Praise and Worship

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Are You Leading Worship or Entertaining?

My brother travels across the country, ministering in a variety of churches, and I have the blessing of traveling with him. There are times, though, that I look around and think, Something is missing.

A few years ago, I was beginning to worry about myself. I felt like I was becoming one of those stodgy old women who refuses to accept modern praise and worship music, because they are not hymns. Now don’t get me wrong. I love hymns and am saddened by the fact that many young people (if not most) will never know the lyrics that have stood the test of time. But I finally realized that my objection is not so much the songs that are sung (although some leave much to be desired); it is the way they are sung.

People complain about the old 7/11 songs but, today, churches introduce songs that are not only shallow; they were not written to be sung by a congregation. They may be great for a praise & worship singer to sing in concert, but they are very difficult for people to sing along with.

praiseworship

Often on Sunday mornings, I am tired. Especially if I’ve been on my feet at a convention all weekend, Sundays can be very hard. I rely on God’s strength to get me through the day, and I look forward to worshiping with His people, but some weeks, I don’t really get that.

There are exceptions, of course. Some churches are full of the presence of the Lord the moment we arrive. It’s obvious the people there love the Lord and each other, and they are eager to see what God is going to do in their midst. This is what the Church should look like.

I would love to see more churches do a mixture of hymns and praise and worship songs. The key to worship is singing songs that honor our Lord while focusing on Him, not the people around us. At the same time, the leader must be in tune with those around him or her. Are they singing? Praying? Worshiping? Or are they merely watching? The difference between a worship service and a concert is that the former should not be a performance. It is not a contest of vocal or musical ability. It is the gift of seeing those who have had a rough week, who are discouraged, who wonder why they are even there, and leading them into the presence of the Lord. Once there, they can leave their burdens at the altar and better hear the message God desires to speak to them.

A true worship leader is just as important as a pastor who preaches the Word without compromise. Together, they will help to build a church that God can use in a mighty way.

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Is it NOTHING to YOU?

A popular song written by a godless man named John Lennon includes the following lyrics:

“Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today…Imagine”

Tragically for Lennon, he was wrong. Thankfully for those still living, he was wrong.

imaginetrib

There are many who try to imagine there is no heaven and no hell. They think that if they merely use the power of positive thinking that eventually everybody in the world will simply “live for today.” Yet, Lennon wrote in a world where depravity abounds more and more. He wrote of a world that knows war, famine, and disease. His words struck a chord of hope, although a false hope, with millions though and still do today with people who are just living for today. These individuals think that they live in some kind of utopic stupor, and if they only imagine hard enough things will change.

King Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 1:9 that “there is nothing new under the sun.” Less than 350 years later, we find a prophet who is sits weeping and wailing before God facing this same challenge that we see today.

The remaining inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem are living in a utopic stupor. They believe their problems are going to get better. The people approach Jeremiah and even ask him to pray and seek the face of God in Jeremiah 42 on their behalf. Then, they promise him that whatever the Lord says whether good or bad, they will be willing to follow. God speaks with Jeremiah and receives word that destruction and devastation will fall upon the land from the king of Babylon.

Immediately, the people seek forgiveness from God, turn from their wicked ways, and God relents and grants pardon! Praise be to the everlasting God for His abundant mercy! This is the way the story SHOULD have ended.

However, that is NOT what happened. Just one chapter later in Jeremiah 43, they immediately turned on the prophet and called him a liar. They told him and sought to influence others that God would not really send judgment to the land. Their words implicated them in their own sin as they tried to convince themselves that not only did Jeremiah not have a message from God, but that he was not a true messenger. The people’s imaginations were vain and their hearts were hardened.

Now destruction has befallen the land. War has arrived and the land has been besieged and then plundered. The physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing of the people left has been destroyed by the wanton rape, murder, and assault by the foreign soldiers of Nebuchadnezzar’s army. Further, Jerusalem is in ruins. The glorious city that graced the hills of Judea, along with the magnificent temple built by Solomon, has been destroyed BECAUSE OF SIN! The sin probably did not even start out very big, but little by little they gave in to the lusts of their heart and God was quickly forgotten.

weeping prophet
Now, Jeremiah weeps and wails his heart-rending laments and cries aloud in Lamentations 1:12 – “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which was brought upon me, which the LORD afflicted on the day of his fierce anger.”

Can you see him sitting with sackcloth covering his body, throwing dust into the air over his head, his eyes swollen red and grotesque in shape, and his entire body racked with sobs as he ponders what has taken place? He is not denying the sin that took place either in his own heart and life, nor the sin that befell the nation of Israel and Judah. He wails because he has lived to see the results of what sin will do if left unchecked and unrestrained and then allowed to continue until judgment falls from God.

He is willing even for strangers to stop and lament with him. He wants somebody, anybody, to mourn and lament with him over the desecration of the temple and of Jerusalem. However, nobody is stopping. They do not care. Destruction arrived and even in the middle of its arrival, there are still some who are living in a dream world just “knowing” that things will get better soon. The problem is that “soon” will not arrive.

In Lamentations 1:10, we hear the prophet’s lament and like Nehemiah who would come approximately 70 years later, we understand part of what his concern is. “The enemy has stretched out his hands over all her precious things; for she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary, those whom you forbade to enter your congregation.”

His heartbreak is real. The glory of God rested upon the Holy of Holies in the Temple. It was such a terrible place to be if you were not the high priest who was allowed to enter just once per year. It was a terrible place even if you were the chosen high priest to go in where you would face God. I can imagine that more than one high priest must have trembled when he entered that sacred realm to offer the blood of the sacrifices as an atonement. Sadly, the trembling had ceased a long time ago. Worship was no longer present, and it was little more than a frivolous atmosphere that greeted those who still bothered to go and give worship and praise to God.

Now, the prophet has watched as foreign troops not only invaded the land, but completely desecrated that which was to remain holy. The soldiers trampled under foot the holy items and the holy place because they had no appreciation for the God that rules over all. Their only concern was in looting whatever they wanted and assaulting whoever they chose.

What a great tragedy that befell Israel, and the messenger of God is as devastated in heart, mind, and soul as the devastation that has even overturned the gates and stones of the city and temple.

Can you see the connection between what took place in Jeremiah’s day and today? Sin abounds more and more. The world is NOT getting better. The true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ cannot imagine a better world in this life because they are fully aware that the only way a better world will come is when the Prince of Peace appears.

But my concern today is not just in reading the laments of Jeremiah over the city. The concern that grows on me daily is that destruction is coming and few seem to really care. I am not concerned about those who belong to Satan and are under his control. My heartache comes from knowing that those who are claiming the name of Christ, those who are supposed to be working to make themselves pure before the return of the Lord, those who are to be different from the world, those who have been made a new creation in Christ Jesus and are clothed with the garments of His righteousness. These are the people to whom I write.

isitnothing

“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?”

The buildings, in which we worship, have been desecrated underfoot by the feet of those who do not belong. God, long ago, laid out the demands for what He expects in worship from His people but these have been ignored.

“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?”

Pastors fail to preach truth because they are afraid of what they may lose, and prefer earthly treasures over heavenly ones.

“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?”

Leadership teams fail to hold one another accountable based on the standards of Scripture, and instead, seek to govern from business perspectives that are modeled after worldly psychological methods.

“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?”

Marriages in our churches are falling apart at the same rate as those in the world. Parents have little respect from their children. Fathers have failed to be spiritual leaders in the church and in their home. Mothers are taking on responsibilities that do not belong to them both in the church and in the home.

“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?”

Children are following hard after drugs, alcohol, and premarital sex. They are running away from the church because all they see is hypocrisy. Dad and Mom live during the week something different than what they portray in their once or twice a month church appearance.

“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?”

Parents want to come and cry out for prayer that God will bring their children back to the church. Their prayer should be first that God would break their own hearts and seek repentance for their sin and duplicity before God and before their children. Then, God will hear the prayer of the righteous person and may in turn be gracious in His mercy and longsuffering to bring salvation to the children.

“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?”

The unsaved are being permitted to become members of local body of believers without ever having made a true profession of faith in Christ Jesus. So, the churches are being taken over by those who care not one bit for the things of Christ. The buildings are filled with people who are man-centered, and not God-centered, and in so doing, they have become little more than social clubs.

“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?”

The gospel has been watered down so much that it is no longer recognizable as Scripture. It has become a little feel-good message that seeks to allow into heaven all who do not belong there. The message is so smooth and culturally relevant that myriads gather every Sunday and they are rarely, if ever, convicted over the depravity of their own hearts.

“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?”

Entertainment and programs are the order of the day because we are concerned that the goats may leave if they are not made to feel happy or good about themselves. Our worship does not reflect praise of God because we come to hear about God instead of coming to learn from Him and to offer the worship that is due His name alone.

“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?”

Our churches care little for true missions because we are rarely concerned about what we cannot see. More times than not, missions has been reduced to feeding the poor, building nice buildings, clothing the ragged, and educated the uneducated. Churches pat themselves on the back for having done something great for God while these same people head straight for hell because many so-called “mission societies and organizations” only preach a social gospel message.

“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?”

Prayer is mostly absent, if not, almost extinct. Prayer meetings and Bible studies are often attended by less than 5% of the total membership. And we wonder why there is NO POWER in our gathering together. We talk about it every now and then, but few are willing to give up some comforts in order to see something changed.

“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?”

Friends, we need more like Jeremiah who will weep and wail at sin, at the coming destruction, at the reality of hell and judgment from a holy, righteous God, at the sad state of affairs where people wink at sin and refuse to stand for truth, and also because of what is taking over in many parts of evangelical Christianity.

I am tired of worrying about what other people may think of me. My heart is heavy because I am afraid for too long in my Christian life that I have not been concerned enough about what God KNOWS of me.

My challenge with this post is to point out the reality of what is around us. The Scriptures are clear that if we forget God, we will face judgment. We need to get back to a standard that speaks of Holiness to the LORD. We need to pray, repent and confess our sins, turn from our wicked ways, and seek the face of the Almighty God. We need to pray that God does not allow such destruction among His people that somebody in the future will look back and lament about what happened to the church of the living God.

“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?”

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An Open Letter to Praise Bands

Dear Praise Band,

I so appreciate your willingness and desire to offer up your gifts to God in worship. I appreciate your devotion and celebrate your faithfulness–schlepping to church early, Sunday after Sunday, making time for practice mid-week, learning and writing new songs, and so much more. Like those skilled artists and artisans that God used to create the tabernacle (Exodus 36), you are willing to put your artistic gifts in service to the Triune God.
So please receive this little missive in the spirit it is meant: as an encouragement to reflect on the practice of “leading worship.” It seems to me that you are often simply co-opted into a practice without being encouraged to reflect on its rationale, its “reason why.” In other words, it seems to me that you are often recruited to “lead worship” without much opportunity to pause and reflect on the nature of “worship” and what it would mean to “lead.”
In particular, my concern is that we, the church, have unwittingly encouraged you to simply import musical practices into Christian worship that–while they might be appropriate elsewhere–are detrimental to congregational worship. More pointedly, using language I first employed in Desiring the Kingdom, I sometimes worry that we’ve unwittingly encouraged you to import certain forms of performancethat are, in effect, “secular liturgies” and not just neutral “methods.” Without us realizing it, the dominant practices of performance train us to relate to music (and musicians) in a certain way: as something for our pleasure, as entertainment, as a largely passive experience. The function and goal of music in these “secular liturgies” is quite different from the function and goal of music in Christian worship.
So let me offer just a few brief axioms with the hope of encouraging new reflection on the practice of “leading worship”:
1. If we, the congregation, can’t hear ourselves, it’s not worship. Christian worship is not a concert. In a concert (a particular “form of performance”), we often expect to be overwhelmed by sound, particularly in certain styles of music. In a concert, we come to expect that weird sort of sensory deprivation that happens from sensory overload, when the pounding of the bass on our chest and the wash of music over the crowd leaves us with the rush of a certain aural vertigo. And there’s nothing wrong with concerts! It’s just that Christian worship is not a concert. Christian worship is a collective, communal, congregational practice–and the gathered sound and harmony of a congregation singing as one is integral to the practice of worship. It is a way of “performing” the reality that, in Christ, we are one body. But that requires that we actually be able to hear ourselves, and hear our sisters and brothers singing alongside us. When the amped sound of the praise band overwhelms congregational voices, we can’t hear ourselves sing–so we lose that communal aspect of the congregation and are encouraged to effectively become “private,” passive worshipers.
2. If we, the congregation, can’t sing along, it’s not worship. In other forms of musical performance, musicians and bands will want to improvise and “be creative,” offering new renditions and exhibiting their virtuosity with all sorts of different trills and pauses and improvisations on the received tune. Again, that can be a delightful aspect of a concert, but in Christian worship it just means that we, the congregation, can’t sing along. And so your virtuosity gives rise to our passivity; your creativity simply encourages our silence. And while you may be worshiping with your creativity, the same creativity actually shuts down congregational song.
3. If you, the praise band, are the center of attention, it’s not worship. I know it’s generally not your fault that we’ve put you at the front of the church. And I know you want to model worship for us to imitate. But because we’ve encouraged you to basically import forms of performance from the concert venue into the sanctuary, we might not realize that we’ve also unwittingly encouraged a sense that you are the center of attention. And when your performance becomes a display of your virtuosity–even with the best of intentions–it’s difficult to counter the temptation to make the praise band the focus of our attention. When the praise band goes into long riffs that you might intend as “offerings to God,” we the congregation become utterly passive, and because we’ve adopted habits of relating to music from the Grammys and the concert venue, we unwittingly make you the center of attention. I wonder if there might be some intentional reflection on placement (to the side? leading from behind?) and performance that might help us counter these habits we bring with us to worship.
Please consider these points carefully and recognize what I am not saying. This isn’t just some plea for “traditional” worship and a critique of “contemporary” worship. Don’t mistake this as a defense of pipe organs and a critique of guitars and drums (or banjos and mandolins). My concern isn’t with style, but with form: What are we trying to do when we “lead worship?” If we are intentional about worship as a communal, congregational practice that brings us into a dialogical encounter with the living God–that worship is not merely expressive but also formative–then we can do that with cellos or steel guitars, pipe organs or African drums.
Much, much more could be said. But let me stop here, and please receive this as the encouragement it’s meant to be. I would love to see you continue to offer your artistic gifts in worship to the Triune God who is teaching us a new song.
Most sincerely,

Jamie

Postscript to “An Open Letter to Praise Bands”

So, I guess my little “Open Letter to Praise Bands” generated some interest. I’m glad that it could be a catalyst or foil for some intentional reflection on the howof Christian worship. I won’t even attempt to address the array of responses it has generated. I’m content to let some misreadings spin themselves out. So I’m not out to police the ways I’ve been misunderstood.
However, I do think it’s important to name an issue in the background that affects how we can have this conversation: not all Christians share the same theology of worship. Indeed, my concern is that some sectors of North American Christianity don’t have much of a theology of worship at all. Many of us–including many congregations–have only an implicit understanding of what worship is, and we have not always made that explicit, nor have we subjected our assumptions to rigorous biblical and theological evaluation.
It is my passion for theological intentionality about worship that generated my book Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation. It’s not fair to ask those who read a blog post to read an entire book, but I would invite those who both agreed and those who disagreed with my “Open Letter” to consider Desiring the Kingdom as a fuller articulation of the theology of worship behind my criticisms.
Many of the negative reactions to my missive stem from a fundamentally different understanding of what worship is. That means we are working from fundamentally different starting points. So when someone thinks that I “misunderstand” what’s happening in worship, actually I just disagree with the assumptions behind such worship.
I think this is why some have missed two crucial points in my “Open Letter”–points that were admittedly touched on just briefly. Let me reiterate them here:
1. Worship is not only expressive, it is also formative. It is not only how we express our devotion to God, it is also how the Spirit shapes and forms us to bear God’s image to the world. This is why the form of worship needs to be intentional: worship isn’t just something that we do; it does something to us. And this is why worship in a congregational setting is a communal practice of a congregation by which the Spirit grabs hold of us. How we worship shapes us, and how we worship collectively is an important way of learning to be the body of Christ. (For a helpful account of how our congregational practice of singing embodies the oneness of the body of Christ, see Steve Guthrie’s marvelous chapter, “The Wisdom of Song.”)
2. Because worship is formative, and not merely expressive, that means other cultural practices actually function as “competing” liturgies, rivals to Christian worship. In Desiring the Kingdom, I analyze examples of such “secular liturgies,” including the mall, the stadium, and the university. The point is that such loaded cultural practices are actually shaping our loves and desires by the very form of the practice, not merely by the “content” they offer. If we aren’t aware of this, we can unwittingly adopt what seem to be “neutral” or benign practices without recognizing that they are liturgies that come loaded with a rival vision of “the good life.” If we adopt such practices uncritically, it won’t matter what “content” we convey by them, the practices themselves are ordered to another kingdom. And insofar as we are immersed in them, we are unwittingly mis-shaped by the practices.
Again, there’s much more to be said about this, and a blog isn’t the venue. I do invite those who have been prompted to think about these matters to consider Desiring the Kingdom as a way to continue the conversation.
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1 Sabbath, 3 wolves in sheep’s clothing, and 4 golden calves.

I was not entirely surprised to see Tony Campolo, Brian McLaren, and Rick Warren in support of a ecumenical movement but I was a little surprised to see such CCM golden calves as Natalia Grant, Michael W. Smith, Switchfoot’s lead singer Jon Foreman, and Third Day’s lead singer Mac Powell also lending their support toward this. It seems that every time I turn around another CCM artist reveals how little they believe in the exclusivity of the Gospel.

The One Campaign with the backing of these influential professing Christians has teamed up with three other religions that deny that Jesus is Lord and deny that Jesus is the only way to the Father. Whether you’re a Christian, Jew, Muslim, or Hindu, or of no faith at all, you too can put eternal truths aside to participate in making this world a “better place.”

For more information and examination of this surge toward the blending of all faiths, see A Little Leaven’s post on One Sabbath here, and Slice of Laodicea’s post on it here.

Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said,
“I WILL DWELL IN THEM AND WALK AMONG THEM;
AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.
“Therefore, COME OUT FROM THEIR MIDST AND BE SEPARATE,” says the Lord.
“AND DO NOT TOUCH WHAT IS UNCLEAN;   And I will welcome you.
“And I will be a father to you,  And you shall be sons and daughters to Me,”
Says the Lord Almighty.

2 Corinthians 6:14-18

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The White Horse Inn: “What Does It Mean To Worship?”

This episode of the White Horse Inn is a perfect cap for the Desert Pastor’s series on music in worship (see part one of his ten-part series here). This podcast, What Does it Mean to Worship, deals with the purpose of Christian worship and the issue of music in our worship services.

Why do we go to Church? What is the purpose of worship? Are we there to serve God, or to be served? These questions and more will be discussed on this edition of the White Horse Inn with special guest Harold Senkbeil, author of Dying to Live and Sanctification: Christ in Action.