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“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” — Luke 23:42

Prepare for Spiritual Renewal | Hold a solemn assembly | Follow up

Frequently asked questions about solemn assemblies

What is a solemn assembly?

A solemn assembly is a special gathering of God’s people to confess their sin and need of Christ’s grace in order that they might receive power from on high to be God’s faithful people in ministry to the world. A solemn assembly is like clearing a space within and among us by emptying ourselves of ourselves and our own selfish ends. This is done through lament and confession of sin. Then, out of our emptiness we confess our need for divine mercy and cry out to God to be filled anew with Christ’s Spirit for service to the world.

Though related to the Sabbath in Hebrew, the term solemn assembly refers to a special worship service that doesn’t occur during Shabbat. As a pattern for living together with God, every Sunday is to be a solemn assembly in Christ. However, there are times that the church sets aside to earnestly seek God, and, as in the Jewish calendar, some of these are part of the Christian church year. Ash Wednesday, for example, is like the solemn assembly described in Joel 2 (the Old Testament lection for Ash Wednesday):

Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord, your God? Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Sanctify the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her canopy. Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep. Let them say, "Spare your people, O Lord, and do not make your heritage a mockery, a byword among the nations. Why should it be said among the peoples, "’Where is their God?’"

A solemn assembly is not about making space for our neighbor to confess her/his sins while we judge from afar. Nor is it about using piety as a sword in church battles. The call for spiritual renewal is an earnest desire to seek God’s presence and power together in order to be faithful to our high calling in Jesus Christ as together we engage in ministry to a hurting world in the name of the Lord.

Why this call for solemn assembly now?

Our current situation is one of brokenness. Despite our abundant riches, people with broken lives are trying to stumble through the fragments of a shattered world. Families are torn asunder, the social fabric of care is torn and our trust in institutions, including the church, is crushed. War, human rights violations, environmental concerns and global crises of fuel and food shortages are destabilizing life in alarming ways.

In the midst of these overwhelming problems, the church needs to earnestly seek the Lord in order to witness to the resurrection in a rapidly changing world. Regardless of where we stand on the political spectrum of current church debates, we need the Lord, not just as individuals trying to get through it all, but as a church riddled with divisive, distrustful factions. So why not call upon our only hope in a more intentional way — in prayer — together. Why not gather in solemn assemblies? Who knows but that the Lord will leave a blessing behind.

Where did this call come from?

The Holy Spirit — through a pastor who offered it to the 2008 General Assembly for consideration.

A church session was divided over a worship-related issue. After much debate and praying together, one of the elders suggested calling a solemn assembly before revisiting the worship issue. Read their story. It was out of this experience that Pastor Rick Irish drafted the initial overture to the 2008 General Assembly, simply hoping to offer the church a way to overcome conflict and impasse by focusing on what we all have in common — a need for God’s grace and power in the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ.

What’s behind this call for a solemn assembly?

A widespread cry from all parts of the church.

There’s a general undercurrent of dismay from all parts of the church that we haven’t been altogether acting as church. At times, our gatherings look more like business meetings or political battlegrounds than church. We are divided and divisive, too often suspicious of, instead of loving toward, one another. In this atmosphere it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to discern God’s will for us. Relying upon our own God-given strength soon exhausts us without the Holy Spirit’s aid.

But there’s something deeper behind this call for a solemn assembly — the recognition that we can’t manage the church. In fact, the church is not ours to manage; it’s Christ’s. The essence of the gospel we preach and seek to embody is one of repentance and belief that in Jesus Christ the sovereign way of God in the world has been opened up. Through our repentance — our recognition that we are at the end of our own power to save and through our turning to God to be God for us, to “have mercy on us, a sinner”— we come to know the power of Christ who breaks our bondage to sin and rescues us from its ravages as we live more and more in accord with God’s New Way in the world.

Sure, we’re all trying to live faithfully. But too often on our own power without acknowledging our need to cry out unto the Lord like Bartimaeus, “Lord, have mercy on me!” Lord, have mercy on us!

So it is time to call upon the Lord together — not just in groups of like-minded people — but all together. It is time for more intentional prayer that recognizes our common proclivity to sin and our common need for God’s grace through Jesus Christ who alone is head of the church.

The spirit behind the General Assembly overture calling for times of spiritual renewal is not politically motivated, as some may suspect. Out of our past hurt, distrust, and/or fear, some might say that the call for solemn assemblies is a manipulative attempt to get God to bless our will so that with the pious ammunition of presuming we have God’s favor, we can impose our will upon the larger church. As any student of church history knows, such things have happened. Pious rhetoric sanctions too much evil, and this is most assuredly what we do not want to occur. Enough already!

A solemn assembly is not about us trying to get anything from God as much as it a desire to empty ourselves before the Lord through confession of our various sins, including our individual and corporate ones. Both personal and corporate sins are symptomatic of the greater condition of sin in which we all find ourselves, and it is this condition of sin that, ironically, unites us in our common need for the grace of Christ. This is not to be an assembly in which we keep tally of who’s confessed what sins — God forbid! As Matthew Henry says it, this assembly, like the Lord’s judgment, “should be so great a desolation, that nobody could gain by it.” (Matthew Henry, Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible, Amos 5:18-27.)

But what also unites us is a merciful God. So we’re not called to just wallow over our sin. Ours is a God who gives consolation of mercy in the midst of our desolation, new life in the emptiness of the grave. Calling upon God to fill us anew with the Spirit of Christ after we have bared our souls before the Lord is our hope of renewal, and so we call you to call upon the Lord.

Is this just an old-fashioned call for a revival?

Yes and no.

While it is true that many revivals use Biblical resources related to solemn assemblies, the word revival often takes on baggage that connotes renewal in a specific way. That is, when we hear the phrase, “old-fashioned call for revival,” those using that term might sense that there is a philosophy undergirding the call that says, “If we do this, then God will do that.”

God, like religious experience, is not to be manipulated. The revival tradition has now become so enmeshed with American individualism and its consumerist mentality that the revival model may not be as helpful for meeting our current social situation as it once was. We forget that American frontier revivals started in the midst of serious social problems that the church wished to address with the power of the Holy Spirit. While we find ourselves in that same perennial situation today, the problems we face are different and may require different forms of prayer and worship than in former days.

God works in a variety of ways to renew the church. Some churches are spiritually renewed as they meet together rehabbing houses for disaster victims after a brief prayer service. Some are renewed through Bible studies and prayer meetings held in different members’ homes. Churches in the 1970s experienced new life as the result of a lay renewal program that sent teams of laity for services of renewal that were held in various churches. Some are renewed by revivals. The tradition of prayerfully meeting together to call upon God, lament, confess our sins to God and one another, and seek God’s blessing is one that is always appropriate.

The General Assembly overture recognizes that there are many ways to seek spiritual renewal of the church. Thus, we are seeking to provide various kinds of resources available for different situations. These practices are not prescriptive. They are offered as examples of what pastors and church leaders can consider as they discern what would be best for the spiritual renewal of their particular church body given where they are at this time and place in history.

Aren’t solemn assemblies rather dangerous?

Could be. Any time we enter into God’s presence, we’re on frightfully holy ground. Movements of God’s Spirit can be scary because they mean we’re not in control anymore, and truth is, most of us like a certain amount of control. Besides, things might change, and change is not always welcome to those of us who like predictability or who are comfortable with the status quo.

We’re Presbyterians, and we have a tendency to see God’s Spirit at work everywhere in the world, not just in personal religious experiences.  We don’t trust religious experiences; we trust in the One who has claimed us.  That being said, we do have religious experiences that we’re somewhat shy about sharing, as though it’s not appropriate to talk about what we have experienced of the risen Lord.  When we dare to share our experiences, to testify to the Lord’s goodness in concrete ways, joy often breaks out among us.   And joy can bring the danger of folks thinking we’re a little looney — something else we respectable people fear. 

But there’s another more insidious danger — the danger of self-righteousness that puts another’s religious experience down as “less than.” This is one of the Enemy’s greatest weapons that tears us apart. In our gathering together for spiritual renewal we need to take care that no one way of experiencing the risen Lord is exalted over another. Some experience Christ in quiet thought though no emotion is shown, so they appreciate more meditative worship. Others experience God’s goodness more kinesthetically, dancing in praise or shouting with joy when they hear the gospel. Part of the good news of the gospel is that Christ comes to each of us where we are so that we can be where he is — in the eternal presence of God. If we respect one another’s needs and viewpoints on how God is at work among us and the world, we may experience a God who is bigger than our limited perspective can imagine, a God big enough to bridge the divide of sin that exists in the world.

So let us remember that “God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and love and self-discipline” (I Tim. 1:7), trust the Spirit, let go, and let God be God.

Isn’t spending our time in assemblies less productive than serving Christ through our actions?

We could just as easily ask if worship is a big waste of time when the hungry need fed, the lost witnessed to, the homeless housed, the sick healed. We can work for the common good without needing to be a part of the church, but it is the assembling of Christ’s body in worship that is our compass for all of the church’s ministries, which are a continuation of our praise and service to God. Without this grounding in worship, our service to the world can lose its center in Christ and become idolatrous ways we serve our own egos.

That being said, if all we’re doing is seeking our own renewal without concern for the world, then we’re navel gazing, which truly is a waste of time.

Can’t I just be spiritually renewed on my own and encourage others to pray more, too? Why do I have to gather together with others for spiritual renewal?

Because the majority of the “you”s in the Bible are plural “you all”s. Our American individualism thinks the Bible addresses each of us in our existential condition, and though this is true, no one exists in a vacuum. As Christians, we are part of the people of God, the body of Christ, and we are called as a people, not just as individuals, to be renewed. Look at the Biblical record. Before entering the Promised Land, the people were called to a covenant renewal assembly after being liberated as a people. The prophets called their people/nation to faithful living through ritual renewal that resulted in their liturgical words being enacted in social justice.

Our church, our society needs renewal — not just individuals, though each of us is called to continually be made new and transformed more and more into the image of Christ. The General Assembly, along with Christ, calls us to gather together as church to pray for the renewal not just of ourselves, but also of the church and the world God so loves.

Of course you can be spiritually renewed on your own and by your example encourage others to do the same, but mind the assembly. To withhold yourself from gathering with your brothers and sisters is to deny the body of Christ one of its essential parts — you! So even if you feel no need to be renewed, your presence can help others who do.

My folks don’t sense a need for a solemn assembly. How can I fulfill this call by the General Assembly?

First of all, pray. Gather those who are mature in the faith, including those whose viewpoints are often different from yours, for a time of informal prayer and discernment. Speak the truth as you see it in love to one another. Listen for what the Spirit seems to be saying to your church body.

Christ came to different folks in different, sometimes astonishing ways, so that they could know the salvific goodness of God. How is it that your people need the Lord to come to them? Maybe they’re just not ready to engage in a solemn assembly, or maybe they’re already being renewed on a weekly, if not daily, basis. So pray for them, love them, respect where they are as you ask how the Lord wants you to proceed. In Holy Spirit, ask what the next step is that your people need to take in order to experience more of God’s goodness and how you can make space for the Lord to come do that. Listen over the course of time for the response that comes to you.

This call for spiritual renewal is not about throwing a one-size-fits-all blanket approach on the congregation. As leader of your community, you have to use spiritual/theological discernment. The practice of drawing a diverse team of mature Christian leaders in your community, praying, and listening together for the Spirit to speak among you is a better resource than anyone far away from your particular situation can provide. Nonetheless, you may benefit from some other ideas offered in these Web pages.

How is a solemn assembly different from the worship of the church on Sunday?

The term is used in the Old Testament alone, most often mentioned in the priestly sources of the Hebrew Bible. Concerned with ritual purity in ways that Jesus questioned to the point that he was crucified, the priestly sources of the Old Testament have given way to the Christian belief that the promised Spirit in Joel has now come through Christ. Christ is both our great high priest and our priestly sacrifice. Christ is our only hope of righteousness, and we are made holy through the priesthood of his life, death, and resurrection as we  accept his sovereignty over all of life. Therefore, any time two or three are gathered in Christ’s name, it is a solemn assembly.

Does this mean that we don’t have to bother seeking God’s face in special solemn assemblies anymore?  Of course not.   Ash Wednesday is a sacred time  that uses Joel’s solemn assembly text as one of its lections. Surely Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, the Great Vigil are solemn assemblies such as those described in the Old Testament.

Moreover, just because we see God more clearly in Christ doesn’t mean we see perfectly. Indeed, it is because we all see Christ from the perspective of our own unique life experiences, through the language and art forms of our various cultures at our various times and places in history, that we need a solemn assembly to call us together so that as we testify of the aspect of God that we perceive, we might together, as church, have a clearer picture of the Way in which God calls us to walk together in our particular time and place.

Ideally, we corporately confess our need for God every Lord’s Day and individually call upon God in daily prayer, but there are times when the people of God need to be renewed and seek to clear a pathway for God’s Spirit to draw nigh and clear the Way forward. These are times when calling a solemn assembly are most helpful to the church.

Our church is thriving. Why should we hold a solemn assembly?

It is true that generally, a solemn assembly is called when it is perceived that we are in such a social and/or spiritual crisis that without divine aid we will perish. While your local church may be thriving, as part of the connected church, you’re called to pray for our denominational unity in the midst of serious conflicts that threaten to undo us. Our denominational strife has also tainted our witness to the world.

Moreover, a solemn assembly provides a model for how we are to be church together — ever mindful of our sin and reliance upon God alone for our grace and well-being (shalom). Besides, the crisis of sin is ever with us, is it not? Perhaps, then, your local church is called to pray for the world and lament the damage caused by sin.

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