Liturgy In the Local Community: An Ecumenically Local Worldview

Local community is often seen as synonymous with the local
church, and the local church is often seen as synonymous with "that church over
there on the hill."  For liturgy to truly
be meaningful in a local community I think pastors, lay persons, and
congregations need to begin to think of the local church as all the churches in
a local community.  In other words, the
local church is the grouping of the handful (maybe dozens) of churches that are
down the road from each other, down the block from each other, or even next door
to each other.  The church plant I attend
meets inside of another church—talk about the proximity of churches in a
locality.  When the local church is
thought of as the collective of churches in a community, then liturgy is seen
in a fresher, and I would add truer, light.

Liturgy is "the public work," and the local church presents
itself to the community through its worship, both inside the church and outside
the church in the local community.  The
local church is present at the deli when a member of First Baptist
Church is buying some
lunch meat the same way the local church is present in the community when a parishioner
of St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church is talking to someone at the local Post
Office.  The local church is present in
the local community seven days a week.

This re-orientation from the local church as a single church
to a collective of churches points the Christians of the local community
towards each other in conversation and dialogue.  As the Body of Christ doing the public work
through worship, discipleship, stewardship, and fellowship we are all working
to see the Kingdom
of God come to the shared
local community.  We might work in
different ways, we might not agree with each others theology, we might not
approve of each others techniques (or lack there of), but we must see that we
are working together.  We must see each
other as an ecumenical movement of the Kingdom in a particular place.  And we must see the collective that is the
local church in the local community as being the presence of Christ, through
the power of the Holy Spirit and the grace and mercy of the Father. 

The community my church, The Plant is centered in,
Allendale, NJ, has a public Stations of the Cross each year that all the
churches in the local community participate in on Good Friday.  The pilgrims of Christ go throughout the town
to different stations and participate in public worship.  This is a perfect example of  how the liturgy can and should function in the
local community: the local church getting together, worshiping together as the
public work, and presenting themselves as the presence of Christ inside the
local community.

Please read the three previous posts in this series:

Liturgy In the Local Community

Liturgy In the Local Community: The Recovery of Historical Theology

Liturgy In the Local Community:  The Foundation of Your Tradition