A Reflection on My Struggles with Worshiping in a Church

 I've been watching and listening to music videos by Joshua Aaron on YouTube over the past few days. I discovered this particular Jewish Christian artist when looking for variations on the song "The Blessing," and does an amazing one in Hebrew. In particular though, his music reminds me of the messianic synagogue I attended for a short time in my late teens before I attended Bible School in Wisconsin, Congregation Beth Yeshua.

For those who aren't familiar with Messianic Judaism, these are congregations of mostly Jewish people who have chosen to accept Jesus Christ (Yeshua haMashiach in Hebrew) as their messiah, largely adopting the basic tenets of Protestant Christianity, but also choosing to stay within the cultural and traditional worship framework of Judaism. Depending on the congregation, they will likely not use the cross as a symbol, nor use any of the traditional Christian terms preferring Hebrew or Jewish ones. There is even a dynamic translation of the New Testament done by a messianic Jewish translator called "The Jewish New Testament" which replaces traditional names and terms with Yiddish and Hebrew ones.

When I was eighteen years old, Congregation Beth Yeshua was unlike any church service I had ever attended before. They met on Saturdays, the traditional Jewish sabbath, as opposed to Sundays. When you walked in, they had kippahs (yarmulkes) and tallits (prayer shawls) laid out on a table waiting for the worshippers to make use of. Within their sanctuary, they had an ark within which was a real Torah scroll. And the service, as I understood it, was laid out like a traditional Jewish service rather than any Christian one I had attended. The first half an hour of the worship service was all liturgy in both Hebrew and English from prayer books, where the second half of the worship service was more contemporary praise songs in both Hebrew and English. The last half an hour or more of the service was when the Rabbi gave his talk.

But Congregation Beth Yeshua's worship made an impression on me that still lasts to this day for another reason. It was the first worship service I had ever been in where I felt like I had actually done something when it was over. Seven years later, I would recount this very sentiment to a Roman Catholic friend, Andrew, who attended the same church through which I was going through confirmation classes (yes, I've been around the block many, many times with many different denominations). After relating this to him, Andrew replied with something that I've never forgotten. When I told him that it was the first time I felt like I had done something in the worship service, he replied, "Because you actually worshiped."

I've been thinking a lot about his words over the last few days. You see, a few days ago, as my wife and I were talking, one of the things she told me was, "In all the years I've known you, in every church we've been in, I have never seen you worship." Now, to be certain, I do worship, and have worshiped, but it has been on my own, in private, with no one else present but God and myself. The truth is though she hit upon something about me which I myself don't fully understand. Whenever someone else enters the "worship setting," I immediately shut down. The one exception to this is when I have been the one leading the service as either a priest or in a pastoral role. Then things flow more freely. But if I am in the congregation, I struggle tremendously. This tends to be especially true in worship services which are composed entirely of either hymns or contemporary praise music and immediately launch into them at the start of the service.

But I didn't really struggle at Congregation Beth Yeshua. This messianic synagogue was also the first time I had been introduced to liturgical worship, and tangible or visual worship "aides" like the aforementioned tallit. There was a structure and a framework about it that didn't just appeal to me, it actually helped me and gave me time to prepare my heart and mind for worship so that, by the time the contemporary praise songs rolled around, I was ready for them. To this day, I can still remember many of them, especially the Hebrew ones, and, to this day, I still own a tallit. As I write this, I am realizing that, in many ways, I fell in love with this way of worship, and the Hebrew, and the symbolism. It was meaningful to me in a way that a church service had never really been before. My friends at the church I attended on Sundays didn't, and I think couldn't, understand my affection for the messianic Jewish worship, and I got the impression they thought it was just another way I was weird and not like them.

And then I became involved with New Tribes Mission, going off to Papua New Guinea for two months. For those two months I was surrounded by people, missionaries all, who lived their faith in community with one another, and it was the closest thing to a New Testament church community to which I had been exposed in my life. I felt, at the time, like my eyes had been opened to what the church could be. Prior to that, I had no basis of comparison except the churches my family and I had attended when I was younger, all of which were basically the same in terms of attitudes and practices.

I came back from that experience in PNG to the church I attended on Sundays, and never really felt at home there again. I'm not even sure how to explain it. Compared to where I had been, it just felt "off," like something wasn't right. As I think about it now, twenty seven years later, it didn't feel like the authentic Christian faith an practice, but only going through the motions, and I couldn't just fall back into it.

Several months later, after again attending both services on Saturdays and Sundays, I went off to Bible School with New Tribes Mission, taking my love for Messianic Jewish worship and my need to really understand what authentic Christian practice was with me. Not long into my first semester, after the Dean of Men of the school caught wind of my "Jewishness," so to speak, he gave me an ultimatum (the first of many), either I cease all of those "Jewish" practices or I leave the school. As I reflect on it now, it was a metaphorical slap, and it hurt. It also scared me, because I didn't want to quit or be seen as a failure. So, I conformed and put it all away. I attended the churches they told me I could attend. I "worshiped" where and how they told me. But as I think about it now, I didn't really worship at all in a church during my entire time there. I attended churches, but I didn't worship in one.

As I continue to think this through, I'm realizing that the first time I actually worshiped after this, or felt like I worshiped, was several years later, maybe six or seven years later, when I first led a Eucharistic service as a Roman Catholic during my second stint of Bible school years in Canada. My ministry was taking the Eucharist to the elderly in a nursing home and going through the liturgy for that. I remember the first time I did this clearly to this day, some twenty years later. It was the first time things really "clicked" for me and fell into place, like I was finally doing what I was called to, that is, saying the Mass and giving the Sacrament (this of course being problematic at the time as I was married, but that is another reflection entirely as to my journey into ordination as a priest within the Old Catholic Church). I had found my act of worship once more.

Now, I struggle worshiping in community. In contemporary worship services, I put up walls (as my wife describes it), to protect myself from being overwhelmed, and also from being hurt, I think. Frequently, these services launch directly into emotionally overwhelming music, and I don't have the time I need to prepare myself for it. Instead of being able to build up to it, I feel expected to go from "0 to 60" instantaneously with no help or aides. In liturgical services, which do give me the time, I hurt in a different way come time for communion. I grieve internally not being able to stand at the altar and offer the bread and wine myself as was, and remains, the most meaningful act of worship for me. And there are never services which offer the balance between the two. As for returning to Congregation Beth Yeshua, that is theologically impossible now. I can't honestly return to a messianic Jewish synagogue which preaches the practice of the Torah when I know from Scripture that there is no remaining Mosaic covenant for any Christian to return to (this is the entire thrust of the message of the Letter to the Hebrews). Their adherence to Torah and Jewish tradition flies in the face of everything Paul and the New Testament actually teaches regarding this, especially as I have no actual Jewish heritage to speak of. As meaningful as the worship there is to me, I have moved on in ways that are irreconcilable with their very premise.

I suppose I have felt ridiculed and judged for that worship which was most meaningful to me, where I felt like I worshiped, in the one case, and am now denied it in the second due to not being in a current pastoral position. I am told that these things should not be able to stop me from worshiping in community, but I wonder if that is really fair. I do not begrudge others their ability to just freely worship and open themselves up in a church service, but as I write this, I am realizing that it is a source of pain for me rather than comfort because of my past experiences. There are reasons why those walls go up, whether I have been intentional or even conscious of them up to this point.

I am still seeking answers to how to heal with regards to this, and how to move past the walls and "shields" I put up when I enter a church to just be a part of the congregation. But now, at least, I think I know where these struggles really started, and knowing where I came from will perhaps help me find my way to where I am going.