As I think about worship and what it would look like if it were perfect, if it were exactly what it were supposed to be, my mind is drawn in two different directions. I see Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, living in perfect communion with God. Speaking God’s words and caring for His creation. They had no need for singing His praises, because their lives were His praises. They may have sung to Him out of joy, he may have even sung to them, but the basis of their worship was their lives, it was their lives that magnified the greatness of God. After gazing upon this picture my mind is then drawn to the opposite end of the Bible and of reality, to heaven as described in Revelation. If the Garden of Eden seems entirely physical, where God is actually pictured as walking with Adam and Eve and coming to search for them (a very physical idea), then heaven is the exact opposite, where there are spiritual beings constantly singing the praises of God who is spirit. There are saints there, but almost no reference to anything physical, there is no eating or walking or sleeping, there is just singing and gazing upon God in his glory. This is how God is worshipped, how He is magnified, in heaven.
These are two different pictures of worship, two different ways that people explain and describe worship, and I’ve heard people who are on both extremes.
One side looks to the verse “God is spirit and so His worshippers must worship in spirit and truth” and say, “See, worship is about worshipping in a spiritual way. It’s not about the body, it’s not about the mind, it’s about the heart and the spirit. We worship with our spirit, even as the worship in heaven occurs, and we worship in truth, meaning that we lay our hearts bare before God.” This worship tends to look very charismatic, with movements of the Spirit, because these people are very intentional in their connection with the Spirit and seeking His voice and direction. I see these things as good, we are to worship in spirit and with our hearts, we are to wait upon the Lord, we should see movements of the Spirit as God moves through us to communicate His words to the elect. But in opposition to this we have people who would stand around the verse “…in view of God’s mercy, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” They would say, “See, worship is about how you live in this physical world and about your mind. We are truly worshipping when we are suffering for Christ, when we are serving in His name, and when our minds are being renewed by truth.” For these individuals, the purpose of singing together is because song makes truth more memorable. The “real stuff” is the preaching and what happens outside of the church, after Sunday morning. I also see these things as good, we are to worship with our minds and our bodies, living our lives for God.
So I fall somewhere in the middle. This is why I tend to emphasize verses like “For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my understanding; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my understanding.” and “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught” “For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God. They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them. ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?’ Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for people to humble themselves? Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying in sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD? “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?”
It is clear to me through Scripture that God wants us to love Him with our heart, soul, mind, and body (Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength). However, I really believe that God is not interested in our heart, soul, mind, or strength, He is interested in our love, and that should be the defining aspect of our worship, whether we are worshipping “in spirit” or “in body” or “in mind” or “with our heart”. (Although I see it that our goal should be to learn how to make this one act, to see that all these things should be done equally, in equal proportions, at all times. Serving can be as spiritual as singing, and singing can be as physical as serving.) (1 Corinthians 12-14)
So in my picture of a church service, I think that it must flow out of and into a life that is lived in service to God. I think that it must involve the mind, heart, spirit, and body. Here are a few practical ways that this should happen as well as some other things I see as essential to a corporate worship experience.
1) Our meetings should be for the edification of the body. Over and over through the New Testament we are taught that our focus should not be on ourselves, but rather on the good of others. We should not live for what makes us feel good or what we enjoy, but rather to build others up and encourage them in their walk. When we come to a corporate gathering with other believers, in the forefront of our mind should be the needs of others and how we can meet them, not what we can or will get out of the meeting. When we speak it should not be for our own sake, but rather for the sake of those around us.
2) People at our meetings should feel free to express their spiritual gifts and speak the words that God has given them. God speaks through people. Yes, the Bible is our guide and is completely true, but we understand the Bible through prayer and the teaching of others. The spiritual gifts are given for the edification of the body, so they must be used in a loving, unselfish way, but they MUST be practiced.
3) In all of this, our focus should be on the gospel (as in every area of life). As we gaze upon the glory of God we will be transformed from one degree of glory to another. I see the purpose of a corporate meeting as refocusing everyone’s minds and hearts on Christ Jesus. As we walk through life there are distractions and things that pull at our affections and seek our attention, but in a corporate meeting of the body these distractions should not be present so that we can, together, gaze upon the glory of Christ, speaking His words to one another, so that the body may be built up.
4) From this then, I see corporate worship as our “spiritual thermometer”. When we come into a corporate service of worship we may think that we are in a good place, that we have been walking in the Spirit, and that we are pleasing God, only to find that when we go to sing with others our heart is far from Him and our spirit is painfully asleep. Or someone around us in the meeting may receive a word from God about our spiritual condition that we were unaware of and speak into an area of our life that we were comfortable with, only to show us that we are living in sin. On the other side, we may have struggled during the week with different things and felt beaten down by Satan, but when we gather together as a body and sing the praises of God, and we feel our hearts turned towards heaven, things can be suddenly put in perspective and we can see that we were struggling because we were fighting the battle and it can encourage us to continue. In this way, corporate worship should be our spiritual thermometer, our hearts, spirits, and minds should be laid bare before us so that we see ourselves as we are, and then our eyes should be turned back to God and who He is, as people speak into our lives, for the edification of the body.
5) The result of our meetings should be love and good deeds. We are told in Hebrews that we should not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but we should think of ways to spur one another on towards love and good deeds. When our heart is set aright with God and we come to a place of loving Him more, the result should always be love for our brother as well as our enemy. So love and good deeds should be the result of us seeing ourselves for who we are and then being turned to God and seeing how big He is, through people speaking into our lives by way of their spiritual gifts, for the building up of the body.
6) Which lastly leads us to - our meetings should make sense to and be comfortable for non-believers. This is taught in 1 Corinthians 14. The result of non-believers attending our meetings and hearing our prophecy and seeing our worship should be that their hearts are laid bare before all and they fall down worshipping God exclaiming “God really is among you”. So as people feel the freedom to speak the words of God into others lives, for the edification of the body, and as we see ourselves for who we are and turn to Christ, seeing who He is, and being made into His likeness and image through love and good deeds, the final result should be the bringing in of non-believers who see that God is really among us.
And so this phrase, “God is really among you”, is the real picture of worship. Whether we look at the Garden of Eden or heaven, the defining factor is the active presence of God. Worship is where Christians are so caught up in the Spirit, so consumed with Christ (in mind, body, heart, and soul) that they have removed distractions from their vision and lives and God is in control to the extent that when they gather with other Christians in the same place, God is really among them. As we love, non-believers will see the love of Christ. As we speak, non-believers will hear the words of Christ. As we serve, non-believers will see the hands of Christ. So worship should be people gathering in the name of Christ, free from the things of the world and the fear of men in the church, so that God can truly and fully move through them, so that the kingdom of God is built up, both from within and without.
I’m sure that there is much more in my picture of worship, but the above two paragraphs sums it up the best. As someone said to me recently, the Spirit should move through us corporately. We should be so united and connected that the Spirit of God is moving through us as we gather together. There should be conviction of sin, visions of heaven and God, power for life and godliness, love for all the elect, prayer for healing, teaching for transformation of the mind, sharing for encouragement. All of these things must happen in order and love.
Lastly, I must say that I think music is of utmost importance in all of this and should hold a central place. This is based on the teaching of Scripture, the traditions of the church, and personal experience. I believe that God has given us music for a number of reasons:
1) Music is unique out of all human activities in that it has the ability to connect our heart, spirit, mind, and body. We sing with our physical mouth, our spirits join in with the music, our emotions are stirred by the music, and our minds process the words. This is why I think that it is very important that people join in the singing, that they think about what they are singing, that they feel the freedom to express the emotions this evokes (crying, shouting, clapping, kneeling), and that they have a proper understanding of what their spirit is and how it is united to Christ.
2) Music causes words to be more easily remembered. I believe that God wants us to sing Scripture and theology because it causes it to be embedded in our minds and therefore more easily recalled in a time of need. Our greatest defense (No, our ONLY defense) against the attacks of the evil one is truth as contained in the words of God. What better defense than easily accessible truth, and lots of it, through the regular singing of theologically deep songs.
3) Music allows us to practice love and caring for the people around us. We must be aware of our own ability to sing and not sing out at the top of our lungs if it will distract others. But we also have to be aware of the needs of those around us and not respond negatively if they sing or act in such a way that we find troublesome.
4) And lastly, by uniting our voices we are reminded of our unity with each other and with the united Trinity.
So my picture of worship is a united group of believers, freely gathering around the work of God in salvation, laying their hearts out before each other and before God, encouraging each other with the words of God through song and spoken words. The result of which should be lives lived for the glory of God and the salvation of lost souls.
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