Worship, Worship, Worship

By Vanessa Rigby, 12 Dec 2022

I am meeting another mum for a 1-1 – also known as Christian friendship (see here for our recent teaching series) and we are reading this book together: The End of Me by Liz Wahn. Together we were both really encouraged by the author’s emphasis on repetition in Sunday worship (see here for the recent series on Sunday worship, and here for the teaching time on this topic).

As a single mum, sometimes Sunday mornings are really hard and have been physically and emotionally exhausting. But when I don’t get to hear the sermon properly because of children, it is so helpful to be reminded that being in church together, confessing our sins, declaring the creed, singing praises and then sharing communion weekly is seeing and teaching ourselves the gospel weekly. That is massive and good for me and our children. The battle is worth it.    

Take communion as an example, my ten yearold son, Jenson, can repeat all the Bible verses for communion and he is saying them with his church family - what a joy to know that he has these Bible verses deeply rooted into his mind and, we pray, his heart, and they are stored up for there for the future.

Repetition is wonderful. God made repetition. Repetition is built into creation. Wann quotes G K Chesterton, who in his book Orthodoxy, compares the repetition in creation of the sun rising and setting every day, to a child’s enjoyment of repeating the same games and songs. How many parents have been asked by their child to read a book again, immediately they’ve finished it? Children love repetition and says Chesterton, it’s because children are full of life! He writes: ‘For grown up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that all daisies are alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them.  It may be that he has the eternal appetite of infancy…The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.’

As Wann puts it: ‘The act of repetition can be a thing of beauty all by itself. For example, we’re called to repeat the sacrament of the Lord’s supper as a church body (1 Corinthians 11:23-35), and as we repeat this act, it becomes imprinted upon us – informing us about Christ and ourselves.‘ (31)

I love this about Church by the Bay.

We repeat things and that is so important for children to learn anything. And so: ‘We must come again and again to the communion table, and to worship, prayer and God’s Word – if we are to become more like Jesus.’ (32).

Worship, worship, worship.