How Then Shall We Worship?
John Piper wrote that, "Everybody knows that with the right personality, the right music, the right location, and the right schedule you can grow a church without anybody really knowing what doctrinal commitments sustain it, if any."
Right now, I am zooming in on a rather controversial aspect of the church- worship.
Almost everyone has heard of the "Worship Wars". What can we sing? What about music? Although by no means this is my definite position, I explore a bit of what I think is right in this post, or, more precisely, what I think is the wrong style of worship.
I have lost count of how many times I have sung the rather popular (or shall I say "staple") worship song, namely, Heart Of Worship. The question is, then, what is the heart of worship? I partially agree with the assesment that it is, "All about You..."
J. Ligon Duncan writes that,"...worship is declaring, with our lips and lives, that God is more important than anything else to us, that he is our deepest desire, that his inherent worth is beyond everything else we hold dear."
MacArthur states it in more detail:"A few years ago while preaching through the gospel of John, I was struck by the depth of meaning in John 4:23: "An hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers." I saw as clearly as I had ever seen before the implications of that phrase, "worship . . . in spirit and truth." The phrase suggests, first of all, that true worship involves the intellect as much as the emotions. It underscores the truth that worship is to be focused on God, not on the worshiper. The context also shows that Jesus was saying true worship is more a matter of substance than of form. And He was teaching that worship embraces what we do in life, not just what we do in the formal place of worship."***
J.P. Holding, in his article on worship, quotes several authors that expresses this view more thoroughly,"Roberts adds after a study of worship in Isaiah: "The trend to simplify worship -- by removing theological complexity, to make it more popular by emphasizing entertainment at the expense of education and to increase its appeal by stressing religious experience -- has little in common with the ideal of worship envision by Isaiah." As he wryly adds, "Isaiah does not appear to have been entertained by the worship service in which he experienced his vision of God, and, at least in the short run, it does not seem to have made him feel better about himself or his neighbors"! As Torrance notes, one may as well say that one gets married for the purpose of having someone around to cook, clean house, or fix the plumbing!"
How many times have we come across Christians who cry, kneel down, lift their hands, jump up and down during "worship" services only to find them no different than the world after church is over. As James aptly wrote,"From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so."- James 3:10
I've always avoided worship sessions with loud music (Drums and Electric Guitars being compulsory). Why so? To state a rather subjective argument, it was never really my cup of tea. To put it in another way, I'd much prefer to sing theologically rich hymns for 3 minutes than to slog through standard CCM lyrics for 3 hours and come out none the wiser in "knowing God", in regards to the latter style of worship. Duncan could not have stated it better:
Many churches are aspiring, first and foremost, to be “contemporary” and “seeker sensitive” in their worship. Thus sermons, pastoral prayers, hymns and psalms are out, and sharing, skits, talks, videos, technology, praise teams, choruses and “CCM” (contemporary Christian music) are in. The churches who take this approach sincerely see this as the best way to reach people for Christ and as the best way to cater to the preferences of their own congregants. However, we in the PCA don’t share this philosophy of congregational worship. We aim for a worship service that would be recognizable to the Apostles – an historic form of Christian worship. Interestingly, there is much evidence to suggest that this is more attractive to “seekers” than some of the contemporary forms that are so popular in many churches today. W. Tullian Tchividjian, son-in-law of Billy Graham has observed: “Because the modern world is in a constant state of flux, … people in the modern world are open to, and desirous for, things traditional and historical, ancient and proved. They are up to their necks in ‘up-to-date’ structures and ‘cutting-edge’ methodologies. …Their cry is for something completely unique to this world, something otherworldly, something only the Church can truly offer… We should be encouraged and challenged by the historical reminder that the Church has always served the world best when it has been most counter-cultural, most distinctively different from the world.
He writes further that,"By historic we do not mean old-fashioned, quaint, or traditional for the sake of tradition. We mean that we do not try to re-invent worship as though we were the first Christians ever to worship. We seek to learn from the church through the ages as it has sought to offer God-centered, Biblical worship."
Duncan also add that,"In some churches, there is such an emotional display in worship that reverence is lost completely. In other churches, the congregation appears to have been caught at a stranger’s funeral. Deadpan and flat, they go through the customary motions. Both of these tendencies reflect serious deficiencies in the practice of true Christian worship of God. Our aim, then, is to worship God with both reverence and joy."
So then, "worship", as popular Christianity defines it, is not just a time to sing some songs, but rather, encompasses our entire lifestyle. Our songs should be filled with theology (and theology proper). I've heard of people who have said that it's not wrong to "have some fun while worshipping." This is half-true: We have fun when we worship God in spirit and in truth. This is merely a product of true worship. However, when we seek to change worship into something that at least, "gives us some fun", then we err.
My main point is this- Worship is not about us, it's about God. Worship should not be conformed to the styles of the world, but rather should be under the rule of theology. This then, I believe, is how we should worship.
I recommend that you read these articles (All of them cited here):
Worship Wonderings
How Shall We Then Worship ?
From Worship Wars To Biblical Consensus
Right now, I am zooming in on a rather controversial aspect of the church- worship.
Almost everyone has heard of the "Worship Wars". What can we sing? What about music? Although by no means this is my definite position, I explore a bit of what I think is right in this post, or, more precisely, what I think is the wrong style of worship.
I have lost count of how many times I have sung the rather popular (or shall I say "staple") worship song, namely, Heart Of Worship. The question is, then, what is the heart of worship? I partially agree with the assesment that it is, "All about You..."
J. Ligon Duncan writes that,"...worship is declaring, with our lips and lives, that God is more important than anything else to us, that he is our deepest desire, that his inherent worth is beyond everything else we hold dear."
MacArthur states it in more detail:"A few years ago while preaching through the gospel of John, I was struck by the depth of meaning in John 4:23: "An hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers." I saw as clearly as I had ever seen before the implications of that phrase, "worship . . . in spirit and truth." The phrase suggests, first of all, that true worship involves the intellect as much as the emotions. It underscores the truth that worship is to be focused on God, not on the worshiper. The context also shows that Jesus was saying true worship is more a matter of substance than of form. And He was teaching that worship embraces what we do in life, not just what we do in the formal place of worship."***
J.P. Holding, in his article on worship, quotes several authors that expresses this view more thoroughly,"Roberts adds after a study of worship in Isaiah: "The trend to simplify worship -- by removing theological complexity, to make it more popular by emphasizing entertainment at the expense of education and to increase its appeal by stressing religious experience -- has little in common with the ideal of worship envision by Isaiah." As he wryly adds, "Isaiah does not appear to have been entertained by the worship service in which he experienced his vision of God, and, at least in the short run, it does not seem to have made him feel better about himself or his neighbors"! As Torrance notes, one may as well say that one gets married for the purpose of having someone around to cook, clean house, or fix the plumbing!"
How many times have we come across Christians who cry, kneel down, lift their hands, jump up and down during "worship" services only to find them no different than the world after church is over. As James aptly wrote,"From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so."- James 3:10
I've always avoided worship sessions with loud music (Drums and Electric Guitars being compulsory). Why so? To state a rather subjective argument, it was never really my cup of tea. To put it in another way, I'd much prefer to sing theologically rich hymns for 3 minutes than to slog through standard CCM lyrics for 3 hours and come out none the wiser in "knowing God", in regards to the latter style of worship. Duncan could not have stated it better:
Many churches are aspiring, first and foremost, to be “contemporary” and “seeker sensitive” in their worship. Thus sermons, pastoral prayers, hymns and psalms are out, and sharing, skits, talks, videos, technology, praise teams, choruses and “CCM” (contemporary Christian music) are in. The churches who take this approach sincerely see this as the best way to reach people for Christ and as the best way to cater to the preferences of their own congregants. However, we in the PCA don’t share this philosophy of congregational worship. We aim for a worship service that would be recognizable to the Apostles – an historic form of Christian worship. Interestingly, there is much evidence to suggest that this is more attractive to “seekers” than some of the contemporary forms that are so popular in many churches today. W. Tullian Tchividjian, son-in-law of Billy Graham has observed: “Because the modern world is in a constant state of flux, … people in the modern world are open to, and desirous for, things traditional and historical, ancient and proved. They are up to their necks in ‘up-to-date’ structures and ‘cutting-edge’ methodologies. …Their cry is for something completely unique to this world, something otherworldly, something only the Church can truly offer… We should be encouraged and challenged by the historical reminder that the Church has always served the world best when it has been most counter-cultural, most distinctively different from the world.
He writes further that,"By historic we do not mean old-fashioned, quaint, or traditional for the sake of tradition. We mean that we do not try to re-invent worship as though we were the first Christians ever to worship. We seek to learn from the church through the ages as it has sought to offer God-centered, Biblical worship."
Duncan also add that,"In some churches, there is such an emotional display in worship that reverence is lost completely. In other churches, the congregation appears to have been caught at a stranger’s funeral. Deadpan and flat, they go through the customary motions. Both of these tendencies reflect serious deficiencies in the practice of true Christian worship of God. Our aim, then, is to worship God with both reverence and joy."
So then, "worship", as popular Christianity defines it, is not just a time to sing some songs, but rather, encompasses our entire lifestyle. Our songs should be filled with theology (and theology proper). I've heard of people who have said that it's not wrong to "have some fun while worshipping." This is half-true: We have fun when we worship God in spirit and in truth. This is merely a product of true worship. However, when we seek to change worship into something that at least, "gives us some fun", then we err.
My main point is this- Worship is not about us, it's about God. Worship should not be conformed to the styles of the world, but rather should be under the rule of theology. This then, I believe, is how we should worship.
I recommend that you read these articles (All of them cited here):
Worship Wonderings
How Shall We Then Worship ?
From Worship Wars To Biblical Consensus
This entry was posted
on Sunday, July 31, 2005 at 6:04 PM.
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