congregant’s work life should be excluded from worship. Sunday worship should gather the faithful together, constitute a dialogue between the holy place of the church and their “secular” workplace, and send them out transformed—prepared to see the world as a place they both engage and participate in as God’s workers.
Chapter 2: Worship that Fails Workers is mostly an analysis of seven ways that worship fails to address the needs of church congregants. The authors do not believe their list is inclusive of all worship settings or that it addresses all ways that worship disintegrates congregants from the mission of the church, but that it is relative to their experience. 1) Worship can fail congregants by focusing on the institution and work of the church, ignoring the efforts of those who come only on Sundays. 2) Worship can be overly spiritualized and ignore physical realities as part of God’s world, making people feel as if the other six days of their lives have nothing to do with what goes on in the sanctuary. 3) If worship is only about each individual and Jesus, and not about the overall community of believers, it isolates workers from the church and from each other. 4) What they call saccharine worship presents everything about the gospel and salvation as clinical and perfect. This does not reflect most people’s lives and also serves to insulate church from the ugly realities of the workplace. 5) Passive worship happens in the consumer church. It is non-participatory. 6) Worship described as fueling presents the church as a pit stop where people simply recharge from the vampire-like drain of the external world. 7) Privatized worship pretends that the struggles of the external world do not exist. The authors present seven counter words for worship that counter these wrong worship attitudes. They say worship should be organic, material, covenantal, truth-telling, active, formative, and public.
Chapter 3: Workers in the Pews describes the problem in more detail and proposes a theological change. The authors say that the people in the pews are workers. Their work is who they are. Work is the way people search for meaning (35) and it contains its own liturgies (39-40) that workers practice many more times over than the liturgies they observe on Sunday. Sunday liturgy needs to address and connect with these liturgies, helping workers understand that their work matters to God. Adding further tension and disconnect between work and worship is that the modern calendar is linear and milestoned. It is almost completely devoid of cyclical time and pays no attention to the liturgical calendar.
Worship needs to remind people that they are priests, prophets, and representatives of THE KING in their workplace (52). Workers are fulfilling their co-creator role (48). Everything they do in the workplace is and should be to the redemption of nature. The authors give the example of a violin extending the complexity of a tree’s glorification of nature (54). In the workplace, they are the servers. On Sunday, they are customers, coming to be served. Sunday service is God’s marketplace where workers come to transact with Him (56). Pastors who can facilitate this conversation with their flocks will have a much more effective, vibrant, and diverse outreach.
Part 2: Resources
Chapter 4: The Old Testament: The Integrity of Work and Worship says that in ancient Israel there was no theology of work and worship because Israel’s practice of worship was integrated into their work practice. The authors cite Psalms 15 and 24 as evidence of this. While I think they are correct, these Psalms can be viewed as much about personal conduct as they are about transacting in the workplace.
Chapter 5: The Pentateuch: Bringing Work into Worship emphasizes the integration between Israelite holidays, law, and culture. The authors want the reader to consider the richness of agrarian society and the participatory nature of the sacrificial system. They believe that the Levitical law integrated work and worship in the minds of the Israelites, giving them an advantage in understanding their purpose. The authors also need to discuss how it may have handicapped them, causing them to believe the law was effectual for salvation.
Chapter 6: The Psalms: Singing God’s Work into Ours: says that while we do not often think about the Psalms as vocation related, these songs are all about work. The authors find 19 different Jobs listed in the Psalms (89-90), and over 400 work related references (89). They relate the liturgies of African, South American, and Asian countries, where God is often depicted as a co-laborer, to the Psalms, where God is the primary laborer. The authors believe that the Psalms give words to the voice of the Hebrew slaves who cried out in Egypt. They conclude that Psalm 50 is a Psalm telling workers to rest on the Sabbath; God delights in, but He does not need the sacrifice of their work (114).
Chapter 7: The Prophets: Decrying the Destruction of Work and Worship: The authors say that honesty in work and worship integrity are connected. The prophets railed against dishonest marketplace practices. The authors say that the idolatry of the ancient agrarian world was to sacrifice to pagan gods who were believed to control the weather and crop growth. Modern idolatry, in contrast, is urgency and a belief in human prowess (119). Though Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah address the problem from different perspectives, the message is that neither work nor worship is corrupt in isolation from the other.
Chapter 8: The Early Church: Worship and Work in Ancient Christianity begins by discussing the diversity of gifts worshippers might bring to church for a Labor Day service, just as early worshippers brought the products of their efforts in tithe. The authors stage a conversation between a man and a woman following the service in which the man is offended that tradition has been violated and the woman loves it because it is “original and imaginative (140).” The authors state that this is neither original nor imaginative. Early Christians always brought in the fruits of their labor in tithe. They suggest other ways that the church could invade the workplace as well.
Chapter 9: The Early Church Offering: Work Becomes Worship in Christ: Here the authors continue to talk about offerings. They discuss liturgy and its meaning using Greek pagan practices. These practices, like the ancient Jewish liturgy, were public practices and functioned like civic duties. The authors say that early church considered these worthy practices and adopted them (165-167). The authors use early church examples of offering and point out that modern the modern offering has become sterile.
Part 3: Practices
Chapter 10: Work and the Lord’s Table: The thesis of this chapter is that the liturgy of the Eucharist is so remote from the lives of workers as to be not connected to them. Kaemingk and Willson say that the Lord’s table is a place for workers to pause and remember what God has divinely and personally done for them. They can participate in the work of God by offering, sharing, consuming, and enjoying this work with others at the table. Then, they practice God’s economy on their own.
The authors acknowledge the inherent troublesome nature of talking about communion in an ecumenical setting and admit that their discussion will be more palatable to Christians who have a high view of liturgy and a Eucharistic understanding of themselves as hungry pilgrims at the Lord’s table. They say that the Eucharist should properly involve seven steps. The first two are self-examination and a decision to approach the Lord’s table in offering of the products of a person’s life to God and an acknowledgement of the others who offer and approach in community. Then thanks for God’s blessing by the officiant in unison with the congregants (workers). After thanks, some of the workers receive bread and wine that they did not produce and pass it on to others, receiving with them. Holding the elements until everyone has received them so all can partake together is the next step of reflection. Here workers can contemplate Christ’s faithfulness and their own faithlessness. Last, is the act of consumption and savor of the deliciousness of the elements.
Aside from liturgy alone, there are two major issues in this scenario for contemplation. The first is modern germaphobia. At many churches I have attended—even ones where the people believe in the power of the Holy Spirit to protect them from every form of misfortune, the elements come individually wrapped. Further, I personally know Christians who already struggle in the communal format that the authors presented, not because of the liturgy, but because their elements are contaminated by their fellows. The idea of clinical alongside spiritual purity is a growing trend with which the authors must contend.
Second, I have met people on the quest for the perfect liturgical bread recipe. Every secularly motivated confectionary, baker, and chef is on the same quest. I do not think the elements should taste bad, but I have to remember that the elements are representative of something far greater, and any good flavor should only remind me that God has something for me which is far better than satisfying my palate.
The authors point out that a big issue for workers (modern Christians) is that communion has been reduced to nothing more than a crumb and a drop. Yes, I think it should be a meal. However, rather than trying to create a competing flavor to every other flavor workers taste, workers must remember to thank God for the ability to taste and for every savory flavor. Flavor pursuit just seems like an initiative that can easily lead people to think only in material terms. But the elements have a strong spiritual connotation. There is a theological needle that needs to be threaded on balancing the “taste and see” eating aspect with the God is good—into eternity aspect of the eucharist.
Chapter 11: Worship that Gathers Workers: This chapter explores ideas for worship themes under the idea that “workers should never appear before God empty-handed (210).” Much of the example in the chapter is from a Synagogue. The authors emphasize that workers be allowed to design and participate in worship. They make a point of saying that a worship that gathers workers should not have any sign of hierarchy between clergy and laity (217) so that all feel equally incorporated.
There are several pertinent observations in this chapter contained in a single footnote. The authors say that in every church they encountered, they found workers who were hungry for authenticity in relation to the realities of their work and that simply praising louder will not substitute for this need. It would be interesting to see what churches, or at least denominations, the authors have encountered as part of their survey. The authors also state that the proper telos of humankind is to bring glory to God (217-218, f 4). This truth should be expounded on in relation to the natural telos of human work.
Chapter 12: Worship that Scatters Workers describes worship that prepares workers to go out and enter the workplace refreshed and ready to be workers for God in the workplace. Here again, the authors talk about how the laity can be slowly trained to see the profound power of God (242) as if they just don’t get it but might if pastors slow down and are patient enough. Next, the authors discuss a mission map, which is a map of God’s salvific activity within an area. They astutely point out that mission maps designed by pastors are confusing to the laity because all pastors know about God’s activity are those particular ministries that the pastoral staff of the local church can take credit for (243).
For sure a pastor created map devalues any personal evangelism or ministry any of the laity might do that does not glorify the moniker on the church building even if it does bring glory to God. This is because the pastors, like their congregants, live in context, and their context is not the context of their parishioners. If anything, this insight should identify how little pastors, trapped in their own institutional paradigm, understand about the lives their parishioners lead. The rest of the chapter has mostly good suggestions for developing points of contact between pastors and the laity, but again there is a proclamation from the authors that parishioners need to be reminded that they do not have much of a spiritual life (250).
Epilogue: Rethinking Monday (see also p 11). This is a recap of what the book is and is not. The authors state that this is not a book suggesting specifically how to change church programs. It does not suggest a new educational structure. It does not describe how to disciple Christians toward a better understanding. The authors believe that worship services could do a lot more to help workers connect Sunday morning to the rest of their lives. The authors suggest many ways that this might be done. They also place the onus on pastors to initiate dialogue with workers as a ministry focus.
Analysis
This was a hard book for me to read and review. I am sure that several of my chapter summaries conveyed my disagreement with Kaemingk and Willson’s suggestions. I wish to caveat my comments by stating that I am not a pastor by profession. I believe this book’s target audience is professional ministers—not the laity. My comments depict an educated laymen’s perspective on how the authors’s program suggestions might be perceived by lay persons.
The authors’s overall concerns are good. Worshippers often have trouble relating their lives to Sunday morning worship, and there are various reasons for this. It can be that congregants do not know what the purpose of their work in relation to eternity is. Maybe congregants live corrupt lives. Maybe they have an over-spiritualized conception of Christianity which causes their faith to be detached from the physical realities they face in the workplace. Maybe the monetization of economies has facilitated this detachment. There is often simply a gap between the pulpit and the pew. This book recognizes that. However, I am not sure how far this book goes towards solving these problems.
This book portrays the church as an institution and addresses church problems from an institutional perspective. The authors try to present what they see as solutions to the gap between the pulpit and the pew by bringing up liturgies from different global perspectives. However, the authors might be accused by some of advocating reverse sexism (140-141), liberation theology (83, 127-128), prosperity or social Gospel (151, 156-157), or syncretism (148, 166).
The authors’s primary view of the church seems to be as an institution and though they talk about the priesthood of all believers, institutional church models do not facilitate a strong priesthood of believers mindset. Institutional church models and institutional church initiatives are generally focused on the institution, both denominational and individual church. They focus on growing a brick and mortar contained body, led by paid professionals. They do not focus on individual believers taking control of their spiritual lives.
The authors refer to church congregants as “workers.” Contemporary workers have much to learn about liturgical honesty (211). Everyone who is not a pastor is a worker. Workers learn slowly (230, 242). Workers do small work (246). Maybe, if they can learn something about their connectedness to the church, they can see themselves as contributing to the big work that the church does. I nominally agree with the idea that each of us individually does a small work, but the authors seem to think that the big work that the church does is headed up by the institution and not the organism of the church.
When I say the organism of the church, I mean the total body of believers—not merely the institutions themselves. The organism of the church includes all the Christians and Christian institutions that individual workers come into contact with or participate in whether they are attached to the building they drive to on Sunday or not. Perhaps the authors could add a little stronger internal look at the pastorate. Career pastors are workers trapped in an institutional context that often comes with career aspirations and financial goals too.
The authors correctly portray the problems in the temple and the markets of ancient Israel as feeding off of one another. They correctly say that these are related problems and that they are also modern problems. However, in ancient Israel, these problems were secondary to apostasy from God. The worship and workplace problems the prophets describe are just an item on lists of problems the prophets describe as consequential to this apostasy, yet the authors seem to be indicating that connecting work and worship will solve the larger social apostasy problem. I think that they have lost the larger context in their discussion.
In the epilogue, the authors state what this book is not. There are a couple of other things I would mention. This book briefly discusses the purpose of work but does not relate work’s purpose to its God decreed frustration consequent to the fall. Though it characterizes the sum total of a person’s life as work, work is treated as largely as a brute fact, not something purposefully designed by God for man. This book seeks to relate worship to work but does a poor job of relating work to worship. Does anything that people do outside of church matter for its own sake or is it only the way it is done that matters? There may be other books that address these topics, but brief discussions here or references to these topics would enhance any new program that parishioners might only think is a new church gimmick.
Jeffrey Erickson