Ekklēsia - Called Out

Week after week, for millennia and around the globe, a peculiar people is gathered by a call to worship-- a call that, in a sense, goes out before the service even begins, but that is then formally declared in the opening of the service in the "call to worship," often from the Psalms...

 The rather mundane fact that people show up is, however, an indicator of something fundamental: that a people has gathered in response to a call. "Whenever we gather for public worship," [Michael] Horton declares, "it is because we have been summoned. That is what 'church' mean: ekklēsia, 'called out.' It is not a voluntary society of those whose chief concern is to share, to build community, to enjoy fellowship, to have moral instruction for their children. Rather, it is a society of those who have been chosen, redeemed, called, justified, and are being sanctified until one day they will be glorified." The very fact that we gather says something, implicitly trains our imagination in a way. "Gathering indicates that Christians are called from the world, from their homes, from their families, to be constituted into a community capable of praising God... The church is constituted as a new people who have been gathered from the nations to remind the world that we are in fact one people. Gathering, therefore, is an eschatological act as it is the foretaste of the unity of the communion of the saints."

- James K. A. Smith in Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview and Cultural Formation

referenced:
Michael Horton, A Better Way: Rediscovering the Drama of God-Centered Worship
Stanley Hauerwas, In Good Company: The Church as Polis