Practice Makes Perfect: Corporate Worship and the Formation of Spiritual Virtue

Abstract

This article argues that corporate worship is one of the primary means of making disciples through the ritual formation of spiritual virtue. It explains that a disciple is formed not only through transmission of doctrine, but also through cultivating the heart's inclinations. Christian disciples are not only “knowers”; they are “doers,” observing everything Christ has commanded. Since people act primarily according to their hearts’ desires, pastors who wish to make disciples must concern themselves with the heart's inclinations. Such inclinations are shaped most significantly through habitual behavior in community, an apt description of corporate worship. This leads, then, to a discussion of the power of corporate worship liturgy–habitual behaviors done in the context of corporate worship–to incarnate biblical values and transmit them to the worshiper/disciple. When the liturgies of corporate worship are reenactments of what God has done in the gospel, these liturgies help to make disciples, for by reenacting what they are in Christ, Christian worshipers become what they are.