War on Worship

Father I see that you are drawing a line in the sand And I want to be standing on your side, holding your hand So let your kingdom come, let it live in me This is my prayer, this is my plea Let the worshippers arise,

Let the sons and the daughters sing

I surrender in my all

I surrender to the King (Phillips, Craig and Dean. Let The Worshippers Arise)

A man walks into church, this is the moment he’s been planning for all week. He approaches the stage with his fellow band members and proceeds to execute what they have been practicing. To him it’s all about the music. He carefully chooses his songs to fit the requests that fill his inbox everyday. He leans more toward the popular songs which challenge his skill level rather than songs with truth in their lyrics.

Another man approaches the stage at his church. After discussing the theme of the service with the pastor, he choses hymns that accompany the theme. With over sixty years of Sunday morning worship, he knows the entire hymnal by heart. As he plays he contemplates the lyrics he is leading the congregation to sing. The rest is just background noise to keep everyone in the right key.

There is a huge disconnect in the modern church. One church claims a certain style of worship music (For the remainder of this post, when I use the word ‘worship’ or ‘worship music’ I am referring to Sabbath worship) brings glory to God, another claims worship is just preparation for the sermon, still others claim God is only glorified if the Holy Spirit is felt. The ‘worship war’ has torn churches apart from the inside catching the questioning unbeliever in the middle of a battle. Can there be harmony between cultural relevance and historical truth in the realm of Sabbath worship?

What is Worship?

John M. Frame said: “A biblically balanced view of worship must take into account both God’s transcendence and His immanence, his exaltation and his nearness, his majestic holiness and His unmeasurable love.”(John M. Frame, Contemporary Worship Music: a Biblical Defense (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 1997), 14.) Worship is deeper than the latest pop trend, but it is also more passionate than reading old English sentences to the tune of Beethoven. “Worship itself cannot lead us into God’s presence. Only Jesus himself can bring us into God’s presence, and He has done it through a single sacrifice that will never be repeated—only joyfully recounted and trusted in.”(Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008), 74.)

Worship as an End

The church as a whole generally focuses on the receiving part of worship and can tend to overlook the fact that God should be glorified. Worship needs to be understood as something that brings glory to God and God alone. This idea needs to be taken to the point that without God, worship is absolutely worthless.

To worship the Lord is — in the world’s eyes — a waste of time. It is, indeed, a royal waste of time, but a waste nonetheless. By engaging in it, we don’t accomplish anything useful in our society’s terms. Worship ought not to be constructed in a utilitarian way. It’s purpose is not to gain numbers nor for our churches to be seen as successful. rather, the entire meaning of worship is that God deserves it.(Marva J. Dawn, A Royal Waste of Time: the Splendor of Worshiping God and Being Church for the World (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999), 1.)

This idea does not mean those worshipping should not give their all. The simple meaning is: we as a church need to present our absolute best to the Lord without making the ‘worship music’ the entire focus. God’s glory is the end we are achieving through giving our best in worship.

Progress

Progress is a controversial subject when it comes to the church. The idea of improving the church has been abused, to say the least. People claim accepting homosexual marriages as valid, Muslims and Mormons as Christians, and evolution as a part of creation is cultural progress. This has caused the church to completely abstain from anything having to do with progress. When it pertains to worship, improvement should not be so debatable. Musically we progress and become better. New instruments are invented and new worship songs written. Psalm 33 says to “Sing to him a new song”(33:3). Why should the church be the last to sing a new song to the Lord in praise?

In Spirit and In Truth

As denominations define their worship, they generally lean either toward a more spiritual, feelings based worship or a theology truth form of worship. This distinction is considered enlightenment vs. romanticism. Those with an enlightenment mindset focus more on the objective realities and less on feelings. Romanticists generally focus on what they feel in their hearts to be good. These two standpoints are very extreme, but a middle ground can and should be found. In John’s gospel Jesus clearly states how we should worship. “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers 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”(4:23-24). Both have merits of acceptable worship, but only when brought together are they the most glorifying to God.

Idolatry

An easy practice to fall for as one who leads worship is obeying the inbox. People always have song requests. In some cases they are very good songs which should be looked at and considered. Most of the time the request is one of the latest Christian pop trends with very little truth to the lyrics. “Artists generally know their work too well to make false claims for it. And yet artists sometimes find themselves pressured by their audience to create works that will be misused, testifying to a worldview or a way of life that from the Christian perspective is false, sinful, or idolatrous.”(Gene Edward Veith and Jr, State of the Arts: from Bezalel to Mapplethorpe (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1991), 142.) When the focus of worship is personal preference and not God’s glory it becomes idol worship. This form of idol worship is seen when Moses ascended the mountain after the Exodus. The people, becoming impatient, desired to worship the God as they had in Egypt. Aaron finally gave in and created a golden calf through which they could worship God in the way other cultures did. God was not pleased.

Sincerity

Sincerity, although important in worship, is not all that is needed. Many churches argue that all worship music is ‘refrigerator art’. Although I may agree to a point, even with refrigerator art, there has to be a reason for it. God is only glorified if we sincerely give everything we have to Him, not to a music form, worship leader, or personal preferences.

The story of the widow giving in the temple is another popularly referenced story when people speak of sincerity as the primary point of worship.

And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on (Mark 12:41-44).

Although this widow was sincere in her gift, so were the rich people who gave large sums of money. The main point of this story is she truly gave all she had.

Churches With Less

There are many churches in the world today who, similar to the widow, cannot give as much as a church with thousands of members and a full orchestra or band. These churches give all they have through the musicians which are a part of their membership body. This instance is where the refrigerator art argument can come in correctly. If a father receives a painting from one of his children will he critique the fact the child did not perfectly shade all the separate objects in the painting? No, he will see the child gave the best he could with the talents he had and is aiming at becoming better.

Shout to The Lord

If only God had made a book that not only described worship, but also gave examples…. oh wait! Such a book does exist and the name of it actually means sacred song. “Shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous! Praise befits the upright. Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre; make melody to him with the harp of ten strings! Sing to him a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts”(Psalms 33:1-3). This passage addresses almost every view of worship and shows us exactly what to do. The psalmist is basically telling us worship is a very passionate ordeal. He repeats loud shouts to emphasize the importance of the joyous approach to worship. The passage also stresses the point that the praise must befit the upright. We are to sing a new song to God and play it skillfully.

Conclusion

There can be harmony between cultural relevance and historical truth in sabbath worship if the proper qualifications are met. God gave us a way and means to worship Him, as long as we approach Him with the proper heart and mindset, give Him all glory musically and lyrically, and approach with a fear of God and not of man.

Worship dare not be glib or superficial, ought not to dispense false assurances or manipulate emotions. Instead, genuine worship always offers the true hope of the gospel—neither entertainment nor escapism, neither diversion nor another sort of consumerism, but the terrible truth about sin and evil and even the greater truth (in all it’s glory) that on the cross and through the empty tomb Christ has been victorious over iniquity, injury, and death. (Marva J. Dawn, How Shall We Worship? Biblical Guidelines for the Worship Wars (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2003), 168.)