Worship Vs Doctrine

For centuries, Christians have debated as to whether doctrine or worship was more important. This debate has been the cause of wars and the splitting of the Christian world in many separate factions. But in the end, no matter how much this is debated, the truth is worship is more important than any doctrine.

Worship is the act of physically showing what it is that a community believes, it is the acting out of doctrine. Through worship, one speaks with the creator of the Universe. This is true in Christian worship. Without the practice of worship, Christians are nothing but a group of scholars who believe in similar ideas.

Not to say that doctrines are not important. Without doctrines, Christianity would be unable to define what it is the faith stands for. Doctrines serve as a guide to worship and the understanding of those practices found in worship.

In today's churches, the practice of worship is varied and sometimes, on the surface, look nothing like each other. Some churches still hold to a more traditional form of worship that includes liturgy, hymns, prayer, a sermon, offering, communion, and a benediction. In contemporary circles, worship may appear much different. Often there is no liturgy, hymns are replaced with praise songs, there may be a video clip from a secular movie, the sermon is called a message, which is not always given by the pastor, and may sometime include congregational participation. Communion is served, but in a very informal way, and then the service ends with more music.

Although these two forms or worship seem to be very different, through them is seen the basic practices that encompass Christian worship. The most important ritual in worship is that of participating in communion. This is the sign of the new covenant that Jesus made with us, that he took the sins of the world so that the people of the world could follow him and be blameless and pure. Now, the practice of taking communion and when one can take it varies from church to church. In most protestant denominations, anyone who is able to understand the meaning of communion is welcome to receive the elements. They are usually taken separately or by a method called intiction, which is the dipping of the bread into the juice. In more conservative groups there are age limits, or you can partake after you have been baptized, or a common practice would be to require that a person go through some type of class before one can take communion. In the Dominican tradition, which is like the service I attend, a person must have graduated from catechism before one can take communion. In the Orthodox Church, communion is an interesting thing to experience. If a person is not a member of the church, he or she is unable to take communion. Communion is given by the Priest, from the chalice in which the bread and wine are already in. As a member leaves the communion area, he or she can take some of the consecrated bread that was not used in the chalice and bring it back to the non-members of the church as a sign of friendship.

All of these various traditions are based on one thing, the art of worship. In the taking of communion, a member of the faith is worshiping God and thanking him for his sacrifice of his son. It also is a celebration of the new life each person receives when he or she accepts Jesus as their own personal savior. This is also seen in the act of Baptism, which is another form of worship.

When a person is baptized, he or she has made the decision to show the community that he or she accepts Jesus, and that he or she wishes to be a part of this particular faith community. Throughout history, Baptism has been seen as a crucial point in a person's