I was standing in the middle of a chapel sanctuary at about 7:30 p.m., deep in the city of Quito, Ecuador with 35 other students from across the United States. We had just finished dinner, and we were about to have our first chapel gathering. We had never worshiped together as a group. I was excited to connect with the group over something, anything. We started singing our first worship song: Ok, Holy Holy Holy, nice, I thought. As we sang, I noticed the girl to my left, Natalie, raise her hands, not ten seconds into the song. Nothing out of the ordinary. A few people around were raising their hands by the end of the song. Lovely.
The worship band (a group of students from the program) began to play the next song on the list. I had never heard of it, and it was a song with a difficult melody to catch on to, so I tried to sing more quietly. A girl in front of me, Rahel, began aggressively swaying back and forth, one hand to her chest and one flying around in the air. Then, Jess dropped to the floor, kneeling with her head bowed and hands folded. My heart tightened with bitterness. How selfish can you be? Kneeling in the front row where everyone can see you? So distracting! Suddenly, my stomach rolled and rumbled. Dinner wasn’t sitting right.
I scooted sideways through my row, headed to the rest—woah! I almost tripped over a guy in the center aisle positioned as if he was playing leapfrog, his forehead pressed to the ground. I stepped around him. This is definitely not Covenant College, I thought to myself on the way to the bathroom. The church world calls the PCA “the Frozen Chosen” because we often do not move our bodies while we sing worship songs—perhaps a sway or a lifted hand if it’s Easter. Ironically, the PCAers stood out in my Ecuador cohort—we were the only ones who seemed to lack a connection with God during worship nights.
Dr. Kelly Kapic’s devotional book “You Were Never Meant to Do It All” has helped me better grasp the idea of embodiment. We are physical beings, not just souls. We have bodies that are significant, and the Lord has saved our souls and our bodies. We can worship the Lord with our bodies just as we can with our words and thoughts. Does this mean the PCA needs to raise their hands more, kneel in the aisle, or jump around? Psalm 95 has people bowing down and kneeling for worship—but in the PCA, these actions would likely be seen by others as
attention-seeking and distracting. Maybe we do need a little more of that, but I don’t think the idea of embodied worship requires a complete culture shift.
Embodied worship actually makes a lot of sense. Humans feel most seen, known and loved when both their physical and emotional sides are addressed in a situation. For example, when I need to cry, I will go to my best friend because I know she will give me loving words as well as a comforting touch. If she were to give me loving words and stay six feet away from me while I cried, I would feel awkward and maybe even think she doesn’t care as much as she says she does. If she were to say, “Honestly, I don’t really have time to listen to all of this, but I’ll give you a hug,” I would feel the same way. Both must be addressed in order to approach someone holistically.
Dr. Kapic says that one of the things college students will miss the most after graduation is physical touch, whether they know it or not. Greeting friends with a hug, piling on a couch for a movie night, and sitting side-by-side during chapel connects us with each other and reminds us of the tangible community we have around us. Community. We need other humans physically around us, not six feet away or on a zoom meeting. There is hope, comfort and wholeness in togetherness. But does kneeling in the aisle help fulfill this need for community? I am not God, and only God fully knows the heart of a human. My hesitations in Ecuador certainly carried unnecessary judgment and bitterness towards others’ faiths; however, my thoughts may have also carried a sliver of validity.
Does intense physical praise make worship just about the individual and God, when, indeed, the individual is surrounded by a congregation of people? When our relationships with the Lord are, in their essence, utterly communal? We are physical beings with physical needs, so we should interact with each other physically in the church: hug each other during greeting times, hold your husband’s hand during worship, put your arm around your sister while you sing. Don’t be afraid to approach. Jesus invited the little children to come near and sit with him. Don’t shut people out with your embodied worship; invite others in. Being physically together reminds us that we are not alone in a world of torment. God placed us in community so that when the darkness seems overwhelming, we can remind each other that the light will overcome the darkness—and then share an embrace that helps us believe it.