A very moving guest post by an Orthodox Young Adult who wrote the following communiqué a few years ago:
"Here I am, another long night with no sleep. I usually don't offer my reflections or thoughts on forums or on the internet for many reasons...
1) It is hard for me to communicate on the internet, and if you know me well... I usually don't reply to text messages or private messages. I don't know why, but usually I prefer that I speak to the person face to face to avoid any misunderstandings. Smiley faces just don't do the job all the time :P
2) I am beginning on my journey in the Orthodox Church. For those who know me, I was born Orthodox but spent many years of my life away from the Church and now I am, by the grace of God returning to Christ and His Church. So for me to offer my reflections on certain Church teachings would be a dangerous task that can mislead others.
I ask you my dear readers to keep these things in mind, are you ready? Great, let us begin... From what I'm seeing and hearing, I believe that there are a lot of youth who have lost touch with the Church, and I am one of them. I am not lying just to be "humble", I am simply being honest with you so you know that what I am going to talk to you about is from what I am personally going through.
Although I still attend church services, I feel like we youth might not understand the meaning of worship. You probably know where I am heading with this, but it must be addressed, not by me but by someone else, after we take the first step in admitting that we have a problem. You probably heard of leaders and servants asking themselves, "How do we bring more youth to the church?" And my answer to this (not that it matters or is of any value since I have no experience in service) is for us living in the West to redefine worship, to explain what worship is as understood by the Church of God.
You might be wondering... What does that have to do with anything? Well... I think that if we really make it clear what Orthodox worship is, then we wouldn't have many of our youth leaving our Orthodox parishes to attend nearby churches like the Baptists, the non-denominational...you get the point. If we start labeling other events as times of worship which are anything but liturgical then we might confuse people. If we start calling songs or any non-liturgical form of prayers outside of the liturgy as "worship time/worship songs" then we might be sending mixed messages.
What I mean is that if we understand that the divine liturgy is the crown of all of our spiritual activities then maybe we might end up re-arranging and changing our list of priorities. If at this point you have no idea what I'm saying, then my apologies...it's often very hard for me to write down my thoughts.
I personally believe that worship in the Orthodox Church can only be liturgical.
That is not to say that we can only communicate with God on Sunday mornings, don't get me wrong. What I am saying is that ultimately worship is liturgical, that's how it has been done since creation until now. Even Revelation portrays worship as liturgical, but I won't get into that now. If we start telling our youth we have worship when it's really a time for singing songs and listening to a sermon then we are indirectly telling them that it's alright for them to "worship" in these non-Orthodox places because that's what they do (songs and a sermon).
And let me tell ya, they're experienced in this type of worship since that's what they know and do every "worship meeting". If we don't distinguish the divine liturgy as really being the time for worship then what are those who are leaving doing wrong by 'worshiping' somewhere else?
I have so much to say, but every thought that I try to write down ends up becoming a paragraph, so I'll leave it at this...
"Here I am, another long night with no sleep. I usually don't offer my reflections or thoughts on forums or on the internet for many reasons...
1) It is hard for me to communicate on the internet, and if you know me well... I usually don't reply to text messages or private messages. I don't know why, but usually I prefer that I speak to the person face to face to avoid any misunderstandings. Smiley faces just don't do the job all the time :P
2) I am beginning on my journey in the Orthodox Church. For those who know me, I was born Orthodox but spent many years of my life away from the Church and now I am, by the grace of God returning to Christ and His Church. So for me to offer my reflections on certain Church teachings would be a dangerous task that can mislead others.
I ask you my dear readers to keep these things in mind, are you ready? Great, let us begin... From what I'm seeing and hearing, I believe that there are a lot of youth who have lost touch with the Church, and I am one of them. I am not lying just to be "humble", I am simply being honest with you so you know that what I am going to talk to you about is from what I am personally going through.
Although I still attend church services, I feel like we youth might not understand the meaning of worship. You probably know where I am heading with this, but it must be addressed, not by me but by someone else, after we take the first step in admitting that we have a problem. You probably heard of leaders and servants asking themselves, "How do we bring more youth to the church?" And my answer to this (not that it matters or is of any value since I have no experience in service) is for us living in the West to redefine worship, to explain what worship is as understood by the Church of God.
You might be wondering... What does that have to do with anything? Well... I think that if we really make it clear what Orthodox worship is, then we wouldn't have many of our youth leaving our Orthodox parishes to attend nearby churches like the Baptists, the non-denominational...you get the point. If we start labeling other events as times of worship which are anything but liturgical then we might confuse people. If we start calling songs or any non-liturgical form of prayers outside of the liturgy as "worship time/worship songs" then we might be sending mixed messages.
What I mean is that if we understand that the divine liturgy is the crown of all of our spiritual activities then maybe we might end up re-arranging and changing our list of priorities. If at this point you have no idea what I'm saying, then my apologies...it's often very hard for me to write down my thoughts.
I personally believe that worship in the Orthodox Church can only be liturgical.
That is not to say that we can only communicate with God on Sunday mornings, don't get me wrong. What I am saying is that ultimately worship is liturgical, that's how it has been done since creation until now. Even Revelation portrays worship as liturgical, but I won't get into that now. If we start telling our youth we have worship when it's really a time for singing songs and listening to a sermon then we are indirectly telling them that it's alright for them to "worship" in these non-Orthodox places because that's what they do (songs and a sermon).
And let me tell ya, they're experienced in this type of worship since that's what they know and do every "worship meeting". If we don't distinguish the divine liturgy as really being the time for worship then what are those who are leaving doing wrong by 'worshiping' somewhere else?
I have so much to say, but every thought that I try to write down ends up becoming a paragraph, so I'll leave it at this...
