I don't know how it goes at your church, but I think we do church backwards. We start off with a "worship" song that I call a "throwaway" song because the only role of that song is to get people inside. Then we have the joke hour, err, announcements to let everyone know what they should remember at the end of the service just before they go.
"Ha! That guy was FUNNY!" we're saying to ourselves as the lead worshiper begins to call the body to worship. Worship is a response, right? And what are we responding to? The announcements?
After the music we have the preacher come up and give us a message from the Word. And any good preacher will try to illicit some sort of response. But upon "Amen" most of the conversations we hear are not believers sharing with each other about how we're going to take this message that the Lord has spoken through this man and live it out. No, we talk about announcement-material.
"Did you sign up for the retreat?"
"How do we get to so and so's house for Care Group?"
"Are you coming to the Mother-Daughter Roller Derby?"
It's funny, because it seems like it is exactly opposite of a much more logical order:
Hearing from God's Word
leads to
worshipful response
leads to
how can I involve myself in what God is doing?
You see it over and over again in both the Old and New Testaments. God reveals Himself or does something and the response is worship. Worship, at its very core, is a response. Yet the order in which we do things at many churches would suggest that worship is just a preamble to the meaty part of the service.
I wonder if part of why some of our churches have a low view of worship is because it's just that thing we do before the message. Worship is the thing we do before the important part, which is the preaching. It's like the previews at the beginning of a movie. We settle in, get our popcorn ready, take a few sips of the soda and make some comments to our date (or friend or whatever). Then the REAL movie starts.
Worship is not a preamble nor a preview. It's really not pre-anything. Worship should be our response to God's revelation. Changing the order won't necessarily lead to everyone understanding the responsive nature of worship, but it certainly would help put worship in its proper place.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
All spent out with the common
So last night I was listening to, and pondering the message of, the song "Hosanna" by Brooke Fraser. It made me want to leap, pump my fists, do a back flip, go nuts, whatever. "He IS HERE! HE HAS SAVED US!!!" I was celebrating in my heart and pounding the steering wheel with the drum part. I wished I was with the saints to celebrate together the realization of the Messiah's coming. And yet I knew that, if I was around all the saints, it would probably be pretty tame. No jumping, no backflips (I can't do them anyway), no dancing.
I began to wonder, "Why is it that our corporate 'celebration' of our God's coming is so tame and so mild?"
It takes us a great deal of self-control to keep our composure when we're angry about something. Our faces redden, our blood boils and we try hard to keep from lashing out. Yet our joy is often slowly stirred and our passions take a great deal of priming for us to even begin to express love for the Savior.
The other thing I thought about is how we use grandiose words to describe ordinary things and have none reserved for the truly awesome. Just this morning I used a plastic bag that claimed to be "awesome". Really? Then what is God? Really, really awesome? Our vocabularies have reached their zenith to describe mundane, ordinary things. We have leveled out the common and the holy in our words and have nothing left for the One worthy of great words.
No wonder we have no wonder in our worship. We're out of emotions and words. We've spent our passion on frustration, our words on what is common. We gather before the living God! What do we offer Him that we're not offering to everything else? What praise and passion is reserved for God alone?
I don't write this as one not guilty of the same. I struggle with this so hard. I get so excited about so many things, but what excitement do I reserve for God alone? Oh that I would learn to be reserved around the things of this world that I might become undignified in the presence of the awesome God.
I began to wonder, "Why is it that our corporate 'celebration' of our God's coming is so tame and so mild?"
It takes us a great deal of self-control to keep our composure when we're angry about something. Our faces redden, our blood boils and we try hard to keep from lashing out. Yet our joy is often slowly stirred and our passions take a great deal of priming for us to even begin to express love for the Savior.
The other thing I thought about is how we use grandiose words to describe ordinary things and have none reserved for the truly awesome. Just this morning I used a plastic bag that claimed to be "awesome". Really? Then what is God? Really, really awesome? Our vocabularies have reached their zenith to describe mundane, ordinary things. We have leveled out the common and the holy in our words and have nothing left for the One worthy of great words.
No wonder we have no wonder in our worship. We're out of emotions and words. We've spent our passion on frustration, our words on what is common. We gather before the living God! What do we offer Him that we're not offering to everything else? What praise and passion is reserved for God alone?
I don't write this as one not guilty of the same. I struggle with this so hard. I get so excited about so many things, but what excitement do I reserve for God alone? Oh that I would learn to be reserved around the things of this world that I might become undignified in the presence of the awesome God.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Enter His Gates
I was behind a lady the other day at my local Starbucks who ordered the most complex sounding drink I've ever heard. It had a couple of "half-pumps" in it and strict temperature demands. When she got her drink, she took a little sip and immediately retorted to the barista that she must have put in more than half a pump of some syrup.
I stood behind her marveling at how specific her demands were for her coffee. I was amazed that someone would accept nothing less than exactly what suits her tastes. And I was aghast at how much she is like the Church when it comes to worship.
I hear people say all the time "I love it when so-and-so leads worship, but when such-and-such leads I just can't worship..." "I would worship so much better if so and so ALWAYS led worship." We all have favorite songs and favorite types of music. But what in the world are we expecting the songs and instruments to do? Are we expecting them to lift us to a place we won't otherwise go?
Now, don't get me wrong. The Church needs musicians who play excellently. Well-written songs can express what is in the heart of the Church and be a fantastic way to lift up worship to our great God. But have we become addicted to music in worship? More specifically, have we become addicted to the musical style that we like or a certain group of songs that we like?
I can't lead anyone in worship. I can lead BY worshiping. But leading in worship can only be done by the Holy Spirit. When we approach corporate worship with cold, dead hearts it is no wonder that our offering to God is passionless and dull.
I think that corporate worship can be really wonderful and alive when believers come into the door already worshiping. Then the music is just a means of expression and not the critical part that it so commonly now plays.
What changes from week to week? Or song to song? Maybe the quality or the instrumentation or the lead worshiper. But God hasn't changed! God is no less worthy of honor, glory, blessing... (worship!) when the worship team doesn't suit our personal tastes. God's glory and greatness can be found in the songs written by Redman, Tomlin and Baloche. His immanence and love can be found in the Gaither songs. The profound riches of his work are throughout the newer songs written by Keith and Kristyn Getty, or the older Hymns of Worship and Remembrance. But none of these songs can make us worship. They can help us express what is in our hearts, but the worship needs to be in our hearts first just bursting to come out no matter what the baristas are making that day :-)
I stood behind her marveling at how specific her demands were for her coffee. I was amazed that someone would accept nothing less than exactly what suits her tastes. And I was aghast at how much she is like the Church when it comes to worship.
I hear people say all the time "I love it when so-and-so leads worship, but when such-and-such leads I just can't worship..." "I would worship so much better if so and so ALWAYS led worship." We all have favorite songs and favorite types of music. But what in the world are we expecting the songs and instruments to do? Are we expecting them to lift us to a place we won't otherwise go?
Now, don't get me wrong. The Church needs musicians who play excellently. Well-written songs can express what is in the heart of the Church and be a fantastic way to lift up worship to our great God. But have we become addicted to music in worship? More specifically, have we become addicted to the musical style that we like or a certain group of songs that we like?
I can't lead anyone in worship. I can lead BY worshiping. But leading in worship can only be done by the Holy Spirit. When we approach corporate worship with cold, dead hearts it is no wonder that our offering to God is passionless and dull.
I think that corporate worship can be really wonderful and alive when believers come into the door already worshiping. Then the music is just a means of expression and not the critical part that it so commonly now plays.
What changes from week to week? Or song to song? Maybe the quality or the instrumentation or the lead worshiper. But God hasn't changed! God is no less worthy of honor, glory, blessing... (worship!) when the worship team doesn't suit our personal tastes. God's glory and greatness can be found in the songs written by Redman, Tomlin and Baloche. His immanence and love can be found in the Gaither songs. The profound riches of his work are throughout the newer songs written by Keith and Kristyn Getty, or the older Hymns of Worship and Remembrance. But none of these songs can make us worship. They can help us express what is in our hearts, but the worship needs to be in our hearts first just bursting to come out no matter what the baristas are making that day :-)
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