The third in a 6 part series on worship. I was invited to speak on worship in church; to articulate in 30 minutes the breadth and depth of what I have long experienced and believed to be biblical.
Click for sections: 1 2 3 4 5 6 Wonky (defn) : 1. shaky or unsteady 2. not in correct alignment; askew 3. liable to break down or develop a fault My assertion: Worship is one of the most wonky and misconceived aspects in the contemporary church! 3. The perceptions in worship So, let's talk about worship. Two phrases have really struck me in recent years: “God is a lover looking for a lover, so He fashioned me” [Misty Edwards] “Do you take yourself as seriously as God takes you?” This leads me to two fundamental considerations for worship: 1. What do you think of God? 2. What does God think of you? I don't know if you've seen the recent Noah film ('a preposterous but endearingly unhinged epic'). I think it was bad acting (despite big names) with white actors playing middle eastern characters representing a bizarre distortion of the biblical story. Throughout the film God is portrayed as “the creator” who seems more concerned about restoring an abused physical creation without humans than he is about restoring a relationship with a broken people. How awe-full is that God? Only in the sense of horror and fear. Q1. What do you think of God? This question is at the centre of worship, the heart attitude. To try and talk about this, I suggest the (idealized) human relationship as a simple representation of our approach to God. I worship my wife, in that I value her immensely. I don't worship her as a goddess, but I ascribe her worth-ship. Now, in my relationship I do things for her (or should do – I'm far from perfect): I earn an income so she can do other volunteer activities, I write to her lots when I travel, I give her gifts, I hug her, etc. And I try and be creative … I'll sms her in the living room while I'm in the bedroom, I'll send her silly pictures, I'll tell her a joke even though she doesn't get my sense of humour. And there'll be special times when I'll plan a surprise. Bottom line is that I invest in our relationship because I value her. Expression is fundamental to relationship – the specific form of expression is not important - and the expression shows the measure of value we hold of the other person. If I don't value the other person, I'll not put much effort into how I look, what I say, or even bother being on time. The old testament is an example of a worship relationship through many external forms and functions, rituals, rules, and highly structured. By contrast, the new testament is about a worship relationship through God's spirit within us … but it's up to us to choose to recognize that. Sadly, much of the time we revert to ritual, because that takes little personal investment and only asks that we go through the motions. Imagine if I conducted my relationships with other people through rituals only. What would that say about how I valued them? Jesus says in John 4:23-24 "But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” That's more than ritualistic actions ... our spirit needs to be engaged. The first point to take from this is that worship is a state (an attitude) of spirit that values God. Since this is an individual action, it should be the normal state of affairs all of the time, regardless of place or situation. All the time God should be in consciousness, and in doing so our decisions and actions become conformed to his values. That is the first foundation of worship … NOT a church service, not singing a song … worship is first and foremost an attitude of spirit towards the values of God. Paul says in Rom 12:2: "... be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." By this we understand God's values, and by knowing God's values we can know how to value what God values, and by doing so we are worshipping ... ascribing worth to God's values. So for question 1 – "what do you think of God" – perhaps we should start with just the little phrase “think of God”. Once we're thinking, then we can explore what it is about God that we should think on. If you added up the time each day you spent thinking about God, I wonder how much would that add up to? For every minute you do, you are renewing your mind, and you are worshipping because you are esteeming God by thinking of him. Perhaps that's why human relationships fail; we don't think about what the other person values, and we don't learn to value those things ourselves, and so we fail to value the other person. Second to worshipping in spirit, we worship with a mind centred on the Truth. Jesus even prays for us in this, in John 17:17 he prays to the Father “sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” We're talking Truth with a capital "T" - not the relativistic situationally dependant mush that contemporary post-modernists spout. If you think there are no absolute truths, then life is meaningless. So that's part 3. The second question "What does God think of me?" comes in part 4.
0 Comments
All layers of metaphors and puns in the title and text are intended ... come and visit my mind. This may not make sense to anyone, but I live in it each day. Each day I wander in a haze, like strolling through galactic gas clouds where the hard bright star lights are all so distant; everything is there to amaze and admire, but nothing is solid enough to hold. Endless cascades of imaginations are triggered by trivia, but my energy density is so low that any productivity is minimal. The landscape is seemingly infinite promising yet my transport system is poor – its all horse drawn carts to traverse an eternity. At least I'm a good conversationalist – with myself. Sadly I don't often disagree with myself, and so me and my thoughts drift along in comfortable companionship as we wait for that passing vehicle; the transport of delights. Yearnings are there, but without any overriding imperative to be fulfilled – or is it the fear that the dark canyons of failure are too deep for me to cross over – they remain just that, yearnings. The knowledge of right and wrong is mostly enough to stay on the path until my hyper-leaps of imagination transfer me into temporary wonder-worlds – until dawn, whereupon gravity glances my way and reality, such as it is, reasserts itself. I'm left only with images of what could be. I'm fully conscious – conscious that my expression falls way short of my potential. Potential energy is always such a sad situation; until it's released there can be no conversion into action. There, but for a strategic spark, goes a potential firework display that could dazzle in fulfillment of its created purpose, and rightly burn out with such rapidity that all around are left with an imprinted, unforgettable after-image. Instead, this slowly aging lump fades against the background as it waits for that strength of will to ignite from the inside out. Self regulation is sometimes too effective. There's a gap in my future, two gaps. Over one I must leap to release my stored potential, but the second is where I will be inevitably carried across so I can be renewed. I fear that I will be carried before I've fully leaped, and then my potential will be left disappointingly unused, wasted, and replaced. What an inefficient life we lead. The saving grace in all this are these flashes of clarity when the haze parts momentarily and a vista is revealed. For an instant I can see clearly now, where what I once knew was only dimly seen. These moments come like hard bricks of solid rain that build a palace of understanding. What was once a drifting perception finds an anchor, and its as if the hint has solidified into a rock as if it had always been there. It's not something awesome and new, rather only that the now-obvious reality has materialized from what was always there. Like gravity – of course it must do that, why is everyone else too dull to see. Oh the effort of explaining the obvious. What I could once not be taught, when learned is seemingly impossible to teach. How can one be instructed in experience. How can one instruct others in what is a personal realization. My greatest longing: that great fans would just for a second sweep aside the mist that I might realize for the first time the full solidity that surrounds me. Let the mist then return, it now has no consequence, for once seen I know what's there, and the distortions of the light matter no more. Second in a 6 part series on worship. I was invited to speak on worship in church; to articulate in 30 minutes the breadth and depth of what I have long experienced and believed to be biblical. Click for sections: 1 2 3 4 5 6 Wonky (defn) : 1. shaky or unsteady 2. not in correct alignment; askew 3. liable to break down or develop a fault My assertion: Worship is one of the most wonky and misconceived aspects in the contemporary church! 2. How does worship look in today's church If you talk to people about their understanding of worship and ask them for examples, you very quickly find one commonality: their responses are mostly about style, the comforts of the ritual, loyalty to an institution, the physical building, how I feel, whether I'm enjoying it, and so on. Whether we admit to it or not, we often talk about worship in terms of how much we're getting from it. Consider the 3 legged pig. A traveling salesman was driving past a farm when he saw a pig with three wooden legs executing a magnificent series of backflips and cartwheels. Intrigued, he drove up to the farmhouse, where he found an old farmer sitting in the yard watching the pig. "That's quite a pig you have there, sir" said the salesman. "Sure is, son," the farmer replied. "Why, two years ago, my daughter was swimming in the lake and bumped her head and damned near drowned, but that pig swam out and dragged her back to shore." "Amazing!" the salesman exclaimed. "And that's not the only thing. Last fall I was cuttin' wood up on the north forty when a tree fell on me. Pinned me to the ground, it did. That pig run up and wiggled underneath that tree and lifted it off of me. Saved my life." "Fantastic! the salesman said. But tell me, how come the pig has three wooden legs?" The farmer stared at the newcomer in amazement. "Mister, when you got an amazin' pig like that, you don't eat him all at once." We are just like the farmer: consumers of God's grace, rather than being in awe of his glory Ask people about worship, and most will focus on singing in church. Those who actually think about it for a bit will probably talk about the different parts of the church service. But consider, how would a non-churched person see this. Imagine a web site that was a guide on "HOWTO go to church" Church for Dummies:
Here's the problem: Worship has become compartmentalized within the church service. Without investing personal effort to use the church service as a vehicle for our personal expression, the service devolves instead into a series of semi-passive events. To really make a church service about worship means each individual taking responsibility to actively use the service for engaging in worshipping God. The Jewish nation had some of this too: they wanted kings, they wanted priests, they lavished expense on a temple, they allocated worship responsibilities – if I was a cynic I might say it was to abdicate personal worship responsibility. But even before Jesus there was compartmentalization ... parts of worship left to "the professionals". And here we get a glimpse of what worship practically means for us as individuals. For example, on the level of human relationships, imagine if I esteemed my spouse in the same way. I would write down a set of things to say the same way every time we meet. Or I hired a professional to say nice things on my behalf. Elevate that to a God-me relationship! Look at Jesus' angry reaction when thats tried: Matthew 21:12-13 And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer [which is part of our worship],’ but you make it a den of robbers.” Steve Brown put it well when he wrote "If there is no joy and freedom, it is not a church: it is simply a crowd of melancholy people basking in a religious neurosis." Yet, as A.W. Tozer said "Without worship, we go about miserable." So what is a person to do? (Next steps to come in part 3!) I stumbled on a blog challenge: write about blogs that inspire. Hmmm
Do blogs inspire me, comfort me, annoy me, challenge me ...? In thinking about it I struggle with the concept of "inspires". The blogs that really impact me ... now "impact", there's something I can get my teeth into. But inspire me ... not really! But, but ... perhaps its how I read the word "inspire"? Does inspire mean that it prompts one to take it as a foundation to build further, as a catalyst to something greater and higher, but not negating the source? Or do I take inspire to mean that it gets me off my backside to do something, anything? I think inspire for me is more of the latter, for then its the blog that challenges, that makes me engage my mind, causes me to wrestle with a difficult subject, or even evokes a responsive cry of "No, I disagree because ..." -- there's real inspiration for me. That's what my hunger is; blogs that change the way I think, not blogs that package me in cotton wool. Blogs that challenge my perceptions, blogs that say "Hey, are you sure you've reasoned it out correctly?" Blogs that inspire new perspectives. Such impact can from many sources; for me, images and music are two of the most powerful. For example, I look at the image above and my mind starts to run away with thoughts. Or I can listen to a piece of music, such as Don Chaffer singing I'm amazed by life and it's amazed by me we're a strange old pair me and eternity and before I know it I've lost 10 minutes of my life as my mind follows the rabbit trail of thoughts. I've been "inspired". But which blogs ... inspiring/impacting blogs? Like images and music, it's the challenge posed by the writing, when it turns ideas around and shows me a different face. The epitome for me is G.K. Chesterton. I can't read his "Orthodoxy" without marking or highlighting passages on nearly every single page (and yes, I DO mark my books!). As I read, each phrase is like cresting a ridge and seeing a new vista. Do I find many blogs like that? Well, not at the Chesterton-level of inspiration, but (t)here are some. Note: I don't have to agree with a blog to benefit from a blog, so in that vein let me cite the following: At one end of the spectrum are the "professional" blogs such as Patheos and the multiple Christianity Today blogs like Her.meneutics. Then there's the middle ground of story telling blogs; consider Donald Miller's Storyline blog. From there all the way across to the smaller personal blogs like sowhatimachgristianteen. In parallel are the science blogs like realclimate, and then there's physics, and xkcd's Whatif. Many more besides, but in common they all stop me in my tracks and make me say hmmmm. I was invited to speak on worship in church. My preparation was a journey of exploration, to articulate in 30 minutes the breadth and depth of what I have long experienced and believed to be biblical. What follows is that talk, split into a 6 part series. Click for sections: 1 2 3 4 5 6 Wonky (defn) : 1. shaky or unsteady 2. not in correct alignment; askew 3. liable to break down or develop a fault My assertion: Worship is one of the most wonky and misconceived aspects in the contemporary church! A.W. Tozer nailed the problem when he said: "To great sections of the church the art of worship has been lost entirely, and in its place has come that strange and foreign thing called the ‘program.’ This word has been borrowed from the stage and applied with sad wisdom to the type of public service which now passes for worship among us." 1. First we need a working definition of worship. How often have you heard: “Let's worship now as we sing ...” or “That was great worship”? It's as if there’s a switch somewhere -- we'll switch it on now for 20 minutes, then to save our energy let's switch it off till next week so we can take a rest. Something is seriously wrong. Where do we get a functional definition from? Unfortunately the Bible doesn't have a nice convenient verse like Habbakuk 3:23 stating that "Worship is ...” Instead we have lots of verses that use the term and assume we already understand it. For example Ps 96:9 “Worship the Lord in the splendour of holiness; tremble before him, all the earth!” Ok David, can you tell me how to do that? Or Rom 12:1 “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Right Paul, so what's that look like on a Monday morning? These don't directly help, and leave a lot to inference. Our language doesn't help either; as many of the Hebrew and Greek words in the Bible which get translated as "worship" are actually filled with deep meaning about service, submission & reverence. Then, we have all the authoritative definitions pronounced from the pulpit ... some definitions so broad as to be useless (worship is everything), and some so narrow that they simply turn worship into an object. So let's try the dictionary: (defn) "reverence offered to a divine being or supernatural power; an act of expressing such reverence; to honor with extravagant love and extreme submission" Nice enough, but largely useless in telling us anything about actually worshipping. How about listening to some of the "experts":
So I tried making my own definition, and I came up with: "Worship is an attitude expressed in actions that reflect the values of God" Hmmm? Yet Jesus said: "But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." (Jn 4: 23-24 ESV) OK Jesus, so its important, but what's next? Can you translate this for me? Whatever the definition, worship is clearly fundamental, all encompassing, extravagant, and active expression! So from all the above and more I conclude: The Christian's number one, all-time, top priority is: worship the Person of God! We worship God because he is God. That's it; not for our sake, not for what we can get, not for any reason other than that God is worthy. Interestingly (and not as a primary motivation) there's also a promise attached: James 4:8 "Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you". So we can say, the breath of a Christian, and the breath of the church, is worship: and the logical conclusion is that when you stop breathing you die! Why then is the Church's worship so weirdly wonky? Part 2: looking at worship in the contemporary church An idle odd personal blog entry. It was Venn's anniversary, and I was thinking about family and friends, and hence the play on words "Venn family and friends ..." (and no, I'm not German). I have family, relatives, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, strangers, and people who irritate me. There's overlap: family who irritate, friends who are colleagues, friends who are family, acquaintances who are relatives, etc. You know how it works. As the saying goes, you can choose your friends but you can't choose your family, and perhaps that's just as well. However, I was also thinking about how friends are equals, but families are hierarchies. Parents, grand parents, siblings nieces and nephews; so often the hierarchy twists the relationship. Of course there's good hierarchy (respect your elders etc.). There's also bad hierarchy -- when it's used to abuse. Then there's also the subtle hierarchy among siblings; eldest, youngest, middle child. My experience is that siblings really, really struggle to comprehend what it is to walk in the shoes of their younger or older brother/sister. And that means it's all the harder to break out of the implicit hierarchy, with commensurate tensions that persist into old age when there should be mutual friendship. And so, when Paul says "I have become all things to all people", and we take that as a principle of evangelism, perhaps we could also do a lot better at adopting this for our relationships with family (and of course all the other Venn categories). |
Why?
Probably the best therapy is to express yourself. Why do you think psychiatrists make you lie on the couch and talk, while all they do is murmur "hmmm", "uhuh", or "go on"? Archives
May 2017
|