For many years now, “worship” has been the in thing in churchdom, the thing we do which is supposed to be paramount, more important than anything else. Evangelism, obedience, faithfulness, discipleship, missions, spiritual gifts–they had their day. But today’s United States church says it’s all about worship.
I confess that I’m totally confused when it comes to worship. I’ve heard so many definitions and general proclamations about worship, with so many contradictions and inconsistencies, that I’ve given up. I think I helped craft one definition, as part of a music team exercise, along the line of, “Worship is giving all of myself to an infinite God.” Or something like that (am I close, Chris?). It was profound, as everything about worship must be.
We hear that worship isn’t what we do on Sunday morning, but how we live throughout the week. That worship is a lifestyle. I’ve heard that everything we do is an act of worship. That we worship by teaching Sunday school, by eating right, by driving within the speed limit. That world missions is, in fact, an act of worship (rather than an act of obedience to the Great Commission, which I was errantly taught as a kid by non-worship-minded adults). When I send my wife flowers or do the dishes or get to work on time–more acts of worship.
But then, we do some kind of elevated worship on Sunday, when we hold worship services. But what part of the morning is worship? When people say, “I really worshipped this morning,” they’re usually talking about the songs. Nobody says, “I really worshipped in listening to that sermon,” or when the offering was taken, or during announcements.
As a worship team, we lead the congregation in worship. But if it’s a lifestyle, and not something we do on Sunday morning, then what exactly is our role? If what we do inspires positive emotion, people will say it was good worship. If the pastor gives a knock-em-dead sermon, people will say it was a great sermon, not a great act of worship.
I read today someone’s thought that, “Quite often worship is simply a baptized version of our culture. In our worship we simply mirror what is all around us–worship of self.” Wow, there’s something to think about. But that person is confining worship to what happens in worship services.
Our new Christian rock stars are worship leaders like Matt Redman, Chris Tomlin, Darlene Zschech, and Tommy Walker. Instead of going to hear them “in concert,” we go to hear them conduct musical worship. During my childhood years we had fulltime evangelists, and they emphasized that winning the lost is more important than anything else we do. Well, few fulltime evangelists are still around; it’s just not a marketable skill, I guess. But we do have thousands of worship leaders who tell us that worship is, of course, more important than anything else we do. Since I’m a Communications Director, I’d like to tell people that nothing is more important than communicating clearly, but you can’t pack an auditorium with that message.
So anyway, I’m confused, and I’ve been blissfully confused for many years now. And I wonder how many other people share my confusion, but don’t want to admit it and thereby show themselves to be spiritually unenlightened. When I hear new definitions or profound pronouncements about worship, I just nod my head with severe understanding and privately look forward to the day when some other Christian concept becomes in vogue, something that people can explain with a little more consensus and less starry-eyed abstract prose.
To me, it’s not all about worship. It’s all about obedience and faithfulness. Those are concepts I can wrap my mind around. Is God pleased with what happens at my church on Sunday morning? If he’s pleased, then I’m pleased, and I don’t get my shorts bunched up about whether or not worship occurred.
(This is what happens when I’m snowed in.)
