Worship and Witness: April 2021

This issue of Anabaptist Witness explores many understandings of worship and expressions of witness.

To witness is to observe a statement or action or to profess one’s religious beliefs. We can witness God’s work in the world or humans’ good and harmful deeds. We can proclaim our beliefs, in words and actions, to one another within and beyond our faith communities.

Voices Together: Worship Leader Edition explores three uses of the word “worship,” each of which can relate to witness in many ways:

• “Worship describes a way of relating to God, which includes expressions of praise and adoration, and also worshipping God through lives of loving service to others”(viii)."
• Worship is “the gathering of a faith community—a worship service—and everything that is part of that gathering, including singing, preaching, praying, reading Scripture, engaging with visual art, celebrating communion, and more” (viii).
• Worship refers to “a specific part of a contemporary worship service that is focused on praising God through singing, perhaps accompanied by prayer or movement” (viii).

This issue of Anabaptist Witness contains insights on each of these three facets of worship and the multitude of ways that they overlap with witness. The essays can largely be divided into two sections: those that closely relate to congregational life and those that go beyond a more traditional understanding of worship.

Articles

• Editorial by Katie Graber and Anneli Loepp Thiessen
• Worship and Mission in Anabaptist Perspective and Practice by Janie Blough and James R. Krabill
• Mission as Reconciliation Embodied in Worship: One Congregation’s Journey toward Reconciliation by Tim Schmucker
• “Do This in Remembrance of Me” A Brethren Understanding of the Lord’s Supper as an Alternative Political Witness by Jason Barnhart
• El lenguaje del Espíritu: Liturgia y deseo by Jonathan Misael Minchala Flores
• Congregational Prayer as Witness by Carol Penner
• On Words and Witness by Joanna Harader
• On Ancestors and Elections by Joel Miller
• Protest as Worship by Amy Yoder McGloughlin
• Worship and the Kingdom of God by Robert Thiessen with Anne Thiessen
• (Yard) Signs of Our Worship: Exploring Faith, Meaning, and Messaging in 2020 by Debbi DiGennaro
• Entrevista a Almendra Fantilli: Directora del documental El Culto by Marcos Acosta