I've been thinking about worship a lot lately, why I worship, why people worship, why it matters. The answers seem obvious until you really turn your attention to it and search for honest answers. The best place to do this is, of course, at church. Just pay attention with a little more light on the subject. You might be surprised what you see, or feel.
Church is an eternal action. I take it very seriously. It is, for me, the most important thing I do every week, and I can't exactly explain why; and if I could, it wouldn't be the magnificent mystery that it is. I know that God is with me everywhere all the time. I rejoice in the Lord always and pray without ceasing. But no matter what is going on in life, what mood, what anything, I sense God in a unique way when I worship with the church. I don't always leave "feeling better," I don't leave with all my problems solved, but I always leave knowing that it was "right to give our thanks and praise."
I discovered a theologian, Marva Dawn, a couple of years ago, and she inspired me to think the church thing through in a new light. I should be more specific. It's the music. Worship through music. Why is such a natural and beautiful gift from God such a controversial thing, when it is so easy to simply give that gift right back to God with hearts full of praise? How hard can it be? But "worship wars" have been part of church angst since Gregorian Chant.
I like this that Marva says: "Instead of asking what kind of music will appeal to the world around us, we must ask, What will enable us most deeply to dwell in God's Word? What will best express that Word? How will the Word's beauty and mystery, its infinity and generosity be best conveyed?"
Good questions, Marva.
I find that the more I "dwell in God's Word" the more I long to worship and the less I care about all those things people bicker about.
I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me. - Psalm 13:6
Marva Dawn stated, "May we go from this place so eager to bless the Lord our God, the King of the universe, that we become like Him and share His goodness with the world…"
ReplyDeleteThis phrase sums up a deeply needed challenge to the Church, for us to rethink what the point of congregational worship is. Self-expression is, inevitably, a part of personal worship (as we individually express praise for Christ), but to make congregational worship about self-expression is to idolize our needs and methods, rather than focus on an interaction with God - to bless Him, to praise Him, and to have an experience with our Creator. So often, we forget that worship, especially congregational worship, is something that God has called us to do. Self-expression, in worship, is not necessarily a bad thing. God created each of us to be unique; we each give something in praise that is our own - no one else on the entire earth can give what another individual has. However, the worship described in the biblical stories that Marva Dawn mentioned seemed to have a common theme of "praising God because the point is to praise God" - which is absolutely true - but doing so in the "storms" of life. We are to worship and celebrate God, regardless of our circumstances. I agree with this point. However, the argument isn't necessarily between "self-expression" and "praising God". It is more about worshipping Christ versus letting ANYTHING other than that become our central point. Congregational worship, individual worship, or any other kind of Christ-centered worship is bound to have self-expression involved - we are expressing our response to God's love. I don't see a problem with self expression as long as praising the Lord is kept the focal point.
Blog 2:
ReplyDeleteHmmm…I have mixed feelings about this topic. Worship is a fun, yet challenging topic when it comes to talking about self expression. Here is my opinion on this.. Worship is something unique for each person in the way they express their adoration to the Lord. There is no set form or pattern of worship that is king and transcends through all peoples, languages, and tongues. The way I worship the Lord is not going to be the exact same way that my brothers worship, or the way that people living in Central America or Africa worship the Lord. I believe that self-expression is a very important thing for individuals when it comes to giving praise, honor, and adoration to the Lord. So, in my opinion, self-expression is not necessarily a bad thing. I do, however, believe it becomes a problem when our self-expression turns into self-adoration and self-love… when it becomes something that points to ourselves instead of to the Lord.
Marva Dawn talked about two things in her book, “A Royal Waste of Time,” that I liked and agreed with, though. In chapter 18, she talked about how the Jewish roots (of our faith) had a thing called B’rakhot, which was essentially a way that they found God in every situation. No matter what it was, they would find something to thank Him for in the situation they were in. This is a form of worship that I think is important, and we should all be practicing. The other thing I liked that she brought up was in chapter 19 when she spoke about how people seem to be emotionally driven in their time of praise… something that I have noticed is that we cannot let our emotions drive us.. Our emotions go all over the place, and so sometimes our “self-expression” is just an emotional response, instead of true worship. I think we just need to be aware of how and why we are worshiping, in order to make sure that our self-expression is not just because we are on an emotional high.
Self-expression is found all throughout the arts and is deeply needed in order to fully participate in worship, but is there such thing as too much self-expression in congregational worship? Why yes there is. According to Mrs. Marva Dawn, “worship becomes private devotional praise instead of corporate worship.” I fully agree with this statement. We can get so caught up in the moment with God that we forget everyone else around us. This isn’t always a bad thing. These have been some of the most powerful moments for me personally in worship. I do think it is too much when everyone is in their own little bubble with God. So what’s a good in-between? We should make it a congregational experience. Psalms 150:1-6 says, “Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens! Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness! Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp! Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe! Praise him with sounding cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals!” If there is full focus on Christ, then we are responding to Christ in a biblically morale way, which shoots down Marva’s warning saying “freedom becomes libertinism if there is no disciplinary boundary.” We need to keep Christ at the center at all times. Dawn also warns about self-expression becoming the thing we worship in church. This is just another extreme. Our church worship services should be less about self-expression and more about responding to what God has done in our lives at a congregational level. As Isaiah 44:23 says: “Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done it; shout, O depths of the earth; break forth into singing, O mountains, O forest, and every tree in it! For the Lord has redeemed Jacob, and will be glorified in Israel.” Let us worship and praise God the way that he has called us to sing praise. Let’s do it joyfully, not sitting on an old pew with our heads bowed, but with gladness and adoration for our Lords greatness.
ReplyDeleteTYLER:
ReplyDeleteI personally believe that there is a danger in too much self espresso on in congregational
worship. I believe that congregational worship is coming together as a church and lifting your
praise to God. The congregation gathers to hear word from a priest and to collectively give
thanks to God. When we start self expression in worship, I think it will be a mad house. You
have sister Sue in the back flailing her arms, while brother john is screaming across the room all
he did this week, you have a mass of people at the alter shaking and jiving claiming to be in the
spirit, then you have others on the alter putting on a waterworks show, all while the praise band
is trying to lead. Now I do believe and hope that this is an extreme example, but self expression
in worship takes your eyes and thoughts off of God and onto yourself. In the end, it basically
becomes a competition on who has the best self expression. I also think that when you
introduce self expression into worship you near crossing the line of thanksgiving and stating
what you will do. Instead of telling God all that you are thankful for him doing, you turn to the act
of telling God what you will do if he does something for you. Self expression in congregational
worship I believe is a bad idea. I have personally witnessed it in certain churches that I have
been in, and if you're not a member your sitting there looking at those who are so into self
expression thinking you look like an idiot what are you doing because honestly as a guest I'm
more concentrated on you than I am worship now, because I wanna know what in the world is
wrong with you. This is why I believe that self expression in worship is a dangerous item to
partake in.
JESSICA:
ReplyDeleteThere are many dangers of congregational worship discussed in reference to today's Church. One of these dangers, according to Dawn, is that "we have lost our Jewish sense that we are God's people, not persons," (222). This idea is confrontational, because it suggests that the church has become significantly more focused on the individual than the whole. The worship described in the biblical passage is directed towards the glory, holiness, power, and majesty of Almighty God. They focus on what He has done and who He is, rather than what hasn't come to pass and who we think He is. I think the heart of the concern is valid in some cases. The Church is often more concerned with how to best serve the congregation and keep the people happy than how to best serve God. Our faith should be inspired by the love and power and goodness of an Almighty God who came to earth for us, rather than how beneficial each Sunday service is. I think that worship is directed towards unbelievers, often more so than the believers. Whereas church is supposed to be primarily a gathering of believers as we see represented by the early church in Acts, we have made it a safe zone for unbelievers, fearful of scaring them off with theological discussions and references to the work of the Holy Spirit. We are too afraid of causing non-Christians to view the church as super Christian that we have watered down our faith in a way that often causes them to see a shallow version of our faith instead of an acceptable one. Church should be more emphatic about focusing on training and discipling and loving God because of who He is. Only when we reemphasize our roots can we truly reach the lost with authentic, life-changing Christianity. Our safe version of faith becomes less effective, rather than more effective.
Worship in this day and age has become so much more than something that happens in church, especially the music. At this point people are writing worship songs that aren't even necessarily for the church or for the congregation. Worship music has become such a big thing that people are using it to make money or even just to flex their song writing ability, not to share Gods message and bring people together. I personally don't think that self-expression in congregational worship is a bad thing. I think everyone worships differently and has a different relationship with God. I think the real issue becomes when the person leading makes it too much about themselves and not as much about leading the congregation. Personally, even though I sort of do my own worship thing, it bothers me. I know that in worship people want to be led, they want to feel some sense of community and not to feel like they are watching some show. The point of church is to get together in the house of God with others in community to worship and talk and learn about God together. What concerns me is that if everything becomes about self-expression and not the congregation as a whole, then what is the point of going to church if we could just do it at home by ourselves? In my opinion that would be a huge loss to Christianity as a whole and many Christians would lose the accountability that going to church every week brings. Also as it says in the book we don't worship together because we want to, we worship together because it was Gods idea for his people. "God is not commanding, ""Rejoice as an individual"; God is urging, "Rejoice as a people."" In short, self expression shouldn't be completely taken out of church, we just need to be aware when we are isolating ourselves from congregational worship, rather than encouraging it.
ReplyDeleteTREVIN
ReplyDeleteTo me worship is who you are. Its what we as human beings were created to do from the beginning of time. The way I feel about worship is that you are who you are. And in that I mean that if you can't be who you are all the time rather its in church or not then it's not true worship because worship is who you are. I honestly don't believe there is one set way to worship. My worship is not like your worship and your worship is not like my worship but its because our worship is a reflection of what God is doing in our lives individually. So when it comes to worshipping in the church, if you are living a way that doesn't propagate a worshipful atmosphere outside of church then comes to church and try to propagate an atmosphere for worship, its fake. Those that worship me, let them worship me in spirit and truth and I feel like thats in your everyday life. God created each of us individually and I'm sure he don't want me to worship him just like you. What is the beauty in that? Im just sitting here thinking and shouldn't our worship be a self expression. Shouldn't we express to God what is on our hearts to express? Well, what if whats on my heart is different from whats on your heart in that moment? To me true worship comes out of what is on your heart to do and not doing something just because my brothers are doing something different. Be you and in that true worship will emerge.