True Worship
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[audio:trueworship.mp3|titles=True Worship|artists=Christian St John]
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I have just finished reading the brilliant and eye opening book I Sold My Soul on Ebay by Hemant Mehta. In the book Mehta, an atheist, takes looks at the Christian faith from an outsiders point of view. He makes observations by looking at the church as it is today and even took the time, although he is a confirmed atheist, to visit a sampling of evangelical churches, from small churches to mega churches. What I found interesting is that many of the things he focuses on are some of the same things that many Christians today are also focusing on, things like authenticity, passion, strengths and weaknesses, and worship.
In this Faithblog I want to briefly look at worship. One of the things that Mehta points out in his book is that in a few of the church services he attended he noticed that many of the churchgoers didn’t turn up on time for the beginning of the worship time. With this in mind he asks whether worship is regarded as important to Christians. I too have noticed this trend. Going all the way back to my church days in the UK to my church experience here in Canada I have seen time and again people turning up late for the church service. In fact, in one church I pastored people were still walking in right before I was due to start preaching.
So the question must be asked, is the “worship” part of our church service important to us?
I remember once speaking to a young man about this very issue. I asked him the question, “What about our church would you change?” He gave it some thought and after a few moments he said, “The worship.” It turned out that he felt the worship in our church was boring and lacking the Spirit; “Uninspiring to say the least” he told me. “But it’s not just this church,” he went on to say. “It’s the same in most church I have been to.” This knocked me back as I thought we had a pretty good worship team. “The problem,” he said, “is not the music or the singing; the problem is lack of vision, focus, and passion.”
And it turns out that this young man is not alone. I have spoken to many people, both young and old, who think that the worship section of a church service is a boring, irrelevant, and pointless waste of time. To be honest, there are always going to be issues when it comes to styles and so on. Firstly, there’s the style challenge itself – do we play traditional hymns or modern worship songs. Then there are the time issues – how many songs to play and how long. And there are many other issues we are faced with when it comes to worship music – do we play at the beginning and the end of the services; should we just use pianos and organs, or should we go with guitars and drums; do we play songs that are familiar to the people or new ones; should we allow anyone to play an instrument or only those who are proficient? The issues go on and on, and if you’ve ever been part of a worship team then you’ll probably know something about the issue called The Worship War.
No wonder people like Mehta are looking at us sideways and asking, “Why all the fuss and bother, is it really worth it?”
But it doesn’t have to be this way. One time Jesus was talking to a Samaritan woman and she bought up the issue of worship, “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” In her discourse we see an age old problem when it comes to worship, they say this and we say that… who is right? Jesus replies, “Believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” John 4: 19-24
Sometimes people today get too heated and opinionated about worship—they say that worship has to involve a certain day of the week, a certain type of song, a certain music style, a certain place, or some other detail. But I think that Jesus’ answer to the Samaritan woman covers it well: The time will come when you will worship God neither this way nor that, because God is not to be found in the styles of music, the grandeur of the show, the talent of the players, or in any earthly places. God is spirit, and our relationship with him is a spiritual one. We live in time and space, and we use time and space in our worship, but those details are not the meaning of worship. Rather, our worship should transcend the boundaries of time and space and center on Jesus and in our relationship with him.
When it comes to worship it’s ok that we express our adoration towards God in different ways, and maybe as believers we need to be tolerant of a little diversity in the style and so on, because true worship is not defined by external things, but by our attitude toward Jesus.
Finally we have to realize and understand that true worship is not about us. Ultimately true worship is the time when God is meant to be the center of our thoughts and when we want nothing but to give him glory – instead of it being about us… it’s all about him. Someone once said to me that our worship of God is maybe the only time when he is the audience. So let’s worship him like we mean it.
Christian St John M.Div, BChM, ACS
June, 2009
Picture by Charlie Balch
That sounds like an interesting read. A good observation. It’s not that I don’t want to worship God, I just don’t like worship music. That’s a problem for me because I’m a worship leader. I’m looking for passion and truth – a focus on His glory and a reflection on the foundation of the scriptures – but what I find more often is that worship songs focus on our own egos. “I” feel this way about God or “I” believe that about God. Sometimes it seems like I’m standing there singing about myself and I feel embarrassed to be doing that in front of God, when it’s supposed to be about Him.
This is not always the case, but it tends to be the way worship songs are written. Maybe we need a change from the touchy-feely music that was introduced to churches in the 80′s. At that time it was novel to tell God how you “felt” and it spoke volumes about how we wanted to relate to Him. That kind of thing doesn’t translate so well to our culture now and it seems a bit lame – maybe that’s why people are avoiding it.
Or maybe we are just lukewarm. Yep, that’s possible, too.
A few years ago some people did a study on worship music and secular music. They asked people to read the lyrics of worship and secular songs and asked them which they thought were the “girl I love you” songs. The results astounded people as around 7 out of 10 people said that the worship songs were the “girl I love you” songs. (Sorry I cannot back this up as I don’t have the source as to where I read this… you’ll just have to take my word for it). I think that bands like Casting Crowns, Newsboys (the worship stuff), and even the new Hillsong United stuff are changing their focus somewhat and it will be interesting to see where this all goes. I don’t personally mind the “how I feel about God” songs, but do prefer the “You are God” songs.
By the way have you heard the new U2 song Magnificent? This is a out and out worship song that has it’s focus in the right place…
Beginning at verse 2:
“I was born, I was born to sing for you
I didn’t have a choice but to lift you up
And sing whatever song you wanted me to
I give you back my voice
From the womb my first cry, it was a joyful noise…
Only love, only love can leave such a mark
But only love, only love can heal such a scar
Justified till we die, you and I will magnify
The Magnificent
Magnificent.”
Thanks Ruth for your comment, always welcome!
Yes, I have heard that song and I like it a lot. Interesting, it does come from the point of view of the writer…”i was born to sing for you.” Somehow that doesn’t bother me because the writing is so eloquent and because the words lift you higher than yourself. The music is great, too and fits well with the lyrics – I guess every worship band can’t be U2.
One of my worries with singing songs like this in church is that sometimes we are in danger of singing about passion for God without feeling any. That scares me. You get people kind of standing stiffly, looking bored while they sing the words “oh I feel like dancing” to God. Maybe being Canadian doesn’t help us be outwardly passionate about anything – unless it’s hockey!
It’s interesting isn’t it that we get all hyper and “woo-hoo” for rock stars, movie stars, sports stars, sporting events, concerts and so on. And yet when it comes to the God of the universe, the Great I AM many of us become as wooden as William Shatner, with our hands in pockets, and just sing the words ’cause they’re there, without ever giving them a second thought. Passion, that’s what we need more of… unfortunately passion’s not available at the chemist… what to do
If the music’s good and we feel joyful in God’s presence, I wonder why Christians don’t feel comfortable even clapping their hands in a service? I’m starting to think that being Canadian and white is a deadly combination. Just recently I watched some Indo-Canadian men dancing with incredible joy and freedom at a community event. It was wonderful. After seeing that, I began to think that being expressive is a cultural problem for the average church goer. We stop ourselves from dancing or even being enthusiastic pretty soon after toddlerhood. Of course there’s that old religious idea that dancing is inherently bad. When we stop moving physically, it’s easy to stop other things, too, like the passion of the heart. It seems to go together.
But here’s a question: Why do we dance up a storm at a Christian wedding and then stand like boards during a toe-tapper at church? I’m not even being critical….I’m actually just wondering what’s going on.