My journal today: true worship
For a while now, I and many others in our church have been working through a specific approach to daily journaling that involves reading several chapters of scripture each day, and then journaling on the verses that seem to stand out. I struggle with doing this every day. But each time I do, profound truth leaps off the page. Here was my entry today:
Isaiah 29:13 And so the Lord says, “These people say they are mine. They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far away. And their worship of me amounts to nothing more than human laws learned by rote.”
James 1:27 Pure and lasting religion in the sight of God our Father means that we must care for orphans and widows in their troubles, and refuse to let the world corrupt us.
Is 29:13 holds a personal challenge: can I keep my whole being turned toward God? But it also contains my worst nightmare as a worship leader: what if our worship becomes only mindless repetition of human invention, and our hearts are far away from God?
James 1:27 says that God is pleased by 2 things: acting out of compassion for those in need, and journeying toward holiness. Pleasing God is a good thing. It’s almost like being close to his heart. Which takes us back to Is 29:13.
So here are my questions:
- is our worship displeasing to God if we (as a people) fail to serve those in need and live lives dictated largely by the culture around us?
- how should I refuse to let the world corrupt me? What has to go? What has to take its place?
- as a family, how do we do this?
- as a church, how do we do this?
- am I leading this church in worship in a way that encourages us to look beyond ourselves, and pursue holiness? Or am I just pursuing the best we can do?
What if we end up with an excellent production of worship by an inwardly-focused, culture-driven church….. what would God think of that?
Wow. What are we doing.
I don’t think that petitioning the government to do the “christian” thing is the way to go. I would support lower taxes so then I can fulfill my Christian responsibility with greater amounts of resources available to me.
As for Christians supporting war, that’s an entirely different issue.
To the original post:
1. Yes.
2. A constant pursuit of becoming more like Jesus taught. We’ll always be “flavored” by our culture, but I don’t think that we’re “corrupted.”
Good thoughts Kim.
I haven’t thought about this as long or as hard as you have but I do have a few thoughts/observations.
First of all, your/our worship services will always be a product of our culture. Regardless of whether it’s our ‘alternative to pop-culture’ culture or just plain old pop-culture.
Secondly, I think it’s very difficult to keep our worship service from becoming ‘worshiptainment.’ (Like that word? If you do, you have my permission to use it).
Thirdly, it’s my belief that worship services exist to draw us out of our daily/weekly/monthly concerns and center us on the moment and on God. I agree that praise is good. Of course it’s good, it’s in fact rather important. But I also think worship (and the whole service in general) must at some point focus on Jesus’ vision of love, peace, respect and dignity to all peoples here on earth.
[rant]
Here’s where I may offend people. If this second part is true, then how is it that our ‘Christian’ nation is not pounding down the doors of our Federal Gov’t, demanding a stop to the violence and death we are exporting around the world? Or more intimately, why aren’t we asking the Federal Gov’t to put OUR money where OUR mouth is. Instead of 27% of our tax dollars funding the war machine it could feed, cloth, educate and house the poor and homeless of this country. [/rant]
I too haven’t been sleeping a lot at night but for completely different reasons.
Good questions and insights, Krysta. (By the way…you, me, Anne J…all unable to sleep last night? what gives?) It’s important to me to tease out a few things. First of all, God calls us together once a week to worship for a variety of purposes. There’s the whole ‘response to God for what he’s done’ thing, which is what we see God’s people doing when they are gathered together in scripture. They, and we, most often do this through music and prayer. There’s also the ‘resetting our perspective to a Kingdom mindset’ thing. To me, both purposes are necessary in regular corporate worship. In most churches you have the main speaker doing the second purpose, often supported by visuals, testimonies, etc. In your setting, you have ALL the arts aiming at both these things, which is amazing. Can music be used for both? Of course. You’re right, the music we tend to use IS an authentic expression of personal relationship with God, which is ok. The trouble is that we all struggle with self-centeredness. We lose sight of who the music (or dancing or painting or writing) is for, and we only notice how great it makes us feel. We stop hearing that we’ve just spoken this amazing image of ‘The splendor of the King robed in majesty…. let all the earth rejoice!!!!’
It’s the whole mission of the whole church to care for those in need, fight for the oppressed, and pursue holiness. That should be built into the very fabric of a congregation. It’s ok for music and whatever else to be pure expressions of praise within a worship gathering of people who constantly remind themselves of the kind of life God is calling them to. Either extreme isn’t good….. a church that only praises and feels good about itself…. or a corporate gathering where all the time every week is filled with various forms of media telling people how to live with no opportunity to respond to God.
Sheesh. Loooooooong winded am I.
this is interesting. i honestly think that God has us sharing the same frequency for our in-ear monitors.
i spent a chunk of my evening processing through our worship music at Mosaic. i tried desperately to write new lyrics and find Scripture that would inspire me. i even put my iPod on a rotation of worship-esque music. i only became more and more confused and less able to communicate some sort of melody of praise. then i remembered what erwin spoke about sunday. he talked about Jesus being the gate … the one that leads us into the fields to fight the wolves and save the lost. and i wondered …
if our songs aren’t engaging people in a conversation with God that will take them into the epicenter of His activity … if all we’re doing is rising up as song leaders and creating a space for people to feel good about themselves … if our people aren’t actively pursuing opportunities to meet the needs of those around them … what do they really have to celebrate? if our “Body” isn’t serving a dying humanity … if they’re just staying in the sheep’s pin, they don’t need a Savior to lay down His life for them. which also leads me to question what their idea of praise and gratitude is. which leads me to question, again, what worship songs should look like and what their purpose is. for our community, the songs need to be approached as a piece of the conversation God has already been having with His people. but i don’t know that this is the case everywhere and i certainly am not positive i know how we flesh that out where i am. i feel like we’re trying to fit this chris tomlin, david crowder, hillsong united mold when the only reason that music works is because it’s an authentic expression of their personal relationships/diologue with God. not necessarily an expression of the cries/praises of the people i’m leading or that you’re leading.
sorry. that was long. and i’m still just as confused and inquisitive as i was in my insomnia last night. what i mean to say it … you’re not alone.