The last month or so at church, my pastor has asked me to give some mini-teachings on corporate worship. It has been happening in the midst of our worship set, usually after the first song. It’s been a really awesome, freeing, confidence-building experience for me. I was talking to Israel earlier, and he said I should share some of this stuff on here. So instead of paring it down, I decided to post all of my original, stream-of-consciousness thoughts on the subject. All of these thoughts become the basis for what I speak about. They are rough, mind you, and many parts are written as if I am speaking in front of the church.
Some Thoughts
Romans 12:2 says “do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
To me this a good example of why we worship: to be transformed. In worshipping we enter, as Richard Foster says, the Shekinah of God. The here-and-now presence of God. Well, not that His presence is ever NOT here-and-now, its just kind of “tuning our dial to the signal.” It’s really getting in touch with what God is doing HERE and NOW, in us, in others, for us, and for others.
It’s also us blessing God, ministering to the Father. Not just thanking him for what he has done, but really contemplating who He is. Really glorifying who He is. And then soaking in that glory.
We can worship without singing. We can worship without physically laying on our faces in prostrate. Or without kneeling. Or without bowing our heads. Or without lifting our hands. These are all wonderful practices, and I would definitely encourage all of them, but worship is more than this. It is a mindset, and more than a mindset, a heart posture. The heart posture that says “this isn’t about me, it’s about God.”
In a church setting, it’s so easy to get caught up in looking around the room and seeing what everyone else is doing. It’s so easy to get caught up in the emotion of the moment, and do just that: be emotional. To think to yourself, “oh, well people are lifting their hands, I probably should.” Or to look around and feel like you are missing something because you aren’t singing. Or to say “I like it better when the other worship team sings this song.” These are just a few examples, and I think there are a million reasons that we can get wrapped up in the emotional side of worship. That’s not the important part. The important part is knowing God wants to meet us where we are.
Imagine how awesome it would be on Sunday morning, as we are all standing there in with our different mindsets and heart postures, some singing, some dancing, some kneeling, some sitting, some just standing there, and then just turning our hearts toward God. Just knowing that in that midst, if we would open a worshipful heart toward God, that HE knows where we are, and how we are worshipping him. If we all tried to do this, I wonder how much it would matter if the person next to us was singing or not? I wonder how much it would matter if my wife was lifting her hands, and I wasn’t. I wonder how much it would matter if I saw 10 people dancing up front, and I’m sitting down in the back row.
It wouldn’t.
God would be so glorified in that place. God would meet us here. We would be in tune with his Shekinah. We would blow the roof off.
Thoughts, Week 2
Richard Foster says “worship begins with holy expectancy, it ends with holy obedience.” I can wrap my head around coming to worship with some sort of expectation for God to do SOMETHING, but I never really pondered “holy” expectancy.
The difference I see between expectation and HOLY expectation, again, all boils down to heart posture.
Our worldly expectation in worship would be something along the lines of “God, I am coming to worship expecting you to make me feel better about myself.” The danger in this attitude is obvious: it turns worship into this very self-centered thing, and the end result is nothing more than a “warm and fuzzy” feeling. Last week I was talking about worship as an emotional experience, and how it really does nothing for us in the end other than us feeling something. Don’t get me wrong, feeling something is great. To a lot of us, feeling is just what we need. Physically knowing God is there. Feeling God’s touch, warmth, presence. But I really think that God wants us to experience so much more than that.
So what is holy expectation then? I think it’s the opposite of worldly or humanly expectation. Instead of saying “God I want you to make feel better about myself,” it’s saying “God, I am coming to worship to step into your presence. I am coming to worship to sit at your feet and listen. I am expecting to come out of this experience with a better understanding of your heart for me, as well as others. I am expecting to hear your voice clearly. I am expecting to be able to listen to you.” And on and on.
Do you see how much more we would get out of a worship experience like this? With an expectant heart that isn’t expecting anything more than a good feeling, we miss SO much of what God might want to do in us, or what God might want us to do! In the midst of worship, God might want us to look at a certain sin in our life. He might want to show us more about His plan for our lives. He might put someone in the room on our hearts to pray for, or just to walk over and give a hug.
Sometimes, after worshipping with this holy expectation, we might have a warm and fuzzy feeling. Sometimes we won’t. Sometimes we might feel uneasy. Sometimes we might feel uncomfortable. Sometimes we might feel nervous. But in really expecting God’s presence, and really being in it, the one thing we will feel is that God is there. God is in the midst of whatever feeling that we are having, and the focus is no longer on how I want to feel this or that, but now is on the fact that somehow, the way I am feeling has something to with what God is doing.
And that’s a good feeling.
Thoughts, Week 3
So if Richard Foster says “worship begins with holy expectancy, it ends with holy obedience,” what is holy obedience?
Holy obedience. Sounds heavy.
Honestly, the first thing that comes to my mind if I were to think of the words “holy” and “obedience” is some selfish idea that God is going to tell me to do something that sucks. And then I’m going to feel a bunch of guilt for not wanting to do it. That or some sort of obligation.
But I think holy obedience, especially in worship, is something totally different than that. I really think it is just the outcome of us being able to listen to God’s heart. And I think if we approach God’s presence with holy expectancy, then the idea that God would have something for us to do or at least think of doing would be less “man, I really don’t want to do that, but I guess I should,” and more “I NEED to do this. I know that something will release and I will be more free because of this.”
So what is this “thing” that God’s going to tell me to do? I don’t know. It could be a ton of different things. Some examples I can think of might be God really opening my eyes to a certain sin in my life that is really holding me back from experiencing His Kingdom. It might be God saying “Go dance. Right now. You don’t know how much release you, as well as others, will feel because of it, right here, right now.” Maybe it’s God just saying “I know you think church music sucks, but just sing. Sing to me, like I’m the only one in the room with you.” Maybe it’s an itch to talk to someone about joining the worship team, and it was just that little push from God that you needed. Maybe it’s God saying “that new person over there looks like she really needs a shoulder to cry on right now. Go pray for her.” I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea.
We see so much freedom from really following God’s heart. God knows and always wants what’s best for us. Holy obedience is really just letting go of ourselves. In worship, holy obedience is really letting go of our preconceived notions of what we think worship should be. With holy obedience, we realize that we don’t worship to feel good. We worship to know the Father. We worship to harbor a deep connection to Jesus. We worship to really experience the power of the Holy Spirit. We worship to take ourselves out of the picture.
We worship to not be “conformed to the pattern of this world.” We worship to be “transformed by the renewing of our minds.” We worship so that we may “discern the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Thoughts, Week 4
One thing that’s awesome about worship is that it puts us all on the same page. It’s bringing to the forefront the one thing that’s the most important: our relationship with God. If worship is all about reflecting, meditating, praising, exalting, or just sitting in the midst of God’s glory, then where is room for any of our worldly things? There really isn’t!
This is one thing that I find really awesome about worship. There are so many different theologies, so many different sociopolitical ideologies, just so many different people in this room. Some of us spend a lot of our lives focused on these things, focused on our differences. But worship takes us out of that focus. Worship kind of levels the playing field. In being united in worship, we move from focusing on our differences, to celebrating them, knowing that we are still all focused on one thing: the Kingdom.
I read something very eloquent this week: “there is always a moment in our singing when a leading voice drops away and together we find a collective voice. It never fails, and somehow in that moment everyone is leading and no one is leading. This is the kind of thing that happens when a group of people start tapping into the reality and mystery of a God who is ‘one’. We begin to become one ourselves. The shared experience of singing together is a deeply subversive, counter-cultural act of mutual submission.”*
That’s what’s awesome about worship. In worship, our natural inclination is to come together. In worship, we come to realize what Ephesians 4:4-6 says, “there is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called—one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” We start to throw down our judgements towards one another’s belief systems. We start to focus on who God is, and how much we can let our various theologies and ideas get in the way of who He is and what He wants to do. We open our hearts up to listen to God and follow him, unified with our brothers and sisters. Worship clears our mind of all the “Christian stuff” that we can tend to cloud it with, and opens our minds, together, to the true heart of God.
* http://www.marshill.org/userfiles/Why%20To%20Sing.pdf
