I appreciated the comments from yesterday's post--particularly on the necessity of the liturgy being well-taught. I think that this is critical in any worship environment. We were made to worship God. We all worship something else. Therefore, we all have to learn how to do this worship thing correctly. And so we must be taught how to correctly worship.
So many worship leaders love music, and even love to worship, but have no real idea how to teach people how to worship. I work with 18-22 year olds. All they know is how to attend a concert. Few know how to worship. I'm constantly exhorting every worship leader I work with: please teach us how to worship!
This desperate need we have to be taught how to worship is true not just for college students. Nor is it only true in liturgical settings. The dangers of dead formalism of high-church liturgy is matched by the equal and opposite danger of a worship of emotions and emotionalism that can occur in more charismatic settings that is matched by the dangers of the worship of "a cool guy with a guitar" that can happen in evangelical more relaxed settings that is matched by the enthronement of hymns as the only way God gave us to worship that can occur in more traditionalist settings.
All of these traditions have strengths, good things to offer. And all of them can go terribly, terribly wrong. Especially if no one ever bothers to teach the congregation how to use these tools as an instrument of genuine worship.
3 comments:
I just tried to leave a comment but your blog wouldn't let me ... so, I'm trying this one as a test before I type my whole comment again !!!
A bit of food for thought.
I wonder ... can we really be taught how to worship correctly ? If so, who determines what is correct or incorrect ?
If we took away the music, the singing, the readings, even cancelled church across the globe for a period of time, would people still be able to worship ?
Do all churches have to worship the same way ? Is there room in "correct" worship for people to worship differently ?
How much of worship is the environment/programs of churches and how much of it is the attitudes/responses of individual hearts ?
How much of our lives are spent in church ? For most, a couple hours a week. For the highly committed, perhaps 6 hours a week. Even if we said it was 12 hours a week ... that isn't even 10 percent of the 168 hours we have in a week. So ... should not the majority of our worship be done away from the church building ?? If so, how does that change what the congregation needs to be taught ?
For me, worship happens less in a church service and more when I stand beside a river in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, surrounded by gigantic trees, beautiful wild flowers, chirping birds and never ending snow capped mountain peaks. Or when, on a clear night in outback Australia, I lay on a blanket looking up at the millinos of stars, listening to my three year old wondering how God put those stars there and how come they don't all fall out of the sky. Or when I smell the salty air as I listen to the ocean waves crashing on the rocks. I look at these things and I cannot even fathom how BIG God is. How imaginative and creative and thoughtful and powerful and good He is.
I'm not saying church is bad. I don't think it is. I go to church, I enjoy worshiping with fellow followers of Christ, but I could still worship if that all ended. Because for me, worship isn't so much about the environment so much as it is about my response to God.
If you have the time, I'd love to have a discussion with you on this topic ! I don't, by any stretch of the imagination, think that I have all the answers. I've just written questions that came to mind as I read your post ... and more questions that came to mind as I started writing my comment !
I like the notion of worship being an art - an art that one grows in and can be helped by those further on the journey. It can indeed be taught, but only if one wants to learn.
In college I think that my worship experience was similar to Bonnie's - experienced best in the grandeur of nature rather than in the church worship service. And I hope that the delight and glory of praising God during literal mountaintop experiences is never diminished. Yet in moving toward Anglicanism I have also grown to have my worshiping life centered on the community of believers more than I ever would have imagined.
Put quite simply - I can't worship by myself the way I have come to be able to worship in Church. The reason is that, in the liturgical rhythm, things are not focused so much my personal experience of praising God as joining in with the body of Christ in its delight in the Lord. It is here that we enact the great story to one another over the year, reliving the experience of Christ's birth, ministry, entry, last supper, death, resurrection, ascension, sending of the Spirit, and coming in glory. It is here that we say to one another, as his representatives, "the peace of Christ be with you." It is here that we symbolically and sacramentally are nourished by Christ's body and blood from the same cup and hands as that of our neighbor. It is here that we confess our sins together, and receive loving assurance of God's forgiveness by the Godly figure of authority the Lord has put in our lives.
Though I love the outburst of praise to God that nature produces in my soul, I love even more the experience of joining the entire redeemed people of God in praising him in the context of his redemptive story.
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