Copyright: © 1997 Paul F. Bosch.
This document may be freely reproduced for non-commercial purposes with credit to the author and mention of the Lift Up Your Hearts web site http://www.worship.ca/ as the source. This essay first appeared in the September, 1997, issue of the AGO publication The American Organist. Posted to the World-Wide Web by permission.

Students of "client-centered" pastoral counseling, as I understand it, are encouraged to articulate aloud, and early in the encounter, for benefit of both client and counselor the often-unspoken "contract" between them. What is it that brings both client and counselor together? What does the client expect from this encounter? What role is the counselor expected to play? The client?

The notion of "contract" is a helpful one, it seems to me, when applied to Christian worship. What is the "ritual contract" sub-consciously assumed or consciously articulated when worshipers walk in the door on a Sunday morning? What may worshipers or worship leaders expect of each other, or indeed of themselves, as they enter into this encounter we call Christian worship?

In my view, there is always a "ritual contract", in almost any experience of human encounter, Christian worship not excluded. It can involve so simple a matter as the length of time I may expect to be here in this place. If I assume the Service will last an hour, and it's now lasted an hour-and-a-half, you can believe I'll begin to feel a little anxious, and maybe even not a little annoyed or angry.

Another example: If I enter the church building expecting a simple Service of the Word, and find instead I'm going to be asked to have my feet washed, or to wash the feet of someone else, you can understand if I feel the "ritual contract" of my expectation has been violated.

So considerations of "ritual contract" are not unimportant for worship planners and worship leaders. I'd be willing to argue, in fact, that considerations of "ritual contract" represent the very first steps in worship planning. What can worshipers expect, when they walk in the door this Sunday? What can we rightly expect of worshipers?

The great Danish theologian Soren Kierkegaard long ago posed that question, and answered it compellingly, although not in the categories of "ritual contract" that I am proposing here. He argued that, in Christian worship, worshipers have a right to expect that they will be participants in the action, and not merely observers.

Kierkegaard's insight is useful for us today, when we hear, from so many, a clamour for "presentational worship" or "entertainment evangelism". In both of these aberrations, and others like them, worshipers are invited to think of themselves as an audience, with worship leaders presenting or performing for their amusement or enlightenment. The "ritual contract", in these "contemporary services", is clear: you attend worship as member of an audience; worship leaders have something you need, that you don't have.

Now that is the death of Christian worship, in my view. It is in any case certainly the death of the "priesthood of all believers".

In Christian worship, as Kierkegaard argued, we are all invited "on stage": each worshiper is invited to assume an irreplaceable voice in the chorus of praise that constitutes Christian worship. And the pastor, the worship leaders, the musicians? They're simply there to help it all happen. They're the prompters to the actors; they're the cheerleaders to the team on the field. But the people in the pews: they're the important ones. It's their voice that counts.

Now, granted: you may not want to accept that invitation. You may prefer to sit in the back pew and observe, or even judge. But you should feel invited "on stage".

The "ritual contract" in Christian worship is always an invitation to become engaged, to commit, to participate, to be a part of this action. Anything less than that may be entertaining, or even inspiring. But it is simply not Christian worship.