In the liturgical traditions of the church, you will often hear people talk about the Daily Office, also known as the Divine Office in some denominations. This refers to services like Morning and Evening Prayer that can be said by anyone on any day of the week.
The word "Office" derives from Latin, and it roughly equates to "the work that you do" (which is what one does in an office). One might even say it is the work required of you, or your duty.
When I was in seminary, I heard some people who really emphasized this idea of duty in worship. One person even said we should look at it as work. That never sat well with me.
The reason I am not fond of the idea of worship as duty is that it takes the joy out of worship, and those who focused on worship as duty never really seemed happy to me.
As I've said before, the point of worship isn't about what we give to God or what we get out of it. It's about both what we offer to God and what God gives to us. It's about our relationship with God. Our relationship with God should be joyful, just as any relationship we have should have joy in it. If there's no joy in a relationship, then what is the point of that relationship to begin with?
My hope is that you will want to be present in worship every Sunday. My hope is that it will not be a chore, but it will be something you genuinely want to do. My hope is that you will take joy in your worship, and if you don't, I hope you will talk to your minsters about it. You can even contact me either personally, by email, or in the comments section below.
I do believe that one way to make worship more joyful is to understand why we do what we do better. To help with that, I will be doing another Faith Fact series, this time focusing on different aspects of our worship.
Before I end, I don't want to completely deny that the idea of duty has it's place, but I don't want it to crush our joy in worship either. Next week, I will be talking about how the idea of duty can help us with our worship, especially in those times when our relationship with God might be suffering.