A New Way to Worship
It’s strange to work at a place that participates in an ancient tradition. Church just meets on Sunday. I was raised in an environment that drove this thought into me as an absolute fact. If the church didn’t meet on Sunday, something was very, very wrong.
Having been born and raised in Florida, it wasn’t strange to go to church on a morning when a hurricane advisory was in effect. “It’s just a little bit of rain!” I’d often hear. Most of the time, it was just rain, which is why the church continued to meet. This is why it is even stranger to hear what we are all hearing these days: government-mandated stay-at-home orders. The sentiment falls bleak on my ears. It is a scary thing to be told. In my lifetime, I haven’t heard government officials speak the way they’re speaking now.
Most of my life, I’ve been a “glass half empty” kind of person. I’ve wrestled with depression, anxiety, fear, and hopelessness and have been defeated by each of them more than once. Seeing the bright side takes a deliberate and significant effort from my end. It stands to reason that I am and others like me are left at a bit of a loss these days. It is precisely this mentality that gives such an extraordinary way for growth in this particular season.
When life is neat and tidy, things are going wonderfully, and there isn’t a cloud to be found, it is easy to lie about how much faith I have. It’s when the cards are really down (like they are in this time of COVID-19) that I’m left to face just how much—or little—faith remains. So when a new way to make church happen was introduced, I was cornered. I had to respond, no matter how scared or apprehensive it made me. When there are clouds to be found, I just want it to rain, and that’s what makes this so difficult. When I get discouraged, I want to stay discouraged. But the opportunity for growth demands to be implemented. As much as I find myself wanting to feel hopeless in this season, I feel an equally powerful feeling to resist; to fight hard to hope.
We started recording worship for Sunday’s services in a studio-like setting. Thankfully, this is a very comfortable element for me to be in. The creativity that flows from within a studio session is a unique kind, and it is one for which I will always be hungry for more. There was a rotation of people, due to social distancing, in the room throughout the day. Focusing on recording the music made it easy not to check my phone for the latest updates on the pandemic. It was a helpful distraction. But, the studio environment is a double-edged sword. Part of a successful studio session is nailing the part, no matter how many takes. This is another distraction in and of itself. It can easily become a game of lying to yourself and disguising an unhealthy obsession for a cleaner take with fewer mistakes as a search for a good part. On my worst days, this circles me right back to facing my faith, and lack thereof.
But then, like clockwork, there’s that pesky feeling to hope again. Like a mosquito that won’t escape your tent on a camping trip, the feeling to fight for hope, to fight for an honest encounter with truth, buzzes around my ears.
That first Sunday when the studio worship became part of the service, I woke up, made my daughter a bottle for breakfast, and streamed the service video onto our TV with my wife. I was eager to see how the video turned out and to hear the audio mix! I listened and watched with my family in my small, bright living room. The sun glared onto the TV screen. Texts from my team poured in around 9 a.m. We were all doing the same thing: watching with our families. “Love you all, and love this team!” one read. “Sounds great, everyone! So grateful to be a part of this,” from another.
Church happened that Sunday, and has been continuing to happen all over the world, because people much braver than I am adapted to their changes, and made the necessary calls in their communities. We couldn’t commune physically, but we absolutely communed with one another. It is remarkable that we live in a time when, because of the technological resources available, church can still happen despite what the world looks like today. There is so much bad news being circulated in this season, but this—that church can still happen—is really, really great news. There are still opportunities to fight to hope. There has always been, and will always be, good news circulating in every season. Thank God that there is still good news.
Adam Harris is the Herndon Campus worship coordinator at Summit Church. You can see him Sundays playing an instrument or singing during worship. He’s also Summit's biggest fan of Hamilton who hasn't seen Hamilton.