Participating in Worship

Over the summer we have tried to stress active participation in our worship gatherings. If you come to our gathering you will likely be asked to get up and do something rather than simply sing or listen. There are two contrasting views at work here and I'm not sure which is right.

On the one hand you have the view that people today are used to watching. They are used to going to theaters and concerts where they sit and watch something going on as silent observers. This view would hold that asking such people to be highly active participants is simply going to cause them to run and hide. After all, who wants to go somewhere where you might be noticed, or even worse, be the center of attention.

On the other hand we have those who say we now have what Erick Schonfeld calls a culture of participation. If you note things like wiki, flickr, blogs, etc. you see that people love being participants. They all feel they have something to contribute and they want to do so. To these folks going to a church that does not allow them full participation has no appeal. They are used to being able to participate.

My guess is that both views are valid even within the same individual. There are probably times when people feel like participating and other times when they feel like simply observing. Unfortunately most churches encourage the latter and make no room for the former. As a side note, creating worship environments with the potential for a high degree of participation takes a lot of work which may be the cause of its neglect.