True Worship - Why Our Lives Must Align With Our Words

 This is an excerpt from "Why Church Matters" by Jonathan R. Wilson.  He is a bit heady and uses big words, but it is well worth reading, and a great follow-up to the series on worship that I just finished posting.

True worship requires an understanding of the one true God and increases our understanding of that God...The worship of the people of God becomes untrue when they wrongly construe the God whom they are worshiping and when they try to combine the worship of other gods with the worship of the one true God.  The Israelites misconstrue the God whom they are worshiping when they think that ritually and legally correct worship places God under their control.  This attempted domestication of God wrongly treats God as something like a petulant giant who has to be mollified.  In a reversal of Marx's dictum, this approach is worship as the opiate of the god.  As long as we are ritually and legally correct in our worship, God will be drugged and will not notice that God's character and will are being violated in every other area of life.  This is the worship that Isaiah condemns in Isaiah 1.
The church commits this same error today when we think that enthusiastic, well-planned, perfectly executed worship excuses affluent, consumptive lifestyles that depend upon unjust economic structures and practices.  We also commit this error when we think that beautiful buildings and large offerings will distract God from the tragic, sinful reality that our churches are still some of the most racially segregated institutions in our culture.  We fall into this error as well when we think that beautiful music and well-crafted sermons make up for our failure to visit those in prison.
These errors lead to worship that is untrue because they are errors in our understanding of God.  They reflect the belief that God is not "that than which nothing greater can be conceived" (Anselm's definition in his Proslogion) but rather "that than which nothing is more narcissistic."  As long as we feed God's narcissism with our worship, we can get away with almost anything.  But that is not the character and will of the one true God.

A Series on Worship (Part 12) - The Conclusion

This has been a fairly long journey through my understanding of what worship is supposed to be.  As I wrote all of these things I realized that this has never happened perfectly, this has never been the complete state of man, but it is what we should aim for as we gather as believers.  We must always remember that our faith and our worship of God is not about us, we must remember that God acting in the world and in our lives is not about us, it is about the Kingdom of God that is growing, it is something much larger than us, so we must always look outside ourselves and seek to love God and those around us.  We must participate in the worship of the local church in which we find ourselves with all of our heart for the glory of God.  This is not limited to the singing; this is not limited to talking; this is not limited to serving; this is not only when we are asked; this is not only when we enjoy what we are doing.  We ought to fully engage those around us in every aspect of their and our lives and seek to grow them closer to God for His glory and honor.

I have thrown a lot out there in this series of posts, so here I will wrap it all up in one sentence:

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, resulting in lives lived for the glory of God and the salvation of lost souls.

(This series of posts came from a paper that I wrote for my pastor on my picture of worship.  This paper can be accessed by clicking the link at the top of this blog that reads "My Picture of Worship (A Paper)")

A Series on Worship (Part 11) - Why Music?

Lastly, I must say that I think music is of utmost importance in all of this and should hold a central place in our corporate services.  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.

A Series on Worship (Part 10) - "The Picture"

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 to worship than just these things, but I feel that this is a good summary of worship in every sense. 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.

A Series on Worship (Part 9) - Sixth Piece to the Biblical Model - Non-Believers in our Meetings

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.

A Series on Worship (Part 8) - Fifth Piece to the Biblical Model - Love and Good Deeds

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.

A Series on Worship (Part 7) - Fourth Piece to the Biblical Model - Our Spiritual Thermometer

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.

A Series on Worship (Part 6) - Third Piece to the Biblical Model - The Gospel

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.

A Series on Worship (Part 5) - Second Piece to the Biblical Model - Spiritual Gifts

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.

A Series on Worship (Part 4) - First Piece to the Biblical Model - Edification

In the last post I introduced my understanding of the Biblical view of corporate worship.  In each of the next 6 posts I will identify one way in which we can reach that model in our worship services.  Some of these posts will be fairly short, I could have expounded on them a little more, but sometimes succinct and to the point is better.

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.

A Series on Worship (Part 3) - My Understanding of the Biblical View

In the last post I surveyed to extreme positions on worship that both base themselves in the Bible, however, 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.  In the following set of posts I will offer a few practical ways that this should happen as well as some other things I see as essential to a corporate worship experience.

A Series on Worship (Part 2) - The Dichotomy of Worship in the Bible

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.

May we not see Scripture as opposed to itself, but rather, looking into the paradoxes and dichotomies that we are presented with, let us be transformed by the renewing of our minds and come to a fuller grasp of who God is and what His purposes are in the world and in our lives.

A Series on Worship (Part 1)

Back in December my pastor asked me to write up my picture of a worship service.  It has been very interesting being in the position of Music Director and the responsibility of planning "worship" that this brings.  If there is one thing that I have learned it is that everyone in the church has a different idea of what worship is, how one should worship, and what the Bible says about worship.  And it also seems that everyone is quite passionate about this (at least the people I have talked to) and sees their way as the right way.

What we refer to as worship is so important to us because it gets right to the core of our faith.  Most people see worship as an experience with or of God, and what can be more important to your faith than this?!

So it was a good exercise, writing out my picture of worship.  It was inciteful for me in examining what I believe, and also helped my pastor and I to be on the same page when it comes to worship and to understand each other better.

So, after working on this paper for a while, the thought dawned on me, "I should publish this to my blog".  Maybe many of you have ideas about worship and what it should be and how it should be done but have never thought through why.  Or maybe you have never enjoyed church services because you don't understand what's going on or why we are doing what we're doing.  So I decided to publish it here, the only problem, though, is that the paper ended up being 8 pages long.....(go figure, I wrote it).

So I've decided to take the next several weeks and publish sections of it here.  It actually broke down nicely, and I hope that it is encouraging, enjoyable, and inciteful for you as you read through it.  I would welcome any comments, critiques, or criticisms of the things that I said and of my opinions.  And I hope and pray that, no matter where you are at, you are able to learn from and benefit from this walk through worship.

Worship Matters - What are we proclaiming?

This is a quote from the book Worship Matters by Bob Kauflin:
"People come into our churches proclaiming all sorts of things with their words and actions.  Through close-fisted giving, some are asserting how much their own personal wealth matters.  Others, by their complaining, are declaring that personal comfort matters.  Teens in the latest fashions may be proclaiming that being cool matters.  Others confirm through their smiles or frowns that their musical preferences matter.
But we want each of them to leave proclaiming this: The gospel of Jesus Christ matters."

It's easy to lose focus when leading worship week after week about what we're really doing.  It's easy to get preoccupied with how smoothly things run, how close to on time the service leaves out, whether people are singing or not, whether I talked too long or not, and all of these things are important in their own right, but when it comes down to it the most important thing is whether the people who came in left with their vision more firmly focused on the cross of Christ and it's influence or lack thereof in every area of their life.  I need God to continually refocus me on this in my own life, and I hope and pray that He will use me week after week to make this a reality in the lives of those He has given me to serve.

What are you proclaiming today?  Are you proclaiming comfort, rest, riches, education?  Are you proclaiming the value of cleanliness, order, spontaneity, fashion, ingenuity, freedom?  Or are you proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ through your words and actions?  May we all grow into the image of Jesus Christ more and more everyday, walking in the Spirit, connected to the vine, so that our thoughts, words, and actions might continually lead others to a deeper understanding of and love for the God who saved us while we were still His enemies.