Thinking Theologically 8:
The Holy Spirit in Worship
READ:
John 14:15-17, 26-27, 15:26-27, 16:5-16
DISCUSS:
1. Where have you had a hard time understanding the Holy Spirit?
2. What do we learn about the Holy Spirit in these verses?
3. What is the relationship between father, son, and Holy Spirit in these passages?
4. How does the Holy Spirit relate to what we do as worship leaders?
5. How has the Holy Spirit been working in your life?
REFLECT:
How Does the Holy Spirit move, shape, and define our worship? I serve a church where worshipers represent over 30 different Christian denominations from around the world, and I notice weekly that they have vastly different understandings of how the Holy Spirit works in their lives and worship.
In some of their traditions they hardly talk about the Holy Spirit at all, and in others everything is defined by the Holy Spirit. So, some people are uncomfortable when we talk about the Holy Spirit too much and others would rather we were more ‘spirit led’ and focused on the outward spiritual gifts (tongues, prophesy, being ‘slain’ in the spirit, etc…) in worship.
So, as we seek to continue through our Bible study to build a framework of how to understand worship and our task of leading worship through music, liturgy, and preaching, we need to understand how to view the transforming work of the Holy Spirit in worship.
In our passage today, Jesus explains that the Spirit calls us to worship, convicts us of sin and guilt, teaches us the truth of God revealed in Jesus Christ, leads us to a new perspective on our lives and world, and gives us truth and peace. There is no worship of the triune God without the Holy Spirit. Whether we acknowledge the Spirit or not, as Paul writes in 1st Corinthians 12:3 “no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.”
1. Calls us to worship and convicts us of Sin and guilt.
In the past weeks we have talked about worship as an encounter with God that is transformative and this week we see that the Holy Spirit is the instigator and facilitator of this transformative encounter. As we have discussed before, when we come into the presence of God the first thing we hear is God’s ‘NO’. Through our own power we can do nothing to know God or bring an offering that is pleasing to Him. As theologian Ralph Martin writes, through sin all of our hearts are “turned in upon themselves so that we turn all God’s gifts to poison.”
Because of this we often use worship for our own selfish needs or agenda. Whenever we seek to “get something from worship” all we are doing is seeking our own agenda, which will always fail because the church can’t promise happiness, security, health, and prosperity. On our own we can’t even praise God without falling into selfishness.
2. Teaches us the truth of God in Jesus Christ.
That is why we need to rely on the Holy Spirit in our worship. We rely on the Holy Spirit to lead us into the presence of God and keep our focus there. Without the Spirit’s presence it is impossible to focus on God or understand His loving design revealed in Jesus Christ. As Jesus comments in John 16:13 “but when He, the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.” The Spirit’s whole work is to focus us on Jesus Christ. He has no word of His own, but as Jesus continues in John 15:14: “He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.”
Sometimes we think that we will get something more from God if we focus on the Holy Spirit (special knowledge, special powers, special gifts, etc….), but God has sent the Holy Spirit to help us draw near the greatest gift of all, Jesus Christ, and to focus our lives on Him.
As Ralph Martin writes: “The Spirit’s work is to make it possible to focus on God and Jesus Christ and to keep our gaze fixed there, whether the temptation to avert it comes in the form of a luxuriant emotionalism, a fierce call to compromise, or an etherealizing of our faith whose contact with history is made tenuous.”
3. Gives us new perspective on our lives and our world.
Because the Holy Spirit leads us to God’s truth, our perspective on ourselves and the world begins to change as God’s spirit works in our lives.
John Calvin describes it this way: “as we cannot come to Christ unless we are drawn by the Spirit of God, so when we are drawn we are lifted up in mind and heart above our understanding. For the soul, illumined by Him, takes on a new keenness… and humans understanding, thus beamed by the light of the Holy Spirit, then at last truly begins to taste those things which belong to the kingdom of God.”
So, every time we are reading the Bible and something suddenly makes sense, we can thank God’s Spirit. Every time we are convicted of sin, every time we come to a new revelation about our lives that changes us, we can thank the Holy Spirit. And we can trust that in our worship services God is doing the same in the lives of our congregation, though we may not be able to see it.
God gives us new perspective through the Holy Spirit. And one of the main ways this works in believers is helping us understand who we are as the body of Christ. The Spirit is always working to build up the church and help us find our true gifts and purpose. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12:1, 4-7: “Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”
The Holy Spirit blesses the community of faith with wisdom and guidance, charismatic gifts and signs, new perspective and love towards others. These gifts are given to individuals but are meant to bless and edify the body of Christ. The Spirit desires to bless us individually but the main goal of the spirit is the unity, health, and mission of the body of Christ, for the renewal and redemption of the world. As a church we always gone astray when we forget who are in Christ and we forget the Holy Spirit’s work in forging us into a new people, with new gifts, and with a new purpose in the world.
4. Gives us truth and peace.
Jesus comments in John 14:26-27: “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”
As we trust God to help us and guide us through His Holy Spirit, there is deep comfort that He is working in our lives and the lives of those we serve to guide them, bless them, and show them the way. We can have peace, as we lead worship; that God is leading us into all truth as we focus on Jesus Christ, so we don’t have to worry or be afraid. What a huge comfort to us, as we trust this and let God’s spirit guide us!
Final Thoughts
It seems to me that often worship leaders either discount or overstate the Holy Spirit’s work in our worship services. Either the Holy Spirit is hardly mentioned and there is little time and space to listen to God’s Spirit speaking through the service, or the Spirit is viewed as a heavenly power outlet that we just need to ‘plug into’ by praying in the spirit and worshipping in the spirit, so that we will receive the additional power and blessing.
Yet in the passages that we have just read, we’ve seen that the Spirit is a great gift given by God to believers, given for our flourishing and growth. So, the Holy Spirit is working whether we are listening or not, and every time we are praying or worshipping, we are doing so ‘in the spirit’, because the Spirit is the instigator of worship, the convicter of sins, our guide to the truth of the gospel, and our hope and peace.
This gives me great hope as a worship leader because I know that God is working and I don’t somehow need to save those whom I serve through my excellent worship leading and musicianship. And God’s Spirit gives in an assurance that God is doing something every week in worship, whether I see people falling down in the aisles or not. God is working, because God has sent his Spirit to fill us, guide us, empower us, shape us, and move us. Out of this hope my only response can be gratitude, thanksgiving, and praise, which is exactly what our attitude needs to be as leaders of worship.
ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURES (to read throughout the week):
Psalm 51:1-5, Acts 21:1-41, Romans 5:1-5, 1 Corinthians 12:1-11
REFERENCES (for further reading)
The Worship of God, Ralph P. Martin
Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
Astonishing Grace, Studies on Gospel Centered Worship Leadership
Thinking Theologically 7:
Worship Leading For Transformation
READ:
Romans 12:1-2
DISCUSS:
1. As we read through the passage, what do you think it means to be ‘conformed to the pattern of the world?’ How are you conformed to the world around you? How does this happen to you and others?
2. What does it mean to be transformed? Do you feel like you are being more conformed or more transformed in your daily life?
3. How can worship be a place of transformation? How do we encounter God revealed in Jesus Christ in worship? How can we hinder transformation?
REFLECT:
As we continue to build a framework of worship, we need to discuss worship as transformation. As we know, worship is more than just a time to remember the salvation story and to express our whole lives to God; worship is is a divine meeting where we encounter the living God. And no-one who encounters the living God is ever the same. We are transformed through the encounter. So, this week we are going to discuss how we are transformed through worship.
In our passage Paul uses the language of the potter in discussing how God works in our lives. “To conform” means literally ‘to take the shape of something’, like a potter would take a lump of clay and conform it into the shape of a bowl or plate. Paul encourages (or warns us) not to ‘take the shape of’ the world around us’. The Message version of the Bible captures this sentiment well as it translates this verse: “Don't become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.” So we are encouraged and commanded to be transformed.
“To be transformed”…. comes from the Greek word “Metamorpho”, where we get the word ‘metamorphosis.’ It means ‘to change the essential nature of something’. As a potter, you will never be able to ‘metamorpho’ clay….even though you turn it into a pot or a plate, it will always be essentially clay. This is the same with our walk with God. We can never ‘transform’ ourselves. This comes from God. Paul writes in Romans 6:2-4: “We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”
Our essential nature as humans is sin, and we are 'dead' in our sins. Yet God changes our nature through Christ’s death and resurrection! This is essential for us to remember as we lead worship. We are not the instigators of transformation nor can we somehow make people transform through their own works. Transformation always comes from an encounter with THE HOLY OTHER, in Latin, the “Mysterium Tremendum” (or tremendous mystery).
Because of this, transformation always involves disruption, dis-orientation, dis-equilibrium, because you cannot encounter God and stay the same. Transformation is essential but often uncomfortable because it involves shifting paradigms, challenging long held assumptions, shifting perceptions of reality. We see examples of this throughout the Bible from Jacob wrestling with God at Bethel to Paul on the Damascus road. In fact, everyone who encounters God in the Bible experiences this type of encounter, which then leads to transformation.
The metamorphosis always begins and ends with God. And out of this encounter with God, we are called to ‘renew our minds’, which means to let the reality of the gospel become the most real thing to us. The process of metamorphosis is the process of becoming who we already ARE in Jesus Christ if we have accepted God’s grace through faith. So we are called to stay close to God in prayer, study of scripture, service, fellowship, worship and to challenge the values of the ‘aeon’ we live in. The call to ‘renew our minds’ is the daily call to renew our attitudes about life, ourselves, and each other, (Colossians 3:1-17) and to renew our perceptions about reality and world around us. (Colossians 1:15-23) .
So, as worship leaders we are to called to lead worship for transformation. Transformation occurs when people encounter God and are changed by that encounter. The Holy Spirit instigates this encounter and transforms us as Christ encounters us. As worship leaders we strive to provide ‘space for transformation’, and to engage people with the reality of the gospel through our worship. The question for us though is: Do we view our worship services as places where encounter happens and people are transformed through GRACE?
ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURES (to read throughout the week):
John 2:3-21, 2 Corinthians 2:7-18, Colossians 1:15-23, 3:1-17, Philippians 3:20-21,
REFERENCES (for further reading)
Worship Leading For Transformation
READ:
Romans 12:1-2
DISCUSS:
1. As we read through the passage, what do you think it means to be ‘conformed to the pattern of the world?’ How are you conformed to the world around you? How does this happen to you and others?
2. What does it mean to be transformed? Do you feel like you are being more conformed or more transformed in your daily life?
3. How can worship be a place of transformation? How do we encounter God revealed in Jesus Christ in worship? How can we hinder transformation?
REFLECT:
As we continue to build a framework of worship, we need to discuss worship as transformation. As we know, worship is more than just a time to remember the salvation story and to express our whole lives to God; worship is is a divine meeting where we encounter the living God. And no-one who encounters the living God is ever the same. We are transformed through the encounter. So, this week we are going to discuss how we are transformed through worship.
In our passage Paul uses the language of the potter in discussing how God works in our lives. “To conform” means literally ‘to take the shape of something’, like a potter would take a lump of clay and conform it into the shape of a bowl or plate. Paul encourages (or warns us) not to ‘take the shape of’ the world around us’. The Message version of the Bible captures this sentiment well as it translates this verse: “Don't become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.” So we are encouraged and commanded to be transformed.
“To be transformed”…. comes from the Greek word “Metamorpho”, where we get the word ‘metamorphosis.’ It means ‘to change the essential nature of something’. As a potter, you will never be able to ‘metamorpho’ clay….even though you turn it into a pot or a plate, it will always be essentially clay. This is the same with our walk with God. We can never ‘transform’ ourselves. This comes from God. Paul writes in Romans 6:2-4: “We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”
Our essential nature as humans is sin, and we are 'dead' in our sins. Yet God changes our nature through Christ’s death and resurrection! This is essential for us to remember as we lead worship. We are not the instigators of transformation nor can we somehow make people transform through their own works. Transformation always comes from an encounter with THE HOLY OTHER, in Latin, the “Mysterium Tremendum” (or tremendous mystery).
Because of this, transformation always involves disruption, dis-orientation, dis-equilibrium, because you cannot encounter God and stay the same. Transformation is essential but often uncomfortable because it involves shifting paradigms, challenging long held assumptions, shifting perceptions of reality. We see examples of this throughout the Bible from Jacob wrestling with God at Bethel to Paul on the Damascus road. In fact, everyone who encounters God in the Bible experiences this type of encounter, which then leads to transformation.
The metamorphosis always begins and ends with God. And out of this encounter with God, we are called to ‘renew our minds’, which means to let the reality of the gospel become the most real thing to us. The process of metamorphosis is the process of becoming who we already ARE in Jesus Christ if we have accepted God’s grace through faith. So we are called to stay close to God in prayer, study of scripture, service, fellowship, worship and to challenge the values of the ‘aeon’ we live in. The call to ‘renew our minds’ is the daily call to renew our attitudes about life, ourselves, and each other, (Colossians 3:1-17) and to renew our perceptions about reality and world around us. (Colossians 1:15-23) .
So, as worship leaders we are to called to lead worship for transformation. Transformation occurs when people encounter God and are changed by that encounter. The Holy Spirit instigates this encounter and transforms us as Christ encounters us. As worship leaders we strive to provide ‘space for transformation’, and to engage people with the reality of the gospel through our worship. The question for us though is: Do we view our worship services as places where encounter happens and people are transformed through GRACE?
ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURES (to read throughout the week):
John 2:3-21, 2 Corinthians 2:7-18, Colossians 1:15-23, 3:1-17, Philippians 3:20-21,
REFERENCES (for further reading)
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Astonishing Grace, Studies on Gospel Centered Worship Leadership
Thinking Theologically about Worship 6
God’s NO and God’s YES: Worship as Encounter.
READ:
Colossians 1:15-23
DISCUSS:
1. Read together the first sentence from the ‘reflect’ section. Have you heard that before? What do think?
2. Have you ever had one of those experiences of transcendence that make you think ‘there must be bigger than me’ in nature or other places? How did those experiences shed light on who God is or isn’t for you?
3. Do you agree or disagree with Barth’s understanding of ‘God’s NO.’ (in the reflect section.) How do see this work out in the world?
4. Read Colossians 1:15-23. How is Jesus God’s YES?
5. Have you experience an ‘encounter with the risen Christ’ in worship?
6. How does the idea of ‘worship as encounter’ change your preparation as worship leaders and also your worship experience?
REFLECT:
“The mountains are my cathedral. I don’t need to worship in some building with a bunch of hypocrites to find God. God is all around me. All I need to do is go out and experience Him.”
All of us have heard this kind of statement before and we might even have thought or said something like this at times. And there is truth to the statement….God is all around us. God is everywhere. And we experience something beyond ourselves when we experience the beauty of nature in all its glory. Yet for Christians, there is an important distinction to be made, and this needs to be proclaimed by worship leaders and preachers each week at worship: the true God cannot be known by nature or any other human experience alone. We can experience God’s power, God’s creativity, God’s glory in part through nature and other experiences, but we cannot know God’s character, God’s nature, God’s deep passion and intense love.
Karl Barth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Barth), the famous German theologian, explains this well. He starts with the understanding that ‘God is wholly other’, which means that God is totally beyond the realm of human understanding and completely inaccessible by any innate human capability. God cannot be known by us in any way. So, when we experience those moments of transcendence in nature and other places, we are not experiencing God but only the faintest echo of the reality of God. We can’t know God through those experiences; we only know that God exists, that God is creative, and that God is powerful.
Barth describes this as the ‘NO’ and ‘YES’ of God. When we as worshippers try to approach God we firstly hear God’s ‘NO’ before we can hear His ‘YES’. God’s ‘NO’ states that humans cannot know God and experience His Grace by their own innate power, emotions, or experience. Without God’s Spirit breaking through we cannot encounter God. This is a hard statement for many churchgoers who attend services primarily to feel better about themselves, explore their own spirituality, or even to ‘connect’ with God. This is also a hard statement for worship traditions that emphasize emotional responses in their worship. God’s ‘NO’ reveals that we are unrighteous, unworthy, and unable to do anything to please God by our own power. It states that there is no way to manipulate God or even connect with God on the basis of our own humanity and no special way to ‘access’ God. This saves worshippers from works righteousness and the endless pursuit of being more open to the spirit, being a better worshipper, being more holy, righteous, sensitive to the Spirit, etc…
Only when we hear this and begin to understand God’s NO can we receive God’s ‘YES’. As Colossians 1:19 states: “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” Jesus is one who reconciles us to God. We cannot do it by our own power or works. God breaks through to our reality so that we can know God through the living Jesus. Jesus is God’s YES.
So we can only know God through Jesus, but we also can only experience God through an encounter with Jesus Christ. God’s NO is that we cannot know Him or please Him by any of our strivings. Yet God’s YES is that through Jesus Christ God comes to US. So in Jesus Christ we can encounter God in a new way through worship. The word encounter literally means to ‘meet someone unexpectedly or to meet someone in conflict’. Usually, ever Sunday, we and our congregation come to our church services for many different reasons…. We may come out of obligation, to meet with friends, or because we want to to hear something that will impact our lives. Yet regardless of our reasons, God through Jesus Christ encounters us in worship.
Barth describes that this most often happens through proclamation of the Word in song, prayer, reading, and preaching. Barth writes this: “Jesus breaks into our reality through the proclamation of scripture, spoken, sung, or read. So through proclamation “the new robe of righteousness is thrown over (our words, songs, etc..) and even in its earthly character it becomes a new event, the event of God’s own speaking in earthly events, the event of the authoritative vicariate of Jesus Christ.”
Through proclamation we hear Jesus actually speaking to us and we encounter Jesus as our contemporary. This brings scripture alive and gives our worship a new meaning and power that it didn’t have before. Though the proclamation of worship in song, reading, preaching, praying, meditation, etc…we come into the presence of the living Christ and receive His love, grace, and guidance, not based on our merit or ability but through God’s grace alone. Only through God’s “YES” is there any possibility of responding to God in worship and only in the encounter can there be dialogue with God.
So, as we lead worship as musicians and leaders, we can trust that something far greater is happening as we proclaim God’s goodness and mercy through Jesus Christ. God is encountering His people through the living Christ. So it is our task to provide a ‘sacred space’ for this encounter to happen and to proclaim God’s NO and YES clearly, week after week, so our people can be surprised by Grace as Christ encounters them where they are.
ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURES (to read throughout the week):
Acts 3:11-20, Romans 1:18-32, Galatians 1:6-10, 1 John 2:18-3:1
REFERENCES (for further reading)
Church Dogmatics, Vol. 1: Word of God by Karl Barth (I hesitate to put this down because it is such hard reading….as every seminarian knows. Yet….if you keep in mind his theological method (that I just very briefly skimmed) it should help you understand Him.)
God’s NO and God’s YES: Worship as Encounter.
READ:
Colossians 1:15-23
DISCUSS:
1. Read together the first sentence from the ‘reflect’ section. Have you heard that before? What do think?
2. Have you ever had one of those experiences of transcendence that make you think ‘there must be bigger than me’ in nature or other places? How did those experiences shed light on who God is or isn’t for you?
3. Do you agree or disagree with Barth’s understanding of ‘God’s NO.’ (in the reflect section.) How do see this work out in the world?
4. Read Colossians 1:15-23. How is Jesus God’s YES?
5. Have you experience an ‘encounter with the risen Christ’ in worship?
6. How does the idea of ‘worship as encounter’ change your preparation as worship leaders and also your worship experience?
REFLECT:
“The mountains are my cathedral. I don’t need to worship in some building with a bunch of hypocrites to find God. God is all around me. All I need to do is go out and experience Him.”
All of us have heard this kind of statement before and we might even have thought or said something like this at times. And there is truth to the statement….God is all around us. God is everywhere. And we experience something beyond ourselves when we experience the beauty of nature in all its glory. Yet for Christians, there is an important distinction to be made, and this needs to be proclaimed by worship leaders and preachers each week at worship: the true God cannot be known by nature or any other human experience alone. We can experience God’s power, God’s creativity, God’s glory in part through nature and other experiences, but we cannot know God’s character, God’s nature, God’s deep passion and intense love.
Karl Barth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Barth), the famous German theologian, explains this well. He starts with the understanding that ‘God is wholly other’, which means that God is totally beyond the realm of human understanding and completely inaccessible by any innate human capability. God cannot be known by us in any way. So, when we experience those moments of transcendence in nature and other places, we are not experiencing God but only the faintest echo of the reality of God. We can’t know God through those experiences; we only know that God exists, that God is creative, and that God is powerful.
Barth describes this as the ‘NO’ and ‘YES’ of God. When we as worshippers try to approach God we firstly hear God’s ‘NO’ before we can hear His ‘YES’. God’s ‘NO’ states that humans cannot know God and experience His Grace by their own innate power, emotions, or experience. Without God’s Spirit breaking through we cannot encounter God. This is a hard statement for many churchgoers who attend services primarily to feel better about themselves, explore their own spirituality, or even to ‘connect’ with God. This is also a hard statement for worship traditions that emphasize emotional responses in their worship. God’s ‘NO’ reveals that we are unrighteous, unworthy, and unable to do anything to please God by our own power. It states that there is no way to manipulate God or even connect with God on the basis of our own humanity and no special way to ‘access’ God. This saves worshippers from works righteousness and the endless pursuit of being more open to the spirit, being a better worshipper, being more holy, righteous, sensitive to the Spirit, etc…
Only when we hear this and begin to understand God’s NO can we receive God’s ‘YES’. As Colossians 1:19 states: “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” Jesus is one who reconciles us to God. We cannot do it by our own power or works. God breaks through to our reality so that we can know God through the living Jesus. Jesus is God’s YES.
So we can only know God through Jesus, but we also can only experience God through an encounter with Jesus Christ. God’s NO is that we cannot know Him or please Him by any of our strivings. Yet God’s YES is that through Jesus Christ God comes to US. So in Jesus Christ we can encounter God in a new way through worship. The word encounter literally means to ‘meet someone unexpectedly or to meet someone in conflict’. Usually, ever Sunday, we and our congregation come to our church services for many different reasons…. We may come out of obligation, to meet with friends, or because we want to to hear something that will impact our lives. Yet regardless of our reasons, God through Jesus Christ encounters us in worship.
Barth describes that this most often happens through proclamation of the Word in song, prayer, reading, and preaching. Barth writes this: “Jesus breaks into our reality through the proclamation of scripture, spoken, sung, or read. So through proclamation “the new robe of righteousness is thrown over (our words, songs, etc..) and even in its earthly character it becomes a new event, the event of God’s own speaking in earthly events, the event of the authoritative vicariate of Jesus Christ.”
Through proclamation we hear Jesus actually speaking to us and we encounter Jesus as our contemporary. This brings scripture alive and gives our worship a new meaning and power that it didn’t have before. Though the proclamation of worship in song, reading, preaching, praying, meditation, etc…we come into the presence of the living Christ and receive His love, grace, and guidance, not based on our merit or ability but through God’s grace alone. Only through God’s “YES” is there any possibility of responding to God in worship and only in the encounter can there be dialogue with God.
So, as we lead worship as musicians and leaders, we can trust that something far greater is happening as we proclaim God’s goodness and mercy through Jesus Christ. God is encountering His people through the living Christ. So it is our task to provide a ‘sacred space’ for this encounter to happen and to proclaim God’s NO and YES clearly, week after week, so our people can be surprised by Grace as Christ encounters them where they are.
ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURES (to read throughout the week):
Acts 3:11-20, Romans 1:18-32, Galatians 1:6-10, 1 John 2:18-3:1
REFERENCES (for further reading)
Church Dogmatics, Vol. 1: Word of God by Karl Barth (I hesitate to put this down because it is such hard reading….as every seminarian knows. Yet….if you keep in mind his theological method (that I just very briefly skimmed) it should help you understand Him.)
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Astonishing Grace: Studies on Gospel Centered Worship Leadership
Thinking Theologically about Worship 5
MORE THAN WORDS: Worship as Emotional Expression
READ: Psalm 95
DISCUSS:
1. As we look back at ‘worship as remembrance’, how does the psalmist call the people to remember salvation history in the psalm?
2. What is the emotional response that we see in this psalm? How do we see that expressed? What other emotional responses in worship have you noticed in the Bible? (read Psalms 10:1, 12:1-2, 22:1-8, 44: 23-26, 130)
3. What is unique about music and singing in expressing our deepest emotions? How do you see this happening in worship?
4. Do you view worship as a ‘sacred space’ to share our deepest emotions, thoughts, fears, longings, and hopes to God? Why or why not?
5. What are some ways that we can create an environment where people can feel safe to express their whole lives to the God of Grace?? What are the obstacles?
6. How does music and singing in worship focus us and put us in a right frame of mind to encounter God?
REFLECT:
All of worship is response, as Ralph Martin writes: “All worship of God finds its origin in the objective ‘moment’ when God acts and comes into our world in free love. From that ‘moment’ worship becomes the human response to divine revelation.” As we discussed last week, we respond to God in worship when we remember God’s work and orient our lives on Him. This week we are discussing how we respond to God by expressing our whole lives to God in worship.
1. Worship is Emotional.
Worship of the triune God is inherently emotional, because worship cuts to the core of our very being. Worship is encounter with the living God, our creator, lover, redeemer, friend, and Lord, so worship naturally evokes our deepest longings, fears, hopes, frustrations, insecurities, gladness, doubts, and joys. We see this throughout the scriptures, but it is especially portrayed in the Psalms. Walter Brueggeman, Old Testament Scholar, writes this: “The surprise of Israel’s prayer and worship is that the extravagance of praise does not silence or censor Israel’s need but seems to legitimate and authorize a second extravagance, the extravagance of complaint, lament, accusation, petition, indignation, assault, insistence.”
I know from my own life and from many, many people that I have talked to about issues of faith that we have a hard time giving God the hardest and most vulnerable parts of our lives. We have a hard time sharing our doubts, insecurities, worries, and deepest fears, and sometimes we even have a hard time sharing our joys and triumphs, maybe worrying that God does not delight in them with us. The Psalms, though, show us a different understanding of worship, As Brueggeman writes: “The Psalms draw our whole lives under the rule of God, where everything may be submitted to Yahweh.” The Hebrew people understood this, so they felt comfortable bringing to God all that they were feeling, from every aspect and movement of their lives, whether they were praising God or yelling ‘my God why have you forsaken me!’, and they trusted that God was listening and responding.
2. Music and singing in worship are unique languages of emotional expression.
Music has a unique way of helping us express our deepest emotions, and that is why most of the Psalms were meant to be sung in call and response style. We all know how music has impacted and shaped our lives. And we all know how we look to music to echo or express our frustrations, anger, sadness, and joys. This is why music and singing have always been a part of worship, in both Old Testament and New Testament worship, because they are natural responses to ‘divine revelation’.
When we experience God’s mighty works and goodness it is a natural response to “sing for joy to the Lord” and “extol Him with music and song.” (Psalms 95.1) Music is a universal part of the human experience and reflects our non-cognitive feelings and emotions. It captures emotion, mood, feelings, and gives expression to what can’t be said through speech alone. “Consequently,” Stanley Grenz argues, “it is fitting that the people of God express their Christian consciousness through music. In doing so we offer to God our emotions in addition to our creeds, our feelings as well as our beliefs. We offer to him the joy we sense because of His goodness; we share in the sorrow and pain Christ bore on the cross; and we anticipate the day our Lord will return.”
3. Worship is a safe, ‘sacred space’ to give our whole lives to God.
Worship is also safe ‘sacred space’ for us to give our emotions, thoughts, fears, longings, and hopes to God. Johannes Reidel comments in his book ‘Soul Music’ how this tenet has been foundational historically in the worship of black churches in America. Since all musical, artistic and emotional expression was oppressed and squelched by white slave owners, Christian hymns, music, and songs became the “legal place to use up the spiritual and emotional reservoir dammed up by the experience of slavery.” In worship they could be reminded of their history, traditions, and humanity while putting their fears and hope in God.
We also need the church in general, and our worship services specifically, to be ‘sacred spaces’ where we can come to express our deepest emotions, pains, longings, hopes, dreams, doubts, worries, joys, and fears to a real God who encounters us in the real world. Through worship God has provided these safe places for the community to cry out and encounter the living, resurrected Christ in a way that is transformational. This kind of ‘sacred space’ can’t be expressed through preaching and liturgy alone, so that is why sing together, have moments of silence, prayer, waiting, and provide other spaces for people to respond with their whole lives.
4. We need preparation and adjustment to give our whole lives to God in worship
A common frustration among worship leaders is that we just don’t see our congregation responding emotionally enough. This may not be true if you are a Pentecostal/Charismatic worship leader (maybe you want them to be less emotional and focus on the message more!) but if you are in a Reformed church, or another denominational church often we look out at our congregation and see may stoic looks and even some that look outright bored!
Even if we see these types of responses at times, we need to be reminded that we and our congregation can’t just flip a switch to focus on God and give their whole lives to Him. We all need to turn out thoughts and feelings from what we have been focusing on unto God. This is why music and singing serve an essential purpose in worship. No element of worship can put us in the right frame of mind like worship music and singing. Approaching God and being in a worshipful spirit requires preparation and adjustment, and worship music has the ability to lift our spirits to new heights of contemplation and expectancy so that we can give God the honor that He deserves.
Singing and sacred music are the most popular elements of Christian worship because of their ability to put us in safe place to respond with our whole being to God and prepare fully to meet Him in worship. Worship also has a communal dimension that explains its popularity and necessity. As Geoffery Wainwright argues that “familiar words and music…unite the whole assembly in active participation to a degree which is hardly true of any other component in the liturgy.” Yet often our music and singing are used in churches merely as garnish for the liturgy and sermon. This is especially true in traditional mainline denominations where most of the ‘worship wars’ are waged. Worship music is a corporate expression of praise and needs to be central to the churches service for there to be true worship. Music and song are not just ‘fillers’ but, as Wainwright says: “divine worship demands and must receive the concentrated attention of all concerned.” Any less is not worship but entertainment.
Hopefully this has helped to you to be encouraged that what you do as worship leaders and musicians is vitally important and I also hope this has spurned some ideas of how we can help our congregations express their whole lives to God in worship and why it is important. If you have any ideas of how this can be done, please post them on the blog!
ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURES (to read throughout the week):
Psalm 22, Psalm 40: 1-3, Psalm 130, Colossians 3:12-14
REFERENCES (for further reading)
I’ve got a lot for you to check out. All are worthy reads:
1. The Message of the Psalms, by Walter Brueggemann
2. Soul Music Black and White by Johannes Reidel
3. Worship: its Theology and Practice, by J.J Von Allmen
4. Doxology, the Praise of God in Worship, Doctrine and Life, by Geoffery Wainwright
5. The Worship of God, by Ralph P. Martin
6. Theology for the Community of God, by Stanley J. Grenz
MORE THAN WORDS: Worship as Emotional Expression
READ: Psalm 95
DISCUSS:
1. As we look back at ‘worship as remembrance’, how does the psalmist call the people to remember salvation history in the psalm?
2. What is the emotional response that we see in this psalm? How do we see that expressed? What other emotional responses in worship have you noticed in the Bible? (read Psalms 10:1, 12:1-2, 22:1-8, 44: 23-26, 130)
3. What is unique about music and singing in expressing our deepest emotions? How do you see this happening in worship?
4. Do you view worship as a ‘sacred space’ to share our deepest emotions, thoughts, fears, longings, and hopes to God? Why or why not?
5. What are some ways that we can create an environment where people can feel safe to express their whole lives to the God of Grace?? What are the obstacles?
6. How does music and singing in worship focus us and put us in a right frame of mind to encounter God?
REFLECT:
All of worship is response, as Ralph Martin writes: “All worship of God finds its origin in the objective ‘moment’ when God acts and comes into our world in free love. From that ‘moment’ worship becomes the human response to divine revelation.” As we discussed last week, we respond to God in worship when we remember God’s work and orient our lives on Him. This week we are discussing how we respond to God by expressing our whole lives to God in worship.
1. Worship is Emotional.
Worship of the triune God is inherently emotional, because worship cuts to the core of our very being. Worship is encounter with the living God, our creator, lover, redeemer, friend, and Lord, so worship naturally evokes our deepest longings, fears, hopes, frustrations, insecurities, gladness, doubts, and joys. We see this throughout the scriptures, but it is especially portrayed in the Psalms. Walter Brueggeman, Old Testament Scholar, writes this: “The surprise of Israel’s prayer and worship is that the extravagance of praise does not silence or censor Israel’s need but seems to legitimate and authorize a second extravagance, the extravagance of complaint, lament, accusation, petition, indignation, assault, insistence.”
I know from my own life and from many, many people that I have talked to about issues of faith that we have a hard time giving God the hardest and most vulnerable parts of our lives. We have a hard time sharing our doubts, insecurities, worries, and deepest fears, and sometimes we even have a hard time sharing our joys and triumphs, maybe worrying that God does not delight in them with us. The Psalms, though, show us a different understanding of worship, As Brueggeman writes: “The Psalms draw our whole lives under the rule of God, where everything may be submitted to Yahweh.” The Hebrew people understood this, so they felt comfortable bringing to God all that they were feeling, from every aspect and movement of their lives, whether they were praising God or yelling ‘my God why have you forsaken me!’, and they trusted that God was listening and responding.
2. Music and singing in worship are unique languages of emotional expression.
Music has a unique way of helping us express our deepest emotions, and that is why most of the Psalms were meant to be sung in call and response style. We all know how music has impacted and shaped our lives. And we all know how we look to music to echo or express our frustrations, anger, sadness, and joys. This is why music and singing have always been a part of worship, in both Old Testament and New Testament worship, because they are natural responses to ‘divine revelation’.
When we experience God’s mighty works and goodness it is a natural response to “sing for joy to the Lord” and “extol Him with music and song.” (Psalms 95.1) Music is a universal part of the human experience and reflects our non-cognitive feelings and emotions. It captures emotion, mood, feelings, and gives expression to what can’t be said through speech alone. “Consequently,” Stanley Grenz argues, “it is fitting that the people of God express their Christian consciousness through music. In doing so we offer to God our emotions in addition to our creeds, our feelings as well as our beliefs. We offer to him the joy we sense because of His goodness; we share in the sorrow and pain Christ bore on the cross; and we anticipate the day our Lord will return.”
3. Worship is a safe, ‘sacred space’ to give our whole lives to God.
Worship is also safe ‘sacred space’ for us to give our emotions, thoughts, fears, longings, and hopes to God. Johannes Reidel comments in his book ‘Soul Music’ how this tenet has been foundational historically in the worship of black churches in America. Since all musical, artistic and emotional expression was oppressed and squelched by white slave owners, Christian hymns, music, and songs became the “legal place to use up the spiritual and emotional reservoir dammed up by the experience of slavery.” In worship they could be reminded of their history, traditions, and humanity while putting their fears and hope in God.
We also need the church in general, and our worship services specifically, to be ‘sacred spaces’ where we can come to express our deepest emotions, pains, longings, hopes, dreams, doubts, worries, joys, and fears to a real God who encounters us in the real world. Through worship God has provided these safe places for the community to cry out and encounter the living, resurrected Christ in a way that is transformational. This kind of ‘sacred space’ can’t be expressed through preaching and liturgy alone, so that is why sing together, have moments of silence, prayer, waiting, and provide other spaces for people to respond with their whole lives.
4. We need preparation and adjustment to give our whole lives to God in worship
A common frustration among worship leaders is that we just don’t see our congregation responding emotionally enough. This may not be true if you are a Pentecostal/Charismatic worship leader (maybe you want them to be less emotional and focus on the message more!) but if you are in a Reformed church, or another denominational church often we look out at our congregation and see may stoic looks and even some that look outright bored!
Even if we see these types of responses at times, we need to be reminded that we and our congregation can’t just flip a switch to focus on God and give their whole lives to Him. We all need to turn out thoughts and feelings from what we have been focusing on unto God. This is why music and singing serve an essential purpose in worship. No element of worship can put us in the right frame of mind like worship music and singing. Approaching God and being in a worshipful spirit requires preparation and adjustment, and worship music has the ability to lift our spirits to new heights of contemplation and expectancy so that we can give God the honor that He deserves.
Singing and sacred music are the most popular elements of Christian worship because of their ability to put us in safe place to respond with our whole being to God and prepare fully to meet Him in worship. Worship also has a communal dimension that explains its popularity and necessity. As Geoffery Wainwright argues that “familiar words and music…unite the whole assembly in active participation to a degree which is hardly true of any other component in the liturgy.” Yet often our music and singing are used in churches merely as garnish for the liturgy and sermon. This is especially true in traditional mainline denominations where most of the ‘worship wars’ are waged. Worship music is a corporate expression of praise and needs to be central to the churches service for there to be true worship. Music and song are not just ‘fillers’ but, as Wainwright says: “divine worship demands and must receive the concentrated attention of all concerned.” Any less is not worship but entertainment.
Hopefully this has helped to you to be encouraged that what you do as worship leaders and musicians is vitally important and I also hope this has spurned some ideas of how we can help our congregations express their whole lives to God in worship and why it is important. If you have any ideas of how this can be done, please post them on the blog!
ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURES (to read throughout the week):
Psalm 22, Psalm 40: 1-3, Psalm 130, Colossians 3:12-14
REFERENCES (for further reading)
I’ve got a lot for you to check out. All are worthy reads:
1. The Message of the Psalms, by Walter Brueggemann
2. Soul Music Black and White by Johannes Reidel
3. Worship: its Theology and Practice, by J.J Von Allmen
4. Doxology, the Praise of God in Worship, Doctrine and Life, by Geoffery Wainwright
5. The Worship of God, by Ralph P. Martin
6. Theology for the Community of God, by Stanley J. Grenz
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Astonishing Grace, Studies on Gospel Centered Worship Leadership, Week 13
Thinking Theologically 4: Worship as Remembrance
READ:
Jonah 2: 7-9
DISCUSS:
1. What happened when Jonah remembered God? What is role of ‘remembering’ in worship?
2. How is idolatry connected to ‘forgetting’ in our passage? How does this happen to us?
3. How does worship ‘orient’ us?
4. Think about the last two worship services you attended. If you take away the sermon, what ‘story’ would the other elements of worship (from songs, prayers, etc…, to peoples demeanor on stage, etc…) be telling? If you had never stepped into a church before what would you understand of the gospel through the service?
5. How are we doing at ‘recapitulating salvation history’ each week as worship leaders?
REFLECT:
As we continue our section on ‘thinking theologically’ we are going to spend the next few weeks thinking together about how to understand worship. In this section we have already discussed how important it is to understand our own theology and how we are theologically teaching our congregation through the songs we sing and the ways we lead. Over the next few weeks we are going think through a theological framework of worship, building from our definition of worship as ‘giving worth and glory to God’ and seeking to understand how worship functions in the worshipping community and our lives individually.
We begin with worship as remembrance. As Robert Webber writes, worship in its most basic form “celebrates God’s saving deed in Jesus Christ,” and in the words of theologian Stanley Grenz: “in worship we gather to “commemorate the foundational events of our spiritual existence, at the center of which is the action of God in Christ delivering humankind from the bondage of sin.”
Christian worship first and foremost remembers the salvation story; that God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit has always been seeking to save and deliver humanity from sin and decay, and God does this through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is God incarnate. Any worship time or church service that doesn’t tell this story through word, song, and other expression is simply not Christian worship.
As we look back through scripture we see this idea of worship as ‘remembering the story’ is the central focus of worship. From the beginning God remembered His covenant with His people (Genesis 9:15-16, Exodus 2:24-25, 1 Chronicles 16:12-15, Isaiah 54:4-7, Luke 1:68-75) and asked only that his people would remember Him as well. (Deuteronomy 4:10, 5:15, Deuteronomy 8, etc…) Remembering was the foundation of Israel’s practice and worship: the law, the feasts, and worship at the temple (Deuteronomy 4:9-14, 8:1-20-the law, 16:3-feasts, Exodus 3:12-worship) and the people of Israel, especially in times of hardship, often would ask God to remember His covenant with them and save them. (Job 10:9, Psalm 74:2-22, Jeremiah 14:21). When we forget God we fall into sin and begin to worship other Gods (Deuteronomy 9:7-23, Isaiah 17:10-14, Romans 1:21-32) and when we remember God’s love and work we are drawn closer to God and God’s purposes (Ecclesiasties 12:1-8, Psalm 119: 49-56, Jonah 2:7-9, John 16:1-4, Matthew 7:25-34).
A steady example of how worship as remembrance works (for me at least!) is my iphone. Before I bought an iphone I was constantly getting lost, as many of you know. Especially on streets here in Den Haag which, like most European streets, often change names, become one ways, or just end without notice, I would regularly be 30 minutes late because of getting lost (especially in the older parts of town). But then I got an iphone and everything changed. Especially the GPS on the iphone oriented me to exactly where I was and how to get where I needed to go. It is not perfect and I sometimes still get lost, but I have at least shaved 20 minutes off my old get lost time!
And this is the same with worship. In worship we are oriented on God and God’s ways. Often we lose our way and forget God in our lives, so we come to worship to be oriented again on God and to remember again who God is and who we are because of God’s great love and care. And out of this comes a new perspective on our lives and the world around us.
So as worship leaders it is essential that every week, through our songs, liturgy, preaching, times of silence and speaking, times of prayer, spontaneous worship, etc…. that we tell the story. And it is not enough just to talk about and honor ‘God’. Very religion honors some version of ‘God’. Similarly, it is not our task to solely focus on ‘being good people’, because all religions focus on morality. Our Christian worship gains its form and uniqueness in God’s revelation of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. As J.J Von Allen writes: “Christian worship is not just about honoring God but what God has done through Jesus Christ. Our worship begins and ends with Christ and recapitulates salvation history.”
Every week our task is to ‘recapitulate salvation history’ and to remember God’s great love for us in Jesus Christ. If a non-Christian who had never stepped into a church before came to your service, how much of the gospel would they understand through your worship time…not just the sermon, but the songs we sing, the ways we act, and all the other elements of worship? How are we doing at helping people orient their lives on Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and view their lives through the lens of Christ?
ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURES (to read throughout the week):
Deuteronomy 8: 1-18, Psalm 119: 49-56, Chronicles 16:7-15, 2 Timothy 2:8-13,
REFERENCES (for further reading)
Worship: It’s Theology and Practice, by J.J Von Allmen
Theology For The Community Of God, by Stanley J. Grenz
READ:
Jonah 2: 7-9
DISCUSS:
1. What happened when Jonah remembered God? What is role of ‘remembering’ in worship?
2. How is idolatry connected to ‘forgetting’ in our passage? How does this happen to us?
3. How does worship ‘orient’ us?
4. Think about the last two worship services you attended. If you take away the sermon, what ‘story’ would the other elements of worship (from songs, prayers, etc…, to peoples demeanor on stage, etc…) be telling? If you had never stepped into a church before what would you understand of the gospel through the service?
5. How are we doing at ‘recapitulating salvation history’ each week as worship leaders?
REFLECT:
As we continue our section on ‘thinking theologically’ we are going to spend the next few weeks thinking together about how to understand worship. In this section we have already discussed how important it is to understand our own theology and how we are theologically teaching our congregation through the songs we sing and the ways we lead. Over the next few weeks we are going think through a theological framework of worship, building from our definition of worship as ‘giving worth and glory to God’ and seeking to understand how worship functions in the worshipping community and our lives individually.
We begin with worship as remembrance. As Robert Webber writes, worship in its most basic form “celebrates God’s saving deed in Jesus Christ,” and in the words of theologian Stanley Grenz: “in worship we gather to “commemorate the foundational events of our spiritual existence, at the center of which is the action of God in Christ delivering humankind from the bondage of sin.”
Christian worship first and foremost remembers the salvation story; that God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit has always been seeking to save and deliver humanity from sin and decay, and God does this through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is God incarnate. Any worship time or church service that doesn’t tell this story through word, song, and other expression is simply not Christian worship.
As we look back through scripture we see this idea of worship as ‘remembering the story’ is the central focus of worship. From the beginning God remembered His covenant with His people (Genesis 9:15-16, Exodus 2:24-25, 1 Chronicles 16:12-15, Isaiah 54:4-7, Luke 1:68-75) and asked only that his people would remember Him as well. (Deuteronomy 4:10, 5:15, Deuteronomy 8, etc…) Remembering was the foundation of Israel’s practice and worship: the law, the feasts, and worship at the temple (Deuteronomy 4:9-14, 8:1-20-the law, 16:3-feasts, Exodus 3:12-worship) and the people of Israel, especially in times of hardship, often would ask God to remember His covenant with them and save them. (Job 10:9, Psalm 74:2-22, Jeremiah 14:21). When we forget God we fall into sin and begin to worship other Gods (Deuteronomy 9:7-23, Isaiah 17:10-14, Romans 1:21-32) and when we remember God’s love and work we are drawn closer to God and God’s purposes (Ecclesiasties 12:1-8, Psalm 119: 49-56, Jonah 2:7-9, John 16:1-4, Matthew 7:25-34).
A steady example of how worship as remembrance works (for me at least!) is my iphone. Before I bought an iphone I was constantly getting lost, as many of you know. Especially on streets here in Den Haag which, like most European streets, often change names, become one ways, or just end without notice, I would regularly be 30 minutes late because of getting lost (especially in the older parts of town). But then I got an iphone and everything changed. Especially the GPS on the iphone oriented me to exactly where I was and how to get where I needed to go. It is not perfect and I sometimes still get lost, but I have at least shaved 20 minutes off my old get lost time!
And this is the same with worship. In worship we are oriented on God and God’s ways. Often we lose our way and forget God in our lives, so we come to worship to be oriented again on God and to remember again who God is and who we are because of God’s great love and care. And out of this comes a new perspective on our lives and the world around us.
So as worship leaders it is essential that every week, through our songs, liturgy, preaching, times of silence and speaking, times of prayer, spontaneous worship, etc…. that we tell the story. And it is not enough just to talk about and honor ‘God’. Very religion honors some version of ‘God’. Similarly, it is not our task to solely focus on ‘being good people’, because all religions focus on morality. Our Christian worship gains its form and uniqueness in God’s revelation of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. As J.J Von Allen writes: “Christian worship is not just about honoring God but what God has done through Jesus Christ. Our worship begins and ends with Christ and recapitulates salvation history.”
Every week our task is to ‘recapitulate salvation history’ and to remember God’s great love for us in Jesus Christ. If a non-Christian who had never stepped into a church before came to your service, how much of the gospel would they understand through your worship time…not just the sermon, but the songs we sing, the ways we act, and all the other elements of worship? How are we doing at helping people orient their lives on Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and view their lives through the lens of Christ?
ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURES (to read throughout the week):
Deuteronomy 8: 1-18, Psalm 119: 49-56, Chronicles 16:7-15, 2 Timothy 2:8-13,
REFERENCES (for further reading)
Worship: It’s Theology and Practice, by J.J Von Allmen
Theology For The Community Of God, by Stanley J. Grenz
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Astonishing Grace, Studies on Gospel Centered Worship Leadership, Week 12
Thinking Theologically 3: Who Is The Audience?
READ: Psalm 96:4-10
DISCUSS:
1. Think about the last concert you went to. What make it great? What made it terrible? Think about the last worship service you attended and ask the same questions.
2. What is the danger in evaluating worship services based on our personal preferences?
3. How do you view ‘performance’ in worship? Does it feel different to play music in church and to play in a bar or club? What is that difference?
4. Have you been in churches where you have felt that worship is primarily about performance? Describe your experience. Did it detract from worship? How?
5. According to our passage, who is the audience of our worship? Who, then, are the performers? How does this change our understanding of performance in worship?
REFLECT:
Think back on a favorite concert/opera/performance that you have seen in the past year. What made it amazing for you? Was it the singers beautiful voice, the orchestra or the bands musical versatility and excellence, the well crafted songs or stage presentation? Now think back on one of the worst performances you have ever heard. What made it terrible? What did you talk about with your friends/family afterwards?
Just as with a concert or performance we find ourselves making the same types of observations about our worship services. Observations like: ‘the choir sounded amazing!’, ‘the sermon was boring’, ‘I didn’t like that song the praise band played’, ‘the service was too long/too short’, etc… These often become the main topics of conversation after church, and while this is not necessarily wrong or bad, it could lead us into danger if we are not careful.
The danger is this: to miss who the audience of worship is. If we go to a concert or a performance then we are the audience: we have paid our money and we want to be entertained. The experience is based on us, the consumer. But when we come to church the audience is actually not us at all, but GOD. We have come to praise God and give our lives to the creator of all things, as the psalmist writes in Psalm 96:6-8: “O nations of the world recognize the Lord; recognize that the Lord is glorious and strong. Give to the Lord the glory he deserves! Bring your offering and come into his courts. Worship the Lord in all His holy splendor. Let all the earth tremble before him. Tell all the nations, “The Lord reigns!” The world stands firm and cannot be shaken. He will judge all peoples fairly.”
The center of our worship then, both in our corporate worship on Sunday and our worship throughout the week is to give God the glory He deserves. As Ralph Martin writes in his great book on worship, “The Worship of God”: “Worshippers embark on an enterprise undertaken not simply to satisfy their needs or to make them feel better or to minister to their aesthetic taste or social well-being, but to express the worthiness of God Himself.”
So our question changes from: ‘did this worship service bless me and make me happy?’ to ‘did this service bless God and make God happy?’ This changes everything: our worship planning and practicing, the ways we play our instruments, sing, and act in worship, and ways we approach worship in general.
And as we focus on God we find something wonderful happening….we experience God’s Grace and goodness. Worship leader Graham Kendrick writes: “Worship is first and foremost for God’s benefit, not ours, though it is marvelous to discover that in giving God pleasure, we ourselves enter into what can become our richest and most wholesome experience in life.” May we all experience the wonder of God’s Grace as we focus on Him in worship!
ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURES (to read throughout the week):
1 Chron 16:28-30, Psalm 29:1-4, Philippians 2:9-11, Revelation 5:11-14, 7:9
REFERENCES (for further reading)
"The Worship of God", by Ralph Martin
"A Heart For Worship" by Lamar Boschman
READ: Psalm 96:4-10
DISCUSS:
1. Think about the last concert you went to. What make it great? What made it terrible? Think about the last worship service you attended and ask the same questions.
2. What is the danger in evaluating worship services based on our personal preferences?
3. How do you view ‘performance’ in worship? Does it feel different to play music in church and to play in a bar or club? What is that difference?
4. Have you been in churches where you have felt that worship is primarily about performance? Describe your experience. Did it detract from worship? How?
5. According to our passage, who is the audience of our worship? Who, then, are the performers? How does this change our understanding of performance in worship?
REFLECT:
Think back on a favorite concert/opera/performance that you have seen in the past year. What made it amazing for you? Was it the singers beautiful voice, the orchestra or the bands musical versatility and excellence, the well crafted songs or stage presentation? Now think back on one of the worst performances you have ever heard. What made it terrible? What did you talk about with your friends/family afterwards?
Just as with a concert or performance we find ourselves making the same types of observations about our worship services. Observations like: ‘the choir sounded amazing!’, ‘the sermon was boring’, ‘I didn’t like that song the praise band played’, ‘the service was too long/too short’, etc… These often become the main topics of conversation after church, and while this is not necessarily wrong or bad, it could lead us into danger if we are not careful.
The danger is this: to miss who the audience of worship is. If we go to a concert or a performance then we are the audience: we have paid our money and we want to be entertained. The experience is based on us, the consumer. But when we come to church the audience is actually not us at all, but GOD. We have come to praise God and give our lives to the creator of all things, as the psalmist writes in Psalm 96:6-8: “O nations of the world recognize the Lord; recognize that the Lord is glorious and strong. Give to the Lord the glory he deserves! Bring your offering and come into his courts. Worship the Lord in all His holy splendor. Let all the earth tremble before him. Tell all the nations, “The Lord reigns!” The world stands firm and cannot be shaken. He will judge all peoples fairly.”
The center of our worship then, both in our corporate worship on Sunday and our worship throughout the week is to give God the glory He deserves. As Ralph Martin writes in his great book on worship, “The Worship of God”: “Worshippers embark on an enterprise undertaken not simply to satisfy their needs or to make them feel better or to minister to their aesthetic taste or social well-being, but to express the worthiness of God Himself.”
So our question changes from: ‘did this worship service bless me and make me happy?’ to ‘did this service bless God and make God happy?’ This changes everything: our worship planning and practicing, the ways we play our instruments, sing, and act in worship, and ways we approach worship in general.
And as we focus on God we find something wonderful happening….we experience God’s Grace and goodness. Worship leader Graham Kendrick writes: “Worship is first and foremost for God’s benefit, not ours, though it is marvelous to discover that in giving God pleasure, we ourselves enter into what can become our richest and most wholesome experience in life.” May we all experience the wonder of God’s Grace as we focus on Him in worship!
ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURES (to read throughout the week):
1 Chron 16:28-30, Psalm 29:1-4, Philippians 2:9-11, Revelation 5:11-14, 7:9
REFERENCES (for further reading)
"The Worship of God", by Ralph Martin
"A Heart For Worship" by Lamar Boschman
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Astonishing Grace, Studies on Gospel Centered Worship Leadership, Week 11
Thinking Theologically 2: Which God Do We Worship?
READ: Matthew 9:9-13
DISCUSS:
1. What do you think it would have meant to be a sinner in Matthew 9:9-13? How would it have meant to be a Pharisee? What are the implications on our worship?
2. After reading the quote by Will Willimon (below), how can we miss God in worship? Or worship the wrong God? How does this happen? What God our we worshipping?
3. What does God desire of us in our worship? What do you think God thinks of our churches worship?
REFLECT:
In Matthew 9:9-13 we witness Jesus teaching both the ‘sinners’ and the ‘religious’ people of the day a lesson about worship. In the passage Jesus calls an outsider and sinner, Matthew, to become one of his followers. It is a beautiful occasion, yet it’s tarnished that evening when the ‘religious’ of the day, the Pharisees, crash Matthew’s dinner party and criticize Jesus’ consorting with Matthew and other outcasts and sinners like him. Jesus responds to them with this radical statement: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
Imagine being a ‘sinner’ in the room that evening. You are reminded everyday that you are an outsider and ‘unclean’ by everyone around you, but now this Rabbi is proclaiming that you are at the center of God’s heart and the focus of God’s ministry! You would want to worship this God not out of guilt or fear, but out of gratitude for God’s love.
But now put yourself in the Pharisee’s shoes. You have lived your whole life meticulously following the law, as God commanded in the Old Testament. Yet now this Rabbi comes out of nowhere and tells you that you have forgotten who God really is and lost the heart of worship. Jesus even quotes from Hosea 6:6: “for I desire mercy and not sacrifice” to stress the point that in all your religiousness you have missed God. You would be offended!
Throughout gospels Jesus was very concerned that the followers of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had forgotten who God really is. They read the scriptures and followed God’s law, but their ‘religiousness’ actually led them away from the God who welcomes outsiders and calls sinners home. They missed God in worship.
And this is our danger as well in the church of Jesus Christ 2000 years later. In a sense, we as Christians are the new ‘Pharisees’, and we need to be vigilant to not worship religion or our culture in place of the triune God revealed in Jesus Christ. As William Willimon writes in Worship As Pastoral Care:
“To ask the theological question is simply to ask, What does our worship say about God?, or the corollary, What does God say to us about our worship? Surely this is the toughest and most basic question to be asked, but curiously, it is often the last question we ask. If we think about our worship at all, usually we think in terms of ‘what do I want from our worship?” or, ‘what do my people want from worship?’ without being so daring as to ask , ‘what does God want from worship?’ Is our worship the worship of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or is it the worship of Baal, Aphrodite, and Cupid? Does our worship have integrity measured by the Biblical standards for what our prayer and praise should be? So much of our worship is self-centered, mundane, and tame. How are we to be faithful to the gospel; how do we know the difference between secular idolatry and Christian liturgy, unless we ask, and in some means, answer, the theological question?”
God is both the source and the object of our worship, so it is essential for us to know WHO we are worshipping. As Kevin Navarro writes in his excellent book, The Complete Worship Leader: “Our theology must be accurate if our worship is to be accurate. An intentional neglect of the God who has revealed Himself will degenerate into idolatry.” Thinking theologically then is a critically important skill to develop as we lead worship. But just as important, is for us to give ourselves space to worship. We always talk about not just being ‘worship leaders’ but being ‘lead worshippers’, and though this is sometimes overused, it is true. As we develop our mind as theologians we need to develop our heart as worshippers. We need to focus on growing in the Grace of God and striving to spend time growing in relationship with Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. We want to wrap both our head and heart around the gospel and to give space for others to do that as well in our worship services.
Do you think theologically about our worship service weekly and about your playing and presence in worship? Do you take time to worship during the week through prayer, scripture study, and meditation? These are disciplines that we can develop throughout our lives, so don’t be discouraged if your answers to those questions weren’t extremely positive. Just take small steps, In thinking theologically challenge yourself by reading a book about worship and asking questions about what your are portraying theologically in your worship services. To develop your heart worship plan on carving out 20 minutes a day to pray, read, and meditate. If you have done that and it is old or dry, try different disciplines of listening to God in scripture and prayer. I have included a couple exercises for you to try here. Enjoy!
ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURES (to read throughout the week):
1 Samuel 15:22-23, Psalm 51:17, Hosea 6:6, John 6:28-29, 1 Corinthians 8:1-6
REFERENCES (for further reading)
Worship As Pastoral Care by William Willimon
READ: Matthew 9:9-13
DISCUSS:
1. What do you think it would have meant to be a sinner in Matthew 9:9-13? How would it have meant to be a Pharisee? What are the implications on our worship?
2. After reading the quote by Will Willimon (below), how can we miss God in worship? Or worship the wrong God? How does this happen? What God our we worshipping?
3. What does God desire of us in our worship? What do you think God thinks of our churches worship?
REFLECT:
In Matthew 9:9-13 we witness Jesus teaching both the ‘sinners’ and the ‘religious’ people of the day a lesson about worship. In the passage Jesus calls an outsider and sinner, Matthew, to become one of his followers. It is a beautiful occasion, yet it’s tarnished that evening when the ‘religious’ of the day, the Pharisees, crash Matthew’s dinner party and criticize Jesus’ consorting with Matthew and other outcasts and sinners like him. Jesus responds to them with this radical statement: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
Imagine being a ‘sinner’ in the room that evening. You are reminded everyday that you are an outsider and ‘unclean’ by everyone around you, but now this Rabbi is proclaiming that you are at the center of God’s heart and the focus of God’s ministry! You would want to worship this God not out of guilt or fear, but out of gratitude for God’s love.
But now put yourself in the Pharisee’s shoes. You have lived your whole life meticulously following the law, as God commanded in the Old Testament. Yet now this Rabbi comes out of nowhere and tells you that you have forgotten who God really is and lost the heart of worship. Jesus even quotes from Hosea 6:6: “for I desire mercy and not sacrifice” to stress the point that in all your religiousness you have missed God. You would be offended!
Throughout gospels Jesus was very concerned that the followers of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had forgotten who God really is. They read the scriptures and followed God’s law, but their ‘religiousness’ actually led them away from the God who welcomes outsiders and calls sinners home. They missed God in worship.
And this is our danger as well in the church of Jesus Christ 2000 years later. In a sense, we as Christians are the new ‘Pharisees’, and we need to be vigilant to not worship religion or our culture in place of the triune God revealed in Jesus Christ. As William Willimon writes in Worship As Pastoral Care:
“To ask the theological question is simply to ask, What does our worship say about God?, or the corollary, What does God say to us about our worship? Surely this is the toughest and most basic question to be asked, but curiously, it is often the last question we ask. If we think about our worship at all, usually we think in terms of ‘what do I want from our worship?” or, ‘what do my people want from worship?’ without being so daring as to ask , ‘what does God want from worship?’ Is our worship the worship of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or is it the worship of Baal, Aphrodite, and Cupid? Does our worship have integrity measured by the Biblical standards for what our prayer and praise should be? So much of our worship is self-centered, mundane, and tame. How are we to be faithful to the gospel; how do we know the difference between secular idolatry and Christian liturgy, unless we ask, and in some means, answer, the theological question?”
God is both the source and the object of our worship, so it is essential for us to know WHO we are worshipping. As Kevin Navarro writes in his excellent book, The Complete Worship Leader: “Our theology must be accurate if our worship is to be accurate. An intentional neglect of the God who has revealed Himself will degenerate into idolatry.” Thinking theologically then is a critically important skill to develop as we lead worship. But just as important, is for us to give ourselves space to worship. We always talk about not just being ‘worship leaders’ but being ‘lead worshippers’, and though this is sometimes overused, it is true. As we develop our mind as theologians we need to develop our heart as worshippers. We need to focus on growing in the Grace of God and striving to spend time growing in relationship with Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. We want to wrap both our head and heart around the gospel and to give space for others to do that as well in our worship services.
Do you think theologically about our worship service weekly and about your playing and presence in worship? Do you take time to worship during the week through prayer, scripture study, and meditation? These are disciplines that we can develop throughout our lives, so don’t be discouraged if your answers to those questions weren’t extremely positive. Just take small steps, In thinking theologically challenge yourself by reading a book about worship and asking questions about what your are portraying theologically in your worship services. To develop your heart worship plan on carving out 20 minutes a day to pray, read, and meditate. If you have done that and it is old or dry, try different disciplines of listening to God in scripture and prayer. I have included a couple exercises for you to try here. Enjoy!
ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURES (to read throughout the week):
1 Samuel 15:22-23, Psalm 51:17, Hosea 6:6, John 6:28-29, 1 Corinthians 8:1-6
REFERENCES (for further reading)
Worship As Pastoral Care by William Willimon
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