If the bank manager was God, each child would probably be welcomed with a letter such as:
Dear _____ Welcome to life. We are pleased to inform you that we have opened a new account for you, and that it has an initial balance of 70 (which is non-transferable). There is a 1 unit debit per year for service charges. If you fail to maintain a positive balance your account will be immediately terminated, and all your activities audited. You are encouraged to invest your resources wisely. In so doing some people have managed to add 10, 20 or even 40 to their balance through careful investment in lifestyles, diet, and exercise. Conversely, others have experienced significant losses due to unwise expenditure. You may acquire other forms of assets during your life, although you should realize that most of these will be non-realizable as credit on termination of your account. They may, however, temporarily help your lifestyle decisions and any related investment choices (e.g. being nice, learning to forgive, etc.). Be alert that theft is a real risk. This may be through subtle scams (e.g. "try these fun drugs" or "smoking is so cool"), or by blatant robbery (e.g. wars, famine, muggings, murder, or dread disease). Such events could rapidly reduce your balance to zero. There is no insurance policy against theft and the management takes no responsibility for these eventualities. We remind you to be thankful that you have any credit balance to start with. When your account is terminated all additional assets will be converted at the prevailing exchange rate. However, as just about every asset has a net exchange value of zero, these will be of little final benefit. Hence we would advise you to not put much hope in the perceived value of any of these assets. There is of course the one asset of value that is freely available from the management on request. You may choose to receive this gift at any time. However, to do so you will be required to agree to joint power of attorney on all your assets. Further, you carry responsibility for the care of this asset through to the account termination in order for it to have any final exchange value. Should your final audited balance (after all asset conversions) be non-zero and positive, then a new account with unlimited credit will be opened in your name and placed at your disposal. If not, then unfortunately you will be subject to all due bankruptcy proceedings. We wish you a happy life (although the odds are not in your favour). Yours sincerely, The Auditors. Fortunately, God's accountancy is a little more personal.
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 A child's life is ... simple; everything is just so, no grey areas. Then we grow up!
Here's another thought: God is not a micro-manager. Imagine a micro-managed relationship ... ghastly! Instead, in his amazing grace he calls us to partner in his work. In any functional relationship each partner understands and respects the role of the other with a mutual expectation that each will "get on with it". Of course there's consultation, but on the level of dependency and on big-issues within a relationship of mutual trust and accountability. May I speak bluntly? Why not? It seems its only this generation that has built Christianity around saccharine statements of comfort, lest we offend or disturb anyone. This post seeks to speak plainly (too bluntly perhaps?) to three groups: (1) church visitors, (2) church regulars, and (3) church leaders - you decide which you are (and see the afterthoughts at then end for my own church’s context). So here we will build on the recent blog posts on worship, with three overriding concepts.
So with that in mind, let me bring this into the context of the church, and pose some issues and questions I have about each of our three identified groups. Lets also recognize that church is about relationship and communication (more on that later) with God and with each other. It's not about building and maintaining an organization! 1. Church visitors Sorry to bundle you into a group, and I hope you'll pardon my shining a light on you, but there's something you can help us with. You see, as a visitor from outside our church culture you have something that we who are inside the culture desperately need. Perspective! You come as a stranger to our opaque language, our odd activities, and our archaic imagery. Yet even so you may also find some unexpected points of familiarity, perhaps most especially where you encounter contemporary music styles that would be right at home on MTV. If I could venture to say that as a visitor you have a responsibility: it's to talk to us, and tell us when we're being simply too strange to understand - meaning that then we've plainly failed in our attempts at communication. Please tell us when we fail! It's really helpful, and as we're polite Christians we'll smile and say "thank you" rather than bite your head off. 2. Church regulars. Ah, what a large group you are, by ratio at least. Sorry to point generalized fingers here - I know there are always individuals who are exceptions to the rule. And of course I know that you, the reader of this, are one of those exceptions. But think about the rest of the regulars. You see, unfortunately most churches operate on the 30:70 rule -- 30% of the people (if we're optimistic) do 70% of the work. The remainder are consumers ... pew-sitting "clients" ... that is, when they find it convenient enough to actually turn up. Now, in the understanding that a Christian's top priority is total immersion in breathing worship, this means engaging in creative expression of God's values through all we are uniquely created to be and do. Creative expression is not passivity, its passionate personal investment. The 30:70 rule is all good and fine in a young family. Think of a Mom and Dad with three young kids ... the parents do just about everything. But as the children grow they find they have duties, responsibilities in the family, commitments to each other, merely because they are a family. And so the family evolves from 30:70 responsibility to mutual shared responsibilities where each has a role, and in this we find that true joy and love flourishes and touches all those they connect with. But the family where kids are allowed to stay consumers; there the parents are depleted, the kids become arrogant, selfish, unpleasant, unloving and unloved individuals that nobody wants to relate to unless they can be leveraged for some other benefit. Families grow up! New kids come along, but the ones already there also grow up! And growing up means engaging in the responsibilities of leading. It's not simply a duty, its participation in relational leadership where each has a role founded in mutual trust and expectation out of a love for what God created us to be. So Church, if you want to truly be known as a worshipping church, then grow up. Else you've become parasites on the worshipping service of others. 3. Church leaders Its dangerous to generalize here, because there is such diversity of leadership. So while one can always identify some issue or other (Mark Driscoll, Rob Bell, are you listening?) with any individual (myself included), perhaps it's best to speak plainly on things that leadership needs to address. a) Communicating First of all is this simple and incredibly important fact: Spend a long time immersed in any one culture, and you lose effectiveness in talking to other cultures - more quickly than you'd care to believe. Cross-cultural communication requires constant contact. So to the career ministers and lay leaders, when did you last try and really comprehend the stresses, strains and attitudes of someone walking a path in the secular world around you. When did you last converse with, "immerse with", rather than talk at, someone who finds our church culture incomprehensible? You see, we live in an age where communication is not governed by hierarchical authority but by effective conversation; outspoken, opinionated, and rooted in the power of the individual. In ages past the assigned authority was enough to command attention, now no longer. With the power of the blog, the reach of twitter, the infiltration of social media, and the expectation of self-promotion, anyone and everyone can command (perceived) authority. Anything can be said, any position taken, and any argument initiated. Its no wonder militant "New Atheism" has taken off ... today's society is totally geared to giving an audience to anyone who wants to be provocative. Church leaders, do you understand the nature of contemporary communication, and how people learn in today’s society? Do you realize how the power of conversation and story is dominant, the classical teacher is in decline. We buy learning, its a product framed in new educational paradigms. Even in the church its "have you done this course" and "you must go and do that course". In this we acquire knowledge but have we really learned anything? Add to this the incremental dumbing down of language such that the nuanced meanings and complex richness of our vocabulary has lost so much power. Today the voice that is heard is the one that is accessible, not just accessible in language terms, but accessible by the average man and woman in the street. The one that speaks in language and concepts that are quickly understood, the one that has the ready hook of metaphor and story to capture fleeting attention, the one that entertains; that voice is sadly the one that communicates (something), teaches (what people want to hear), and is followed. Is this right? Of course not. Is it reality? Absolutely. So church leader, what do we do? For one, lets use the fact that worship (defined as the breathing of a Christian) is intended to be a creative expression. Worship-breath is that which esteems God directly or indirectly through elevating Gods values. Lets get creative in our communication! There's a world out there that does not comprehend our church culture. Do we wait for them to find their way through to us, or do we speak plainly? What does plain speech mean? It means communication in the language of the listener, with examples drawn from their experience, in metaphors that they can resonate with, using music, visuals, and other non-verbal expressions that are familiar to the cultures outside our doors. It means combining the communication of the culture with the timeless truths of Jesus. Church leaders, converse in the cultural commonalities! b) Leadership If the culture of communication is so different from the forms used inside our churches, then what about church leadership structures? Christianity is hierarchical. There's God on top, and everyone else below is more or less on the same level -- we're all priests. Yes, God appoints some to be apostles and teachers, he gifts some to be healers and helpers. But he differentiates this human mass not as the more important and the less important, but as a body where the foot is no more or less important than the eye. God gives roles! Institutional church has taken this and stratified the human layer into a myriad of new hierarchies. So what then is church leadership? It's leadership-in-relationship! Each has a role, each grows up into roles, and each role has functional authority in relationship to everyone else. Yet in our churches institutional cultures we have instead individuals who, because of their position in the hierarchy, presume to incorporate a breadth of authority over areas that is beyond their God-given role. Speaking bluntly: In institutional church leadership there has been a substitution of relational authority and co-dependency with instead a hierarchical authority having no relational accountability to the members of the body. In this age of extreme secular individualism, in a time where communication is increasingly not by community relationship but instead determined by access to resources and voices, this is a time where true relational-leadership is needed more than ever before. Afterthoughts In my church we have visitors, but we don't really know where our communication fails. We have our regulars, and some are growing into leadership, but we also have those for whom church is an option in a personal lifestyle of choices. We are blessed with a leadership that is well engaged with relational authority, but exists in an external hierarchy that is deaf to the extant realities - that is, the external institutional authorities barely comprehend (which is not the same as "know about") the realities of life in the secular world.  Immerse yourself The sixth and final in a 6 part series on worship. I was invited to speak on worship in church; to articulate in 30 minutes the breadth and depth of what I have long experienced and believed to be biblical.
Click for sections: 1 2 3 4 5 6 Wonky (defn) : 1. shaky or unsteady 2. not in correct alignment; askew 3. liable to break down or develop a fault My assertion: Worship is one of the most wonky aspects in the contemporary church! 6. Closing thoughts and questions First a quick note on what you all thought this was really going to be about: singing in church! Why corporate worship with music? It's because it is a public expression of the unity of the body in spirit around the orthodox truths (which is why the lyrics are so important!); music is a powerful bridge between the mind and heart. Both become engaged, and so it's an expression of our total being expressing a creative gift, able to transcend those barriers we build against being touched by God. To fully engage in worship through song is dangerous, because it may open doors we've been struggling to keep closed. It's the equivalent of jumping into a pool in which you cannot stand, and suddenly you find how important having a lungful of air is. Second, some questions
And some final words from A.W. Tozer "Worship, I say, rises or falls with our concept of God .... and if there is one terrible disease in the Church of Christ, it is that we do not see God as great as He is." "No one can worship God in Spirit & Truth for long before the obligation to holy service becomes too strong to resist."  The fifth in a 6 part series on worship. I was invited to speak on worship in church; to articulate in 30 minutes the breadth and depth of what I have long experienced and believed to be biblical.
Click for sections: 1 2 3 4 5 6 Wonky (defn) : 1. shaky or unsteady 2. not in correct alignment; askew 3. liable to break down or develop a fault My assertion: Worship is one of the most wonky and misconceived aspects in the contemporary church! 5. The outworking of worship (how to swim) All the discussion so far is largely useless unless we touch on "doing" and "being" worship. The starting point here is to stop thinking about church for the moment. By now it should be apparent that what happens in church is only a minute part of worship. How do we do breath worship, in case we die for lack of breath? For a start, re-think your perceptions. Worship is:
We were walking in our neighbourhood recently and dropped in unannounced on some friends who we had not seen for awhile. Within minutes we were discussing Christian matters, and we only left 3 joy-full hours later after an impromptu dinner. Our discussion throughout was peppered with God-things. We worshipped, because in our conversation we were unconsciously esteeming God - both explicitly and implicitly. We breathed worship without even being aware we were doing it. As Heb 10:24-25 says "And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another." Many people use this verse to say you must go to church, but I think it means as much, if not more so, that you must drop in with friends, stay 3 hours, throw in a meal, and talk around God. This is the the less obvious and arguably the more important, because it reflects "breathing worship". When you breath, you don't say to yourself "breath in, breath out". When you walk you don't say "left foot, right foot". When you love, you don't mechanically say "now I'll hold her hand, and then I'm going to lean in for a kiss". No, as when we swim, sing or play music, or breath - our actions are unthinking and natural as we live immersed in simply being. My motions in swimming are the unthinking revelling of the body in the medium. Making music is not thinking about where to put my fingers on the instrument, but on creating a beautiful expression through the instrument. Breathing - my sighs, deep breaths, gasps, panting - are all unconsciously feeding my simply being. That's our target; a foundation of worship that is unconsciously part of our existence, on top of which we build the conscious choices of expression. In my marriage my conscious choice to kiss comes on top of a natural continuing intimacy. Such worship is uncontrollably expressed in confidence and commitment, not subdued or contained. If you swim tentatively, you splutter. If you walk cautiously, you go slowly. If you breath shallowly, you black out. Such hesitance has no joy. But you can be joyful in the deepest crisis when you can see something what is above the crisis. David danced, nearly naked, unconsciously and exuberantly! For as A.W. Tozer said, "Without worship, we go about miserable." What does it really mean when it says “the joy of the Lord is our strength”? It means we have a certainty that surpasses our circumstances, is beyond our expectations. And when we have strength, we can be free to be in creative worship. We can let God's values define our actions – we invest because its important, we expend energy because He is worth it, we value giving our best because God values the best, we worship not because of any rule, but because we value God. If valuing God means knowing what God values, then we need to spend time on thinking about what God values in me. What does God value about me? Arguably what God values the most in us is Humility: which is not being a shy little weakling, but is simply not being more than we are (pride), not being less than we are (deception), and that presumes we know what we are. So from God's perspective, what are we?
This goes back to the start: our number 1 priority is the totality of our engagement in worship. To engage all we are in our worship, we can consider that there are two necessary aspects to breathing worship; the individual and the collective. → The individual starts with a choice to take time. Without that simplest yet hardest of choices individual worship goes nowhere. For myself, I have lots of ways to express this. I write to myself … a lot. I have debates with myself and God in the early hours of the morning. In those twilight hours when you can't sleep, I preach long sermons to myself knowing God is paying attention. I will sit in a darkened room with worshipful music and simply rest (which is an action) in the comfort of God. All these are choices, yet each person needs to find their own individual expression, because each person is unique just like everyone else. → The collective: This is the church service, or the formal gathering of Christians. We come together to put intensity of focus on our standing before God as his body here today … and we affirm his worth, we express our unity in God, and encourage others. Eph 5:18-21 has this to say about gathering together: "And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ." Finally, it's worth considering that worship is especially about pro-active individual choice. Ps 100 classically covers this, but sadly is often talked about in a way that misses the key point; action! Consider: Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! [i.e., be creative, its not kept private] Serve the Lord with gladness! [Service is worship, we serve God in worship, in worship we serve] Come into his presence with singing! [don't keep your distance, move forward] Know that the Lord, he is God! [engage your mind, the brains consumes 20% of your energy!] It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, [Don't stop on the threshold - that is simply being in church - instead dive in and swim] and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; [More than saying thanks, demonstrate thanks with gifts] bless his name! [to bless is an action] For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations. Make, Serve, Come, Know, Enter, Give, Bless - a totality of immersion.  The fourth in a 6 part series on worship. I was invited to speak on worship in church; to articulate in 30 minutes the breadth and depth of what I have long experienced and believed to be biblical. Click for sections: 1 2 3 4 5 6 Wonky (defn) : 1. shaky or unsteady 2. not in correct alignment; askew 3. liable to break down or develop a fault My assertion: Worship is one of the most wonky and misconceived aspects in the contemporary church! 4. The perceptions in worship (cont.) Now onto the second question; following on from the previous "what do you think of God?" Q2. What does God think about you So here's a thought: can you remember what is was like to be a teenager, or if you are now a teenager then think about your first crush where the other person doesn't even seem to know you're alive. There's someone you think is awesome, someone who stirs up all those belly butterflies, someone whose merest glance cause you excitement, someone who if they speak to you makes the rest of the world fade into the distance. You're consumed by how they look, speak, act - and they can do no wrong, you'll defend them against any attack, yet to them you're a nobody. To such a person you're willing to be an absolute fool in their and anyone else’s eyes. You live in hope that they will someday desire to talk to you. Until once day you grow out of it, you become jaded, and you move on to new passions. So when we read God saying "But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first", we go "Huh, but you never paid me any attention." Understanding how wrong this is, is really important for worship. Many Christians live consumed by their sense inadequacy, their failure, whether consciously or behind a façade of "I'm OK", and think that God is not paying any attention because we don't deserve any attention. How massively wrong we are. We forget that despite our massive shortcomings (for they are real), God really does desire our intimacy, and he is not that unattainable object of desire. When we comprehend (more than just hear) that God is a lover searching for a lover and so he made me, it transforms how we approach God. Usually when we think about God's perspective on us (if we do at all) we gravitate to comforting verses like Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." We like these sentiments because it talks about a God of provision without having to deal personally with God. He's simply out there making sure things happen, like local government, or a companies CEO, busy with managing the system while we get on with our lives unseen, unrecognised, merely a cog in God's universe. But then we also have verses like:
Imagine if I were to approach my spouse in that way, what sort of a relationship would that be. Quickly I would lose any benefit of friendship, of any comfort from intimacy, of encouragement and support -- all because I will not accept the intimacy offered, all because I don't accept their yearning to be close to me despite my inadequacies. All because I'm too proud. In worship God says "I am worthy, not just because I am worthy, but in addition because I desire intimacy with someone like you". God is a lover searching for a lover, so he made me ... and you. In worship God is also asking, will you take a lover? Do yourself a favour: watch this video.  The third in a 6 part series on worship. I was invited to speak on worship in church; to articulate in 30 minutes the breadth and depth of what I have long experienced and believed to be biblical.
Click for sections: 1 2 3 4 5 6 Wonky (defn) : 1. shaky or unsteady 2. not in correct alignment; askew 3. liable to break down or develop a fault My assertion: Worship is one of the most wonky and misconceived aspects in the contemporary church! 3. The perceptions in worship So, let's talk about worship. Two phrases have really struck me in recent years: “God is a lover looking for a lover, so He fashioned me” [Misty Edwards] “Do you take yourself as seriously as God takes you?” This leads me to two fundamental considerations for worship: 1. What do you think of God? 2. What does God think of you? I don't know if you've seen the recent Noah film ('a preposterous but endearingly unhinged epic'). I think it was bad acting (despite big names) with white actors playing middle eastern characters representing a bizarre distortion of the biblical story. Throughout the film God is portrayed as “the creator” who seems more concerned about restoring an abused physical creation without humans than he is about restoring a relationship with a broken people. How awe-full is that God? Only in the sense of horror and fear. Q1. What do you think of God? This question is at the centre of worship, the heart attitude. To try and talk about this, I suggest the (idealized) human relationship as a simple representation of our approach to God. I worship my wife, in that I value her immensely. I don't worship her as a goddess, but I ascribe her worth-ship. Now, in my relationship I do things for her (or should do – I'm far from perfect): I earn an income so she can do other volunteer activities, I write to her lots when I travel, I give her gifts, I hug her, etc. And I try and be creative … I'll sms her in the living room while I'm in the bedroom, I'll send her silly pictures, I'll tell her a joke even though she doesn't get my sense of humour. And there'll be special times when I'll plan a surprise. Bottom line is that I invest in our relationship because I value her. Expression is fundamental to relationship – the specific form of expression is not important - and the expression shows the measure of value we hold of the other person. If I don't value the other person, I'll not put much effort into how I look, what I say, or even bother being on time. The old testament is an example of a worship relationship through many external forms and functions, rituals, rules, and highly structured. By contrast, the new testament is about a worship relationship through God's spirit within us … but it's up to us to choose to recognize that. Sadly, much of the time we revert to ritual, because that takes little personal investment and only asks that we go through the motions. Imagine if I conducted my relationships with other people through rituals only. What would that say about how I valued them? Jesus says in John 4:23-24 "But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” That's more than ritualistic actions ... our spirit needs to be engaged. The first point to take from this is that worship is a state (an attitude) of spirit that values God. Since this is an individual action, it should be the normal state of affairs all of the time, regardless of place or situation. All the time God should be in consciousness, and in doing so our decisions and actions become conformed to his values. That is the first foundation of worship … NOT a church service, not singing a song … worship is first and foremost an attitude of spirit towards the values of God. Paul says in Rom 12:2: "... be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." By this we understand God's values, and by knowing God's values we can know how to value what God values, and by doing so we are worshipping ... ascribing worth to God's values. So for question 1 – "what do you think of God" – perhaps we should start with just the little phrase “think of God”. Once we're thinking, then we can explore what it is about God that we should think on. If you added up the time each day you spent thinking about God, I wonder how much would that add up to? For every minute you do, you are renewing your mind, and you are worshipping because you are esteeming God by thinking of him. Perhaps that's why human relationships fail; we don't think about what the other person values, and we don't learn to value those things ourselves, and so we fail to value the other person. Second to worshipping in spirit, we worship with a mind centred on the Truth. Jesus even prays for us in this, in John 17:17 he prays to the Father “sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” We're talking Truth with a capital "T" - not the relativistic situationally dependant mush that contemporary post-modernists spout. If you think there are no absolute truths, then life is meaningless. So that's part 3. The second question "What does God think of me?" comes in part 4.  Second in a 6 part series on worship. I was invited to speak on worship in church; to articulate in 30 minutes the breadth and depth of what I have long experienced and believed to be biblical.
Click for sections: 1 2 3 4 5 6 Wonky (defn) : 1. shaky or unsteady 2. not in correct alignment; askew 3. liable to break down or develop a fault My assertion: Worship is one of the most wonky and misconceived aspects in the contemporary church! 2. How does worship look in today's church If you talk to people about their understanding of worship and ask them for examples, you very quickly find one commonality: their responses are mostly about style, the comforts of the ritual, loyalty to an institution, the physical building, how I feel, whether I'm enjoying it, and so on. Whether we admit to it or not, we often talk about worship in terms of how much we're getting from it. Consider the 3 legged pig. A traveling salesman was driving past a farm when he saw a pig with three wooden legs executing a magnificent series of backflips and cartwheels. Intrigued, he drove up to the farmhouse, where he found an old farmer sitting in the yard watching the pig. "That's quite a pig you have there, sir" said the salesman. "Sure is, son," the farmer replied. "Why, two years ago, my daughter was swimming in the lake and bumped her head and damned near drowned, but that pig swam out and dragged her back to shore." "Amazing!" the salesman exclaimed. "And that's not the only thing. Last fall I was cuttin' wood up on the north forty when a tree fell on me. Pinned me to the ground, it did. That pig run up and wiggled underneath that tree and lifted it off of me. Saved my life." "Fantastic! the salesman said. But tell me, how come the pig has three wooden legs?" The farmer stared at the newcomer in amazement. "Mister, when you got an amazin' pig like that, you don't eat him all at once." We are just like the farmer: consumers of God's grace, rather than being in awe of his glory Ask people about worship, and most will focus on singing in church. Those who actually think about it for a bit will probably talk about the different parts of the church service. But consider, how would a non-churched person see this. Imagine a web site that was a guide on "HOWTO go to church" Church for Dummies:
Here's the problem: Worship has become compartmentalized within the church service. Without investing personal effort to use the church service as a vehicle for our personal expression, the service devolves instead into a series of semi-passive events. To really make a church service about worship means each individual taking responsibility to actively use the service for engaging in worshipping God. The Jewish nation had some of this too: they wanted kings, they wanted priests, they lavished expense on a temple, they allocated worship responsibilities – if I was a cynic I might say it was to abdicate personal worship responsibility. But even before Jesus there was compartmentalization ... parts of worship left to "the professionals". And here we get a glimpse of what worship practically means for us as individuals. For example, on the level of human relationships, imagine if I esteemed my spouse in the same way. I would write down a set of things to say the same way every time we meet. Or I hired a professional to say nice things on my behalf. Elevate that to a God-me relationship! Look at Jesus' angry reaction when thats tried: Matthew 21:12-13 And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer [which is part of our worship],’ but you make it a den of robbers.” Steve Brown put it well when he wrote "If there is no joy and freedom, it is not a church: it is simply a crowd of melancholy people basking in a religious neurosis." Yet, as A.W. Tozer said "Without worship, we go about miserable." So what is a person to do? (Next steps to come in part 3!)  When you stop breathing you die! I was invited to speak on worship. My preparation was a journey of exploration; to articulate in 30 minutes the breadth and depth of what I have long grown to experience and believe. What follows is that talk, split into a 6 part series.
Click for sections: 1 2 3 4 5 6 Wonky (defn) : 1. shaky or unsteady 2. not in correct alignment; askew 3. liable to break down or develop a fault My assertion: Worship is one of the most wonky and misconceived aspects in the contemporary church! A.W. Tozer nailed the problem when he said: "To great sections of the church the art of worship has been lost entirely, and in its place has come that strange and foreign thing called the ‘program.’ This word has been borrowed from the stage and applied with sad wisdom to the type of public service which now passes for worship among us." 1. First we need a working definition of worship. How often have you heard: “Let's worship now as we sing ...” or “That was great worship”? It's as if there’s a switch somewhere -- we'll switch it on now for 20 minutes, then to save our energy let's switch it off till next week so we can take a rest. Something is seriously wrong. Where do we get a functional definition from? Unfortunately the Bible doesn't have a nice convenient verse like Habbakuk 3:23 stating that "Worship is ...” Instead we have lots of verses that use the term and assume we already understand it. For example Ps 96:9 “Worship the Lord in the splendour of holiness; tremble before him, all the earth!” Ok David, can you tell me how to do that? Or Rom 12:1 “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Right Paul, so what's that look like on a Monday morning? These don't directly help, and leave a lot to inference. Our language doesn't help either; as many of the Hebrew and Greek words in the Bible which get translated as "worship" are actually filled with deep meaning about service, submission & reverence. Then, we have all the authoritative definitions pronounced from the pulpit ... some definitions so broad as to be useless (worship is everything), and some so narrow that they simply turn worship into an object. So let's try the dictionary: "reverence offered to a divine being or supernatural power; an act of expressing such reverence; to honor with extravagant love and extreme submission" Nice enough, but largely useless in telling us anything about actually worshipping. How about listening to some of the "experts":
So I tried making my own definition, and I came up with: "Worship is an attitude expressed in actions that reflect the values of God" Hmmm? Yet Jesus said: "But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." (Jn 4: 23-24 ESV) OK Jesus, so its important, but what's next? Can you translate this for me? Whatever the definition, worship is clearly fundamental, all encompassing, extravagant, and active in expression! So from all the above and more I conclude: The Christian's number one, all-time, top priority is: worship the Person of God! We worship God because he is God. That's it; not for our sake, not for what we can get, not for any reason other than that God is worthy. Interestingly (and not as a primary motivation) there's also a promise attached: James 4:8 "Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you". So we can say, the breath of a Christian, and the breath of the church, is worship: and the logical conclusion is that when you stop breathing you die! Why then is the Church's worship so weirdly wonky?  Perspectives from "Mum's the word"
Children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. (Ps.127) When I first found out I was pregnant, I was a flurry of daydreams obsessed with chubby thighs, kiss curls and softly fragranced hugs. In fact, it was only at my first scan that the gravity of the whole idea hit home. There I was staring at the little dot on the screen that was no bigger than the head of a drawing pin, thinking that in just a few months, it will grow into a full person, with its own will, potential and story. Suddenly my little dot took on a whole magnitude of meaning and, as many Christian mothers will testify, instantly brought me back to the grassroots of my faith, creation. For me, being pregnant cemented my faith, unequivocally and without question. For the first time, I felt absolute conviction that we weren’t a happy scientific coincidence and capricious cacophony of cells, we are, each one, a perfect tapestry of God’s own hand. I simply couldn’t account for every single miracle that happened between each and every scan. (Not least that we found the money every few weeks to be able to afford them!) It was with perfect timing and orchestration that my little dot thrashed and writhed until it became a she and she became a real little person that we could see blinking and smiling; ‘fruit of the womb’ indeed. Nothing prepared me for the hours I would spend meditating between myself, my unborn child and the Lord. Giving thanks and praise one minute and pleading frantically for Grace and protection the next. I found myself fretting over her first day at school, whether she’d have any friends, whether she’d be a happy child, what I’d do the first time she fell over and hurt herself or what would happen if I wasn’t there to catch her. And then my husband gently reminded me of the incredible words of reassurance that literally burst out of the Bible. In 1 Peter 5:7 we are told to give all our worries and cares to the Lord, for He cares. This is repeated in Psalm 55:22 where we are told we’ll be sustained by the Lord if we just give our cares to Him. And my personal favourite, in Matthew 6 where we are reminded of how even the birds and the lilies are catered for; we really don’t need to worry. This was such solace for, quite frankly, a wildly neurotic first time Mum-to-Be. It’s at times like these that I realise faith itself is a blessing. When, in the black of night (and a pregnant woman spends a lot of time wide awake in the black of night), little niggling doubts, questions and worries can creep in and see you Googling the most ridiculous of symptoms, your best option really is to Google Bible quotes about trusting in a Lord that provides for you. Nothing can calm a pregnant woman’s raging hormones like Exodus’ ‘The Lord is my strength and my song; He has become my salvation.’ (15:2) and Isaiah’s ‘So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.’ Amen! Christians are spoilt for choice when it comes to reassurance through God’s Word. Which is not something to take for granted for the average pregnant woman who worries about everything from her husband no longer finding her attractive to not feeling that immediate magical bond with her new baby that they promise in all the literature you’re bombarded with during your pregnancy. But we just need to trust that our baby’s journey is the same journey that Jesus Himself travelled through as he came to Earth. There was no R10,000 sleigh cot waiting for Him, He didn’t need the latest stroller, His onesies didn’t need to be made from rare organic cotton at R100 a pop – Mums need to remember the important truth that the only thing your new baby will really need is you and the only thing you really need is faith that it really will all work out fine. You are in very good hands, the right of which is majestic in power, the left will shatter the enemy (Exodus15:6) – even if that enemy is your own worry. Now go and read more, while you still have some time to yourself! |
Important: The views expressed on this blog do not necessarily reflect the official position of our church
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