Worship in Three Dimensions

Last night I watched Up in 3-D on the big screen.  It was a technological and artistic masterpiece, providing both stunning graphics and a stunning story (rarely do the two mesh).

Always the critic, I was thinking in the movie about the perspective three dimensions gives us of two dimensions: pictures, movies, words on paper, etc.  Viewing a regular movie is completely two dimensional: both actors and text, pictures,captions, etc.  In a 3-D movie the 2-D objects stand out by subtraction: in the opening shot of Up as the sepia newsreel played to introduce two important characters the screen is two-dimensional, and as the movie pans out the people in front of the protagonist become 3-D with the glasses on, and you see the crowd in three dimensions but the newsreel in two dimensions.  We are seeing a crowd.

We are seeing ourselves.

We are the crowds in front of the screen, in front of the photo album, in front of the novel.  We exist in three dimensions but become absorbed by two dimensions as well.  Most importantly, we make up for only two dimensions with our imaginations.  We bring understanding and thought to two dimensional texts and works through both involuntary interpretation by viewing perspective in a two dimensional painting and voluntary interpretation by imaging what a character in a novel looks like.

Our imaginations are also what we bring to worship.  We have involuntary interpretation by seeing the words on the page, the lyrics on the projector, the photos in the bulletin.  Yet we often forget to exercise our voluntary imaginations when it comes to worship.

Old 3-D movies were corny because they were just site gags.  The ability to make images "pop" superseded the actual story.  The new 3-D that Up is made with is subtle, it adds perspective and looks brilliant.  But the point of the movie was not to be 3-D.  The point was to be a story.

Our worship should be about story.  We sing new songs as a way to add to the story of God’s people, praising him for things that have happened both long ago and recently.  We read Scripture to invoke God’s story into our present lives.  We preach to imagine the impact of God’s story today.  And we come to the Lord’s table to re-enact the wondrous death and resurrection of Christ.  

Most often pastors do this.  I think they do too much of it.  We expect them to paint the picture while preaching, to set up the story, color all the characters, interpret the whole story for us, all so that the crowd can be limp, unthinking, and unchallenged.   We expect worship leaders to interpret songs for us.  We expect the Lord’s supper to be iradicated of mystery so that it just becomes an ordinance.  We don’t want three dimensions because that is too hard.  We just want the two dimensions, plain and simple, and for leaders and pastors to add the extra dimension and imagination.

Therefore, we first need to disciple our communities so that they begin to enter into the story themselves.  Second, we need to begin to dream of ways to allow congregations to be active in the dynamics of worship, in the entering into God’s story.  The worship of God is not an idle activity.  We need to be aware of the three dimensions all around us, the reality all around us, and then enter into the wonderful story of God and his creation.