Graduate 171: Worship
On the morning of October 31, I had the chance to lead worship for the men's group at my church. We have a monthly breakfast meeting--a great time of fellowship. Some of you who know me better may already be puzzled though: Luis led worship? But Luis doesn't play guitar or piano or any other instrument that would ordinarily be seen in any familiar 'worship service' setting. How did he lead worship?
I'll tell you: a few weeks prior to the breakfast, I was asked to lead a short time of prayer with the men. But when the announcement was made in church about who would be speaking, who would be cooking breakfast, and who would be leading worship, I was forced to think, again, about what I was going to do.
How do you 'worship' without music? Of course many Christians would affirm that worship is about more than just music. But have you ever thought about what that would actually look like? Matt Redman wrote a, now-very-well-known, song about the Heart of Worship. The lyrics go like this:
--
When the music fades,
And all is stripped away,
And I simply come,
Longing just to bring
Something that's of worth,
That will bless Your heart--
I'll bring you more than a song,
For a song in itself
Is not what you have required.
You search much deeper within,
Through the way things appear
You're looking into my heart.
I'm coming back to the heart of worship,
And it's all about You.
It's all about You, Jesus.
I'm sorry, Lord, for the thing I've made it,
When it's all about you.
It's all about You, Jesus.
--
So the heart of worship is supposed to be "All about Jesus," but what does that mean? Can we give more content to the idea of worship, in a way that might inform our practice? This is where my thoughts went.
Worship is a response to (an encounter with) the character, action, and person of God.
If we take this as our starting point, several significant consequences follow. The one that I want to focus on is this: that worship must be impossible apart from an encounter with the character, action, and person of God. Is that obvious? It might seem obvious, but consider this: how many people, who are standing in church services around the U.S., are singing songs of praise to God in response to their having had a personal encounter with the character, action, and person of God? My guess is: probably not all of them. This is not a criticism. What I am trying to do is draw our attention to the kind of discrepancy that can exist between music and worship.
Consider that most of the hymns and praise songs that we sing were written in response to some encounter with the character, action, and person of God. Song writers usually write in this way. But when we play those songs, sing those songs, listen to those songs on the radio, it doesn't automatically follow that every interaction that we have with that music is informed by such a context and encounter. Does that mean we should get rid of music in the church? --Absolutely not! But it does mean that we should reflect on how we are using music and what role it plays and what is underlying or grounding that role.
Here's a (radical) thought: in our church services, God is not interested in hearing what Matt Redman has to say about him. God is not interested in hearing what Tommy Walker has to say about him. God is not interested in what Martin Luther (author of Holy, Holy, Holy) has to say about him, or John Newton (Amazing Grace) or Fanny J. Crosby (Blessed Assurance). He's not even interested in what King David or the Prophet Isaiah or the Apostle Paul has to say about him. In our church services, God is interested in hearing what you and I have to say to him.
Does that make sense to you? I'm not saying that God doesn't care about Matt Redman or Martin Luther or the Apostle Paul. Each one of these has his own relationship with God and expresses that relationship and worships God in response to his own encounters with God's character, action, and person. And we can use their words and lyrics as helpful avenues into an encounter with God's character, action, and person--since they remind us of who God is and what He is like. We can also use them as reminders of who God is and what He has done in our lives. But if the words are not connected to some encounter that we have with this God, then the words that we sing about Him will very likely fall flat.
I suggested earlier that worship is impossible apart from an encounter with the character, action, and person of God. The question we need to consider, then, is this: How has God manifested Himself in your life? What is God doing in your life? How are you growing in your relationship with and knowledge/understanding of God?
When it comes to worship, this is the central question--and also, probably, the most uncomfortable question. I had to think about this question as I prepared to lead 'worship' for the men's group at my church. My plan was to basically dedicate our time of worship to sharing how God has been working in various individuals' lives. Of course, the worry that arises for such a plan is: What if people don't have any answers? What if God hasn't been working in people's lives? What if people come up completely blank in response to the question? That could turn out to be a pretty depressing time of worship.
And it was at that point that I had to consider: either I was going to be serious about inviting the men into a time of worship--and risk the whole thing flopping--or I was going to try to set up a time of giving praise to God that did not actually depend upon anyone in the room having any actual connection with God. Hopefully you can see how the second alternative would be clearly unacceptable. Worship presupposes some connection between the worshiping individual and the God that is the object of worship. But if your worship service depends upon their being that connection, then you always face the possibility that no one in the room will actually have that connection and so no worship will happen. That can be awkward. That can be embarrassing and uncomfortable. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just set up an emotionally intense and hopefully gratifying experience and not have to make our worship depend on the hearts of the people who are actually supposed to be worshipping? Would it?
I wound up going with my first plan, and I'm pleased to say that the response was phenomenal. One person came up to me afterwards and expressed his surprise and pleasure that people responded so positively to that time of sharing. I confessed to him that I was not sure, going into that time, that it would be so 'successful.' I had a plan A (if the men actually shared), but I also did have a plan B (just in case the men didn't respond).
What would be your plan B in that situation? If you asked a group of men, "How has God been working in your life this past week?" and got only blank stairs and shuffling feet--what would you do? What would you say?
I know that there are times when I would not have a ready answer to the question, "How has God been working in your life this past week?" And I expect that there are many Christian men and women who have, nagging at the back of their minds, a sense of guilt or shame because they also have no idea how they would answer that question. Now let us make no mistake about this being a very serious issue. But we must also understand that guilting people about this sort of thing is the worst possible strategy for finding a solution. If we go down that road, what that does is (effectively) force people to lie about what God is doing in their lives. Can you imagine anything worse than driving to church on Sunday morning and trying to think about how you would answer any person who asked you to describe how God has met you in the last week. What a terrible burden. And even if you could convince all the Christian people around you--there would still be lacking that genuine connection with your Heavenly Father.
In our churches, Christians should feel absolutely free to say things like, "I really am not seeing God work in my life," or "I feel distant from God," or "This whole 'relationship-with-God' talk makes no sense to me." And, again, if people in your church were to say that, what would be your plan B?
Here are the first sketchy steps of my plan B: You have to teach them how to meet with God. Recall, worship is the natural response to an encounter with the character, action, and person of God. If a person is not worshipping or cannot worship or doesn't feel able to worship--the correct response is not to guilt them or to tell them that Christians should worship, etc., etc. The correct response is to find out why they cannot worship. In many cases, the reason will be that they have not had an encounter with the character, action, and person of God. And if they have not had that encounter, again, the correct response is not to guilt them or to tell them that Christians ought to be meeting with God all the time. The correct response is to help them to enter into that kind of encounter. The correct response is to teach and train.
How do you help a person to enter into an encounter with the character, action, and person of God. I will not lay out a full plan here but just make two preliminary points.
(1) When it comes to developing the 'heart of worship', many people will point to the need for a change in perspective. God, after all, is always working in the world and his fingerprints cover all of creation. If we aren't seeing Him, the problem is with our vision, our sensitivity, our receptiveness, and that is what needs to change. The purpose of Bible study, teaching, study, prayer, and other spiritual disciplines, then, is to alter or correct our 'spiritual senses.' Once our eyes have been set right, we will see clearly. Once our ears have been unblocked, we will hear clearly. And once our heart has been softened, we will understand and recognize more fully.
Now I want to say, about this approach to developing the proper attitude of worship, that it is absolutely correct so far as it goes. Many of the problems we do face have to do with our clouded spiritual senses and those need to be corrected. But that cannot be all of the story. Like I said, this solution is absolutely correct, but only so far as it goes. Consider, then, how talking about 'changing our perspective' shares a lot in common with talk of 'having a positive attitude,' 'looking at the brighter side of things,' and 'counting your blessings'. There is nothing wrong with these things, but we have to ask: Is that all that Christianity offers? A different perspective on the same old things in life? Or think about it this way: the Bible says that God causes the sun to rise on the wicked and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Consider then: Is the fullest possible extent of God's action in our lives limited to these general features of the world that are received by both those who have a relationship with God and those who don't? Is the only significant difference between Christians and non-Christians that one has a greater or more profound appreciation of how God acts in the sunshine and the rain? In the Bible, we see that what separates those who have a relationship with God from those who do not is that God is active in the lives of the first group, in ways that he is not in the second. That activity comes when people choose to place their trust in God and to act in obedience to Him--as if He really were who He claims to be.
(2) So developing the heart of worship requires more than just changing our perspective. It requires that we actually trust in the character and person of God and respond in obedience to Him, which has the consequence that He begins to act in our lives. Then, when God acts in our lives, our natural response is and always will be worship.
This is a difficult truth, for the following reason: it makes it the case that our worship depends on God's actually acting and being involved. That can be a hard truth for a church worship leader--who wants to bring people in to worship. Is he going to set up his services in such a way that worship will only happen if God shows up. Or is he going to resort to manufacturing a worship experience, just so that no one has to feel awkward or uncomfortable.
Now this is not to say that the burden hangs entirely on God--so that human beings are absolved of any duty or responsibility in the matter. After all, in (1) I pointed out that our senses and abilities to perceive God's activity do need to be developed. We do need to have our eyes set right and our ears unblocked. But (2) emphasizes that we must also be living and acting in such a way that there will actually be things to see and hear. Our eyes and ears may be open, but if we are not actually trusting in God for anything, then there's no room in our lives for Him to act. And if there's no room in our lives for Him to act then He won't act and, consequently, we won't see Him.
How do we develop the 'heart of worship'? We teach people about who God is and what He is like. We extol Him as creator, savior, redeemer, lord, and king. We focus on His goodness, love, grace, kindness, mercy, justice, power, and glory. We look at how He has acted in the past. We share about how He is acting now. And we train people to put their own faith and trust in God so that they will experience, in their own lives, God's action, presence, activity, and character. And when they experience that--when God works in their lives supernaturally, when they see the transformation of their own lives and circumstances, when they meet with God and hear from Him--then you will have no problem leading them into worship.
--
God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.
I'll tell you: a few weeks prior to the breakfast, I was asked to lead a short time of prayer with the men. But when the announcement was made in church about who would be speaking, who would be cooking breakfast, and who would be leading worship, I was forced to think, again, about what I was going to do.
How do you 'worship' without music? Of course many Christians would affirm that worship is about more than just music. But have you ever thought about what that would actually look like? Matt Redman wrote a, now-very-well-known, song about the Heart of Worship. The lyrics go like this:
--
When the music fades,
And all is stripped away,
And I simply come,
Longing just to bring
Something that's of worth,
That will bless Your heart--
I'll bring you more than a song,
For a song in itself
Is not what you have required.
You search much deeper within,
Through the way things appear
You're looking into my heart.
I'm coming back to the heart of worship,
And it's all about You.
It's all about You, Jesus.
I'm sorry, Lord, for the thing I've made it,
When it's all about you.
It's all about You, Jesus.
--
So the heart of worship is supposed to be "All about Jesus," but what does that mean? Can we give more content to the idea of worship, in a way that might inform our practice? This is where my thoughts went.
Worship is a response to (an encounter with) the character, action, and person of God.
If we take this as our starting point, several significant consequences follow. The one that I want to focus on is this: that worship must be impossible apart from an encounter with the character, action, and person of God. Is that obvious? It might seem obvious, but consider this: how many people, who are standing in church services around the U.S., are singing songs of praise to God in response to their having had a personal encounter with the character, action, and person of God? My guess is: probably not all of them. This is not a criticism. What I am trying to do is draw our attention to the kind of discrepancy that can exist between music and worship.
Consider that most of the hymns and praise songs that we sing were written in response to some encounter with the character, action, and person of God. Song writers usually write in this way. But when we play those songs, sing those songs, listen to those songs on the radio, it doesn't automatically follow that every interaction that we have with that music is informed by such a context and encounter. Does that mean we should get rid of music in the church? --Absolutely not! But it does mean that we should reflect on how we are using music and what role it plays and what is underlying or grounding that role.
Here's a (radical) thought: in our church services, God is not interested in hearing what Matt Redman has to say about him. God is not interested in hearing what Tommy Walker has to say about him. God is not interested in what Martin Luther (author of Holy, Holy, Holy) has to say about him, or John Newton (Amazing Grace) or Fanny J. Crosby (Blessed Assurance). He's not even interested in what King David or the Prophet Isaiah or the Apostle Paul has to say about him. In our church services, God is interested in hearing what you and I have to say to him.
Does that make sense to you? I'm not saying that God doesn't care about Matt Redman or Martin Luther or the Apostle Paul. Each one of these has his own relationship with God and expresses that relationship and worships God in response to his own encounters with God's character, action, and person. And we can use their words and lyrics as helpful avenues into an encounter with God's character, action, and person--since they remind us of who God is and what He is like. We can also use them as reminders of who God is and what He has done in our lives. But if the words are not connected to some encounter that we have with this God, then the words that we sing about Him will very likely fall flat.
I suggested earlier that worship is impossible apart from an encounter with the character, action, and person of God. The question we need to consider, then, is this: How has God manifested Himself in your life? What is God doing in your life? How are you growing in your relationship with and knowledge/understanding of God?
When it comes to worship, this is the central question--and also, probably, the most uncomfortable question. I had to think about this question as I prepared to lead 'worship' for the men's group at my church. My plan was to basically dedicate our time of worship to sharing how God has been working in various individuals' lives. Of course, the worry that arises for such a plan is: What if people don't have any answers? What if God hasn't been working in people's lives? What if people come up completely blank in response to the question? That could turn out to be a pretty depressing time of worship.
And it was at that point that I had to consider: either I was going to be serious about inviting the men into a time of worship--and risk the whole thing flopping--or I was going to try to set up a time of giving praise to God that did not actually depend upon anyone in the room having any actual connection with God. Hopefully you can see how the second alternative would be clearly unacceptable. Worship presupposes some connection between the worshiping individual and the God that is the object of worship. But if your worship service depends upon their being that connection, then you always face the possibility that no one in the room will actually have that connection and so no worship will happen. That can be awkward. That can be embarrassing and uncomfortable. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just set up an emotionally intense and hopefully gratifying experience and not have to make our worship depend on the hearts of the people who are actually supposed to be worshipping? Would it?
I wound up going with my first plan, and I'm pleased to say that the response was phenomenal. One person came up to me afterwards and expressed his surprise and pleasure that people responded so positively to that time of sharing. I confessed to him that I was not sure, going into that time, that it would be so 'successful.' I had a plan A (if the men actually shared), but I also did have a plan B (just in case the men didn't respond).
What would be your plan B in that situation? If you asked a group of men, "How has God been working in your life this past week?" and got only blank stairs and shuffling feet--what would you do? What would you say?
I know that there are times when I would not have a ready answer to the question, "How has God been working in your life this past week?" And I expect that there are many Christian men and women who have, nagging at the back of their minds, a sense of guilt or shame because they also have no idea how they would answer that question. Now let us make no mistake about this being a very serious issue. But we must also understand that guilting people about this sort of thing is the worst possible strategy for finding a solution. If we go down that road, what that does is (effectively) force people to lie about what God is doing in their lives. Can you imagine anything worse than driving to church on Sunday morning and trying to think about how you would answer any person who asked you to describe how God has met you in the last week. What a terrible burden. And even if you could convince all the Christian people around you--there would still be lacking that genuine connection with your Heavenly Father.
In our churches, Christians should feel absolutely free to say things like, "I really am not seeing God work in my life," or "I feel distant from God," or "This whole 'relationship-with-God' talk makes no sense to me." And, again, if people in your church were to say that, what would be your plan B?
Here are the first sketchy steps of my plan B: You have to teach them how to meet with God. Recall, worship is the natural response to an encounter with the character, action, and person of God. If a person is not worshipping or cannot worship or doesn't feel able to worship--the correct response is not to guilt them or to tell them that Christians should worship, etc., etc. The correct response is to find out why they cannot worship. In many cases, the reason will be that they have not had an encounter with the character, action, and person of God. And if they have not had that encounter, again, the correct response is not to guilt them or to tell them that Christians ought to be meeting with God all the time. The correct response is to help them to enter into that kind of encounter. The correct response is to teach and train.
How do you help a person to enter into an encounter with the character, action, and person of God. I will not lay out a full plan here but just make two preliminary points.
(1) When it comes to developing the 'heart of worship', many people will point to the need for a change in perspective. God, after all, is always working in the world and his fingerprints cover all of creation. If we aren't seeing Him, the problem is with our vision, our sensitivity, our receptiveness, and that is what needs to change. The purpose of Bible study, teaching, study, prayer, and other spiritual disciplines, then, is to alter or correct our 'spiritual senses.' Once our eyes have been set right, we will see clearly. Once our ears have been unblocked, we will hear clearly. And once our heart has been softened, we will understand and recognize more fully.
Now I want to say, about this approach to developing the proper attitude of worship, that it is absolutely correct so far as it goes. Many of the problems we do face have to do with our clouded spiritual senses and those need to be corrected. But that cannot be all of the story. Like I said, this solution is absolutely correct, but only so far as it goes. Consider, then, how talking about 'changing our perspective' shares a lot in common with talk of 'having a positive attitude,' 'looking at the brighter side of things,' and 'counting your blessings'. There is nothing wrong with these things, but we have to ask: Is that all that Christianity offers? A different perspective on the same old things in life? Or think about it this way: the Bible says that God causes the sun to rise on the wicked and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Consider then: Is the fullest possible extent of God's action in our lives limited to these general features of the world that are received by both those who have a relationship with God and those who don't? Is the only significant difference between Christians and non-Christians that one has a greater or more profound appreciation of how God acts in the sunshine and the rain? In the Bible, we see that what separates those who have a relationship with God from those who do not is that God is active in the lives of the first group, in ways that he is not in the second. That activity comes when people choose to place their trust in God and to act in obedience to Him--as if He really were who He claims to be.
(2) So developing the heart of worship requires more than just changing our perspective. It requires that we actually trust in the character and person of God and respond in obedience to Him, which has the consequence that He begins to act in our lives. Then, when God acts in our lives, our natural response is and always will be worship.
This is a difficult truth, for the following reason: it makes it the case that our worship depends on God's actually acting and being involved. That can be a hard truth for a church worship leader--who wants to bring people in to worship. Is he going to set up his services in such a way that worship will only happen if God shows up. Or is he going to resort to manufacturing a worship experience, just so that no one has to feel awkward or uncomfortable.
Now this is not to say that the burden hangs entirely on God--so that human beings are absolved of any duty or responsibility in the matter. After all, in (1) I pointed out that our senses and abilities to perceive God's activity do need to be developed. We do need to have our eyes set right and our ears unblocked. But (2) emphasizes that we must also be living and acting in such a way that there will actually be things to see and hear. Our eyes and ears may be open, but if we are not actually trusting in God for anything, then there's no room in our lives for Him to act. And if there's no room in our lives for Him to act then He won't act and, consequently, we won't see Him.
How do we develop the 'heart of worship'? We teach people about who God is and what He is like. We extol Him as creator, savior, redeemer, lord, and king. We focus on His goodness, love, grace, kindness, mercy, justice, power, and glory. We look at how He has acted in the past. We share about how He is acting now. And we train people to put their own faith and trust in God so that they will experience, in their own lives, God's action, presence, activity, and character. And when they experience that--when God works in their lives supernaturally, when they see the transformation of their own lives and circumstances, when they meet with God and hear from Him--then you will have no problem leading them into worship.
--
God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.
posted by Metaphysician_delta | 9:36 PM
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