Tag Archive for worship at Zeal For Truth

Tag Archive for 'worship'

Praise and Worship: What it Isn’t and What it Is

Published by Chris A July 24, 2008 in Religion and Theology. 35 Comments

In a Word, Silly
Last Sunday while I am at my church that I love very much, I noticed myself singing one of those unscriptural “praise and worship” songs. Disappointed with myself for singing something to God that was – well, stupid – I decided to refrain my tongue from lyrical heresy and instead focused on what my relationship with God is really like.

For Christians not familiar with praise and worship is in the popular vernacular, it is basically what “contemporary” Christians sing instead of hymns. If and when contemporary believers sing the old hymns, the tempo is usually changed so that one barely recognizes it as the original song. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to either brand of music and really see value in both insomuch as they are scriptural in their approach and actually magnify God. It’s just that some of these new songs are downright corny. I can scarcely sing them without laughing, thinking to myself, “Am I actually going to sing this song to the Creator of the universe?” Here’s an excerpt from a popular one:

A grateful heart I give
A thankful prayer I pray
A wild dance I dance before You
A loud song I sing
A huge bell I ring…

A huge bell I ring? I can’t even type that without wanting to reduce myself to embarrassing hilarity! Look, I’m not against thankful prayer or even dancing wildly. Heck, I’m not even against ringing huge bells if that’s your thing. But if I’m going to sing a song to the Lord and mean it, I can’t honestly sing stuff like this. It just brings up too many images of The Gong Show or Sanford and Son with Redd Foxx calling someone “big dummy” or Aunt Esther calling him a “heathen” or a “fish-eyed fool.” Then it isn’t long before my mind wanders even further and I’m singing the Welcome Back Kotter them song again – definitely not conducive to worshipping God. And just so we’re clear I believe in rejoicing “with joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8). I just see a major difference between the joy of the Lord, and the comedy that results from letting my quirky imagination run wild when I sing cheesy churchy songs. I mean you might expect kids to sing songs like this (maybe), but when we are singing the adult equivalent of If the devil doesn’t like it he can sit on a tack (ouch!), I think we really have to evaluate what we are singing to God here.

Some Basic Standards
I don’t presume to be the world’s foremost authority on praise and worship, but I think the following guidelines would help us.

Worship songs should be scriptural. Technically it is not even praise to sing about our relationship to God. But if we are going to sing that, it just makes sense that such songs should reflect ideas consistent with the Bible.
Worship songs should be more truth than emotion. The truth never changes, but feelings are fickle. We may not always relate to the emotion the songwriter may have experienced when he wrote the song, but we should all be able to relate to a number of things related to our salvation for which we can be thankful.
Worship songs should ideally seek to minister to God rather than simply minister about Him or our relationship with Him. I don’t mean to say that there is no place for singing about Him, but that should not be the greatest emphasis.
If a song is going to sing about God or our relationship with Him rather than directly to Him, it should not minister condemnation. Condemning songs are NOT praise or worship! God is not impressed, and in fact is rather insulted, by songs that tell us how worthless we are. People who are justified by faith in Jesus Christ cannot be worthless. God never made a worthless new creation.
Praise and worship is not entertainment. Dance teams, streamers, and the like should probably be voluntarily retired. Dance as a way to praise is not unbiblical, but when it is choreographed as a means of entertainment it isn’t praise. If this kind of action demands your attention as a spectator, it isn’t praise.

Biblical Praise and Worship
Aside from what is commonly known as “praise and worship” there is a such praise and worship from a biblical point of view. What is praise? Here is a basic dictionary definition: the offering of grateful homage in words or song, as an act of worship. Beyond this basic agreed upon meaning, Hebrews 13:15 gives us a good description.

Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.

We could paraphrase this by saying praise is verbal thanksgiving to God done through Christ. However, I think we could even extend the definition of praise to include other instruments besides the human voice. Psalm 150:1-5 expands the definition for us.

1 Praise the LORD.
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens.

2 Praise him for his acts of power;
praise him for his surpassing greatness.

3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
praise him with the harp and lyre,

4 praise him with tambourine and dancing,
praise him with the strings and flute,

5 praise him with the clash of cymbals,
praise him with resounding cymbals.

Praise as a Lifestyle
I think to most Christians, praise is something done in church on Sunday morning. Certainly corporate praise is biblical, but God never intended that praise should be limited to a weekly exercise. Let’s examine Hebrews 13:5 again.

Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.

Notice the word continually. Praise to God should be continual. How can one do that? The answer is in the opening phrase of this verse: Therefore by Him… Many of us have conditioned ourselves to think of this sacrifice as something hard to do continually. Why? Because we have failed to realize that we do it by the power of Christ and not sheer human will. I think a little more meddling will help to illustrate this fact. Let’s look at more of the lyrics to the song I quoted earlier.

But I will not forget you
You are my god, my king
With a thankful heart I bring my offering

(Okay so far, but watch out because here it comes)

And my sacrifices are not what you can give
But what I alone can give to you…

I don’t think most people realize it, but believing and singing this will absolutely cripple a person. The “I alone” phrase is particularly troubling to me. You may think that I am being too critical here, but I have to ask - why the emphasis on independence here? Someone may ask, “But aren’t we supposed to offer ourselves as a sacrifice to God?” Yes, but even this we do not do apart from the awareness of God’s mercy. Consider Romans 12:1:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritualact of worship.

Rather than saying “in view of God’s mercy” the King James and New King James versions render it, “by the mercies of God.” So for us to say that we are offering a sacrifice to God in and of ourselves is just false. It is only because of His grace and mercy that we have been reconciled in the first place. Our approach to God in all respects is based on this principle. Have we who begun in the Spirit perfected by the flesh? I think not.

The Personal Effects of Real Praise
Praising God should affect us in a number of positive ways. Not only should our praise bless God, but it should also bless us. The word magnify is often used in the Bible in connection with praising God. Of course this word means to cause to seem greater or more important. So when we are magnifying the Lord we are enlarging our capacity to see God as greater than any adverse circumstances we may encounter, and generally brings us into a greater consciousness of God’s presence.

Many people run into a problem and immediately begin to magnify the problem; it becomes the sole object of their attention to the extent that it robs them of the one sent to indwell them and counsel them on the matter. Although He hasn’t left them or forsaken them, they feel as though He has because they have actually robbed themselves of God consciousness by focusing on “the wind and the waves”. Paul and Silas had a perfect opportunity to do this in Acts 5 when they were beaten and thrown into prison, but instead they took a different approach.

But about midnightPaul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them (Acts 16:25).

Paul and Silas knew that things never can get so bad that you cannot praise God. In fact, the worse things get, the more we should praise him. We’re not praising him because of our trouble but in spite of it. Paul knew very well the power of praise, instructing the Ephesians to cultivate a lifestyle of thanksgiving while conveying to them how to maintain consciousness of the Holy Spirit.

Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ (Ephesians 5:18-20).

Where Do We Go From Here
First of all, we should acknowledge that many people are ignorant about praise. You may fit into that category. I know I once did, and still don’t claim to know everything about it. People only know what they’ve learned, and someone probably (ignorantly) taught them that singing unbelieving songs was somehow praise. I feel that many songs are being sung from a pre-Christ perspective, not a righteous perspective. This is the result of not knowing one’s identity in Christ. Personally, I refuse to sing songs like this – not because I’m being rebellious or defiant – but because I understand that the purpose of singing songs is to praise God. If it isn’t accomplishing that, then what good is it? However, it doesn’t help the situation to try and make the worship leader appear to be wrong or to criticize him personally.

The best thing Christians can do is to begin to cultivate a life of praise themselves. Begin your day by saying, “I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth” (Psalm 34:1). In this way, they will never be unfulfilled by any songs your church sings that are weak, and you’ll never have to rely on your worship leader to uplift you by selecting the right songs.

I’ll be honest, there are some “worship” songs that I absolutely detest, but I’m not upset at people for singing them. Nor will it affect my fellowship with God one way or the other. I think it is perfectly right to judge songs that exalt human experience and feelings above the knowledge of God; we just shouldn’t judge people, especially when their actions result from legitimate ignorance. If you have knowledge they don’t have, that just makes you more responsible to act on what you know; it certainly doesn’t make us better than others who do not know.

You can try to educate fellow believers about what worship actually is, but without the proper approach this could blow up in your face. People can be very sensitive about these things, and if you come off as judgemental it could really do damage to your relationships. And it probably isn’t worth that. Forums such as these are non-confrontational and can function as a teaching tool or as a place for civil (well, most of the time) discussion and debate, but people participate voluntarily. People can read it or not read it. And even if someone strongly disagrees, we will probably never meet face-to-face.

Emerging Impulses: Experimental

Published by Jasen Tracy September 17, 2007 in Religion and Emerging Church. 26 Comments

The Why
As covered last week, some in the Emerging Church have looked back to Church history to form worship styles differing from American Evangelicalism. Others have chosen to experiment with new practices instead (although it’s important to note that these two impulses aren’t mutually exclusive).

The motivation for experimenting with worship practices comes from the ideas that everything good can be a means with which to worship God (a complete rejection of the regulative principle), and that the means of worship should reflect the talents and interests of the church community. Bob Hyatt, the leader of an Emerging church plant in Portland, Oregon, when faced the question of what his new church would be like, said, “I have no earthly idea.” Hyatt expounds on this:

If a bunch of cloggers … showed up, we’d be the clogging church. If a bunch of skate punks showed up, we’d be the skate church. I wasn’t out to niche target-market our community, and so felt great freedom to just sit back and watch what happened. I still feel that freedom…

The What
Dance, drama, and painting, are some of the more common “experimental” practices found in Emerging churches (as well as other types of churches). A more unique idea is that of stations, which are small areas setup for people to go to during the service. There they can do various things, such as pray, journal, meditate, or an artistic activity. This shows an interesting combination of the experimental and historical impulses.

Perhaps some of the most important innovations have come in regard to the act of preaching. Some use relative minor changes such as preaching from the middle of the congregation, or perhaps sitting down so as to be on the same level as everyone else.

Others are making bigger changes, having grown dissatisfied with how preaching is done. They allege that that the monologue format is flawed method and that the overuse of it can damage a church. For example, a preacher can become seen as the sole person with the authority to speak on Biblical matters, and the rest of the church could grow complacent in their own study (and pick up other negatives resulting from acting as an audience).

Doug Pagitt, an Emerging Church leader in Minneapolis, has referred to the monologue style as “speaching,” and recommends instead a “progressional dialogue.” This opens the sermon to questions and input from the congregation, possibly leading to a more impactful service and one that lives up to the idea of the priesthood of all believers.

Changing Church Part. 2

Published by Bryan August 21, 2007 in Religion and Emerging Church. 9 Comments

The critique of the church that is the most broad in scope is that it has embraced a modern world view, divorcing itself from the way church has been done in the past. This critique goes beyond the idea that the church should minister to those in the culture around it by being relevant to that culture. It’s argument is that a large part of the North American church today has become to identify the church of modernity with the way church must be, and there can be no other.

An example may be helpful here. Someone may argue that, given the modern culture around us, the church should produce apologetic arguments based on science and rationality as that is the language and world view that the world around us understands. This would be a way of making the church relevant to the current culture. Another person however may go further and say that the only apologetic arguments that the church can use is those grounded on science and rationality and begin to read, understand, and identify only with a Christianity that fits within the rational and scientific understanding of Christianity. That would be identifying “The Church” as a modern church.

Often the line between the two practices is blurred. A practice may be adopted by a church because it best ministers to the community around them, but as the generation which adopted it begins to die out and the next generation takes over the church, the practice is maintained simply because that is what they have always understood church to be.

It is important, therefore, to look critically at the practices of local evangelical churches. Worship bands, alter calls, baby dedications, greeting time (the list could go on)…are all ways that various churches have sought to put biblical teachings into a specific cultural and philosophical world view; the modern world view. Arguments can be made for how biblical or unbiblical these practices are, however, that is not the point here. We must first recognize that these practices are a way that the church has sought to be relevant to a particular culture; the church should not hold these practices as the only way to do church.

As I noted in the first entry in this series, one of the ways advocated by some in the church to counter this identification with modernity is to revive practices from the pre-modern church. There is certainly some merit to this position. Reviving such practices will encourage the church to understand itself as neither pre-modern, modern, or post-modern, but as a universal object with different instantiations in different times. However, caution must be exercised not to begin to identify the church only with historical practices and rejected the modern church as it has done to the historical church.

Changing Church Part.1

Published by Bryan August 6, 2007 in Religion and Emerging Church. 5 Comments

The church does most for the world when it is least like the world, whereas the church that tries very hard to be “relevant” to the world spells doom for itself and for the world.
-Simon Chan, Liturgical Theology

This is the introduction post to a series about the changing way worship is envisioned as occurring the church today.

There is today a growing movement to make the church in practice different from the world. This is counter to the past several generations. During that time the church was brought as close to the world as it could be in practice. A concerted effort was made to make the church as accessible and relevant to the world in hopes the such an effort would bring the world into the church. This effort had mixed results. In some churches large numerical increases in members occurred. In other churches members who did not like the changes left. Overall however the church in North America has been on the steady decline, and this attempt to shape the practices of the church to the world has not stopped this decline.

Partially in response to the kind of shallow spirituality the past several generations is perceived as producing, partially in disgust to the pragmatic philosophy the underlined the movement, and partially in an attempt to rediscover what it means to be the church, a movement is afoot to undo what the last several generations did by attempting to change church practice so it will more closely resemble older practices in church history. Perhaps the most obvious example of this is the recent decision by the Pope to make it easier for the Latin Mass to be used. Only a generation ago was the Latin Mass replaced with one that was thought to have more appeal. It is not clear how many churches will return to the old mass, but the decision by the Pope to allow it shows the growing belief that the recent changes in the church may not have been for the best.

Similar things are occurring in the Protestant world. The guitar music and almost concert like worship sets are increasingly coming into question. This is seen particularly well in writers from the Emerging Church. One of the main characteristics that define the Emerging Church fort Gibbs and Bolger in their excellent book Emerging Churches is “Merging ancient and contemporary spiritualities”. This includes re-introducing such practices as a liturgy, recited prayers, and the Lectio divina.

Many modern protestant churches view the Emerging Church as a threat becasue of this ancient spirituality that it is attempting to bring into the church. To many in the modern church it smells of Roman Catholicism and is not evangelical. On another level perhaps it is simply not what they are use to, and they want to hold on to their own traditions, while the Emerging Church wants to embrace an older tradition. In any event, the worship wars that existed over the type of music sung in church that died down over the past decade seem to once again be heating up over the practice of worship in church as a whole.

It would seem that a lot of people have begun to sit up and take notice that what the church has been doing for the past couple generations hasn’t worked. They have therefore decided to attempt to return to what the church has done in the past. In the next post in this series we will examine this movement a bit more by looking at some specific critiques of what the modern church has done.

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