Category: Worship (Page 1 of 3)

Why We Won’t Go To Heaven When We Die

kareni / Pixabay

We don’t go to heaven when we die.

In a previous post, I presented 12 questions that might reveal the degree to which we unknowingly separate God out from the rest of life.  In a comment, Monica asked me to go a little deeper into question number 3:

3. Do you speak of going to heaven when we die?

Answering this in the affirmative might be an indication that you suffer from Modern Secular dualism: the idea that material things and spiritual things are radically distinct.  This separation leads to two false views of reality.  The first is the secular manifestation of this idea: that the spiritual world does not exist, or is irrelevant to our lives.  A second error, like unto it is that of the Christian under the influence of Modern Secularism–that although the spiritual realm exists, it is very distant.  This view leads to the idea of “going to heaven when we die.”

Since its beginning, the church battled heresies involving the relationship between physical and spiritual realities.

Gnosticism: Material Bad

Gnosticism is an ancient heresy that was very influential in the early centuries of the church.  One of the basic ideas of Gnosticism is that the spiritual world stands in opposition to the material one because they have to distinct natures–the material is evil and the spiritual is good.

Accepting this premise, it follows that the body is evil and the soul is good.  The soul is imprisoned in the physical body, but upon death, it is freed and goes to a spiritual heaven where it has always truly belonged.

Modern Secularism is a lot like Gnosticism in that it also separates the physical from the spiritual.  The difference is the Gnostics undervalued the physical and the Moderns undervalue the spiritual.

We find neither devalued in the Bible.

Genesis

In the first verses of Genesis, God creates all that is.  He called it all good.  On the sixth day, he created people.

Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Genesis 2:7

Human beings are certainly physical beings, but we are spiritual beings as well.   Both are good.  Jesus offers and even more complete anthropology when he quotes the Old Testament command to

‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ Luke 10:27.

Human beings are created with bodies and minds and hearts and spirits–all of these are declared it “very good” (Genesis 1:31).  The Fall results in a twisting or distortion of all things, not just physical things.  Contrary to both Gnostic and Modern teaching, all dimensions of humanity are valued, all are fallen.  Consequently, all aspects of humanity are in need of redemption.  In his death on the cross, Jesus redeems all of the whole person, not just her soul.

God declared all of creation to be good.  All of creation is fallen because of Man’s sin.  All of creation, not just some human souls, have been redeemed by Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

This is why we speak of the Cosmic Redemption–Christ redeems the entire Creation–all that God has made.  On his return, he will complete redemption when he makes “all things new.”

Revelation

At the end of the book of Revelation, we see a picture of where history is headed.

I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.  ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”

Revelation 21: 3-5

John sees the new Jerusalem, the dwelling place of God, “coming down out of heaven.” God will dwell among his people, on earth.

This is not new.  It is a biblical pattern.  God delights to be with human beings in the Garden.  He travels with the nation of Israel, living in a tent as they did.  He lives with the Jews in the temple in Jerusalem.  He dwells among us as the God/man, Jesus.  Today, Christ takes up dwelling within us in his Spirit.  So it is no surprise that God would once again be the one who comes to us.

It sounds to me as if we won’t be going to heaven.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”God lived with his people in The Garden, in the wilderness, in the temple, in the first century, and indwells us today. Why do we talk about going to live him in heaven when we die? Isn’t it likely He’ll stick to the same pattern? #heaven” quote=”God lived with his people in The Garden, in the wilderness, in the temple, in the first century, and indwells us today. Why do we talk about going to live him in heaven when we die? Isn’t it likely He’ll stick to the same pattern?”]

[click_to_tweet tweet=”It seems pretty clear that none of us, or very few of us, are going to heaven when we die. #heaven” quote=”It seems pretty clear that none of us, or very few of us, are going to heaven when we die.”]

Eternal life starts now

One’s view of heaven can make a tremendous difference in our lives right now.

If heaven is just spiritual and spiritual things are distant in both time and place, then eternal life has little to do with “real” life.  The Christian life is a life of waiting.  And so we wait.

If heaven is a holistic reality involving the whole person and all of creation; if Jesus lives in us and if heaven will be on earth, then a lot of the conditions for heaven are already in place and it is pretty close.  Eternal life will certainly be different when all things are made new, but it will also be a continuation of what God has started in us and with us.  This makes the present, eternally significant.

Modern liturgies reinforce the idea that the spiritual is non-existent or far away.  Christians need to counter these with our own liturgies that practice the wholeness of creation.  Ones that reinforce the spiritual significance of our thoughts, words, and deeds.  Ones that increase our awareness of the nearness of Christ in us.  Ones that help us to see all life is worship.  Ones that equip us to embrace our purpose to steward creation.

 

The Order of Worship (7): The Benediction

God had the first word in the worship service.  And he gets the last word.  His last word is a blessing.

The Benediction

We have encountered our active God throughout the worship service and are now released into the world with his blessing.  The benediction reminds us that the Grace we received through the Word and Sacrament, follow us out the door.  The benediction signifies that our whole lives are covered by his Grace.

Sacred and Secular Dualism

The ritual of the benediction can train us into a proper understanding of the relationship between Sunday and Monday.  We need some instruction here because our culture proclaims that Sunday has very little to do with Monday.

Dualism is the idea that all of life can be separated into two categories: the sacred and the secular.  Traditionally, faith and life may have been distinct, but they weren’t separable.  Faith and life were part of each other.  Today, the modern obsession with clear categories assumes a radical separation between the two.   Modern life is filled with these dualities, false dichotomies.  Here are just a few:

    • physical and spiritual,
    • temporal and eternal,
    • natural and supernatural,
    • body and soul,
    • faith and reason,
    • state and church,
    • public and private,
    • science and religion,
    • Sunday and the rest of the week.

The Sacred/Secular dualism profoundly affects how both Christians and non-Christians experience reality.    In many cases, non-Christians find it fairly easy to dismiss half of the equation and live under the illusion that half of reality isn’t even there, or at least it is irrelevant.  Christians maintain at least an intellectual belief in both sides, but many see them separated by a vast abyss.

These 12 questions can begin to help us see the degree to which we, or our individual congregation is unknowingly separating God out from the rest of life.

    1. Do you think that singing worship songs and prayer are more spiritual than eating and sex?
    2. Do you reduce redemption to the saving of souls?
    3. Do you speak of going to heaven when we die?
    4. Do you think that eternal life starts when we die, or sometime later?
    5. Do you believe that missionaries and pastors have a more spiritual calling than plumbers and accountants?
    6. Do you assert that certain parts of the creation are “off limits” to Christians?
    7. Are you more concerned with personal piety than the environment?
    8. Do you assume that faith has very little effect on the work we do?
    9. Do you believing that one’s spare time has nothing to do with what one believes?
    10. Do you thinking that the church is out of touch with “real life”?
    11. Do you use the word singing interchangeably with the word worship?
    12. Do you live as if work is an unpleasant necessity?

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Here are 12 questions that can help you determine if you are suffering from Christian dualism. 1.  Do you think that singing worship songs and prayer are more spiritual than eating and sex? #dualism” quote=”Here are 12 questions that can help you determine if you suffering from Christian dualism. 1.  Do you think that singing worship songs and prayer are more spiritual than eating and sex?”]

 

In Modernism there is a radical separation between the sacred and the secular.  It is often useful to differentiate between the two, to consider them as aspects of a whole, but they are each a whole unto itself.  Our bodies and our souls, our reason and our emotions are all part of a whole person.  Our private lives and our public lives are both parts of a whole life.  Worship in the church of Sunday and worship in the world are a part of each other.  The benediction is a declaration that that the two are inseparable.  In both life is worship and worship is life.  We are depended on God’s Grace as we worship in church, and we are dependent on Gods Grace as we worship in the world.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Worship in the church on Sunday and worship in the world are a part of each other, and it is in the benediction that the two are fused in to an integrated whole. #benediction #worship #dualism” quote=”Worship in the church on Sunday and worship in the world are a part of each other, and it is in the benediction that the two are fused in to an integrated whole.”]

 

In the benediction God says, “Go.  Make disciples,  Do the work for which I equipped and called you.”  The benediction blurs the lines between our worship in church and our worship in the world.

The Order of Worship (1): Call to Worship

The Order of Worship (2): Confession

The Order of Worship (3): The Sermon

The Order of Worship (4): The Creed

The Order of Worship (5): Pastoral Prayer

The Order of Worship (6): The Lord’s Supper

 

Order of Worship (6): Lord’s Supper

The dialogue of worship continues.

Ordinance or Sacrament?

As an ordinance, the Lord’s Supper is a memorial.  We remember Christ’s death on the cross.  As a sacrament, we commune with the risen Lord and receive from his hand the life he extends to us.  All churches who celebrate Communion do so “in remembrance of what Christ did for us on the cross.  The question is, is that all it is?  Is it just a memorial?

This is where I started thinking about God’s involvement in worship.  If it’s an ordinance, Communion is just a memorial, an act of human remembering.  In this scenario, human beings do all that there is to be done in Communion–they remember.  This seemed to me to be a contradiction because if you argue ordinance it seems silly to proclaim God’s active sovereignty from the pulpit.  How can God be active in our lives, when he’s inactive in Communion.

The essential difference between an ordinance and a sacrament is whether or not God is doing anything in the event.  You already know where I am going with this.  I have been arguing that God is active in our Sunday gatherings, so of course he’d be involved in the supper we’ve named The Lord’s Supper.

God is active in Communion and his first act is to invite us to the table.

Invitation to the Table

It is fitting that the first action belongs to God.  In the establishment of the First Communion, Jesus was very active.   He found the room, gathered his disciples, washed their feet and moderated the sacramental meal.  God does the same for us and his Invitation is an act of Grace.

Communion

God is active in The Holy Supper.  What does he do?  He speaks.  He says, “Take” and then he extends something to us.  What does he offer?  Well, we are not exactly sure, but if we read the symbols, it might have something to do with nourishment and sustenance.  Literal bread and wine are basic foods that nourish our physical bodies.  Spiritually we need sustenance as well.  His body and blood are nourishment for our spiritual life.   Perhaps he is conveying unity; all Christians eat and drink of the body and blood of Christ, and in so doing, we are united in him.  The bread and wine are symbolic, but this term is not understood by those steeped in Modern reasoning.  The communion elements aren’t “just symbols.”  (The allusions present in the sacrament itself ought to be enough to convince us of this.)

In some way we receive Christ and Grace by the Holy Spirit through faith.  What actually happens at the table is a mystery.  Modern secularism doesn’t like mysteries, and neither do modern Christians–we like to have clear explanations for spiritual things.  But we don’t get to have clarity here, and I don’t think we should want it.  A ritual engaging in a spiritual mystery will teach us that reality is comprised of mysteries that we can neither understand nor control.  We simply receive and accept by faith.  This might go a long way to counter the secularizing pressures of living in the Modern world.

In Communion, through the physical elements of bread and wine, Christ signifies our salvation through his sacrifice on the cross.  The really interesting thing here is that we are presented with a convergence of the spiritual and the physical reality.  Modernism wants to make distinct and separate categories, again, so do Modern Christians.  But the two are not as distinct as we naturally conceive it.  That Word became flesh, and yet never ceased to be God.

All of worship, all of life, all of reality is both physical and spiritual–sex is a spiritual communion, Kraft Dinner is morally reprehensible, coffee tastes terrible in Styrofoam, the first thing we do when we wake up in the morning is likely an act of worship, and we ought to fold our hands when we pray, and possible consider kneeling or lying prostrate.

Screwtape, senior tempter (demon if you will) in C. S. Lewis’ book, The Screwtape Letters tells us why.

At the very least, [humans] can be persuaded that the bodily position makes no difference to their prayers; for they constantly forget, what you must always remember, that they are animals and that whatever their bodies do affects their souls. It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out.

Because we struggle with seeing the spiritual reality in our ordinary lives, we find it easy to dismiss it from Communion.

But this is the very reason why we should emphasize divine agency in the Lord’s Supper.  We need to be be trained out of the foolish view that the physical and the spiritual are separate.  We are trained by ritual.  By regularly entering into the mystery of the Eucharist, we again and again experience an incarnational reality.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Because we struggle with seeing the spiritual reality in our ordinary lives, we find it easy to dismiss it from #Communion. But this is the very reason why we should emphasize divine agency in the #LordsSupper. #Incarnation  ” quote=”Because we struggle with seeing the spiritual reality in our ordinary lives, we find it easy to dismiss it from Communion. But this is the very reason why we should emphasize divine agency in the Lord’s Supper. “]

A Sunday encounter with the mystery of the incarnation in Communion can perhaps be the vehicle by which we begin experience the nearness of the Holy Spirit on Monday.

The Order of Worship (1): Call to Worship

The Order of Worship (2): Confession

The Order of Worship (3): The Sermon

The Order of Worship (4): The Creed

The Order of Worship (5): Pastoral Prayer

The Order of Worship (7): The Benediction

 

The Liturgy of Worship (5): Pastoral Prayer and the Offering

Prayers of Intercession/Pastoral Prayer

In the dialogue of Sunday worship, the people continue to speak in this section. The Pastoral Prayer is a continuation of our response to God’s word.

This prayer is primarily intercessory.   In it, we petition God for the needs within the church, the universal church, and the world.

This was the killer for me as a kid.   It was “the long prayer,” and for some reason, I could not be fortified with a peppermint as I had been for the sermon.  It was interminable because there was a lot of need in our particular church, but this prayer’s scope was global.  It was long but learned a lot about reality from the Pastoral Prayer even when I was very young.

What I learned from the Pastoral Prayer

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Seven things I learned from the ‘Pastoral Prayer.’  Or ‘the long prayer’ as I called it. It was interminable, but its lessons have stuck with me. #worship #prayer #pastoralprayer #CongregationalPrayer” quote=”Seven things I learned from ‘Pastoral Prayer.’ Or ‘the long prayer’ as I called it.  It was interminable, but its lessons have stuck with me. “]

  • We can speak to God about all of our needs.
  • God is big.  My father was the pastor, and he was talking to God whom he addressed as “father.”  He talked to God like he was big.  When I was a kid, my father was big too–so to hear my father speak to God this way was revealing.  He prayed like God could really do something for the missionaries in Africa or the victims of flooding in China.  All my father prayers started, and still do, with praising God for who he is.
  • God is Father.  My father talked to God with familiarity and sincerity as well as respect.  This paradox was not lost on me as a young child.  I learned that God is big, but he is also good.  A heavenly father.
  • God cares.  He cares about this person who had this ailment, and that family who has lost someone.  He cares about the people in the world who didn’t have clean water or food.  He cares about the missionaries who are bringing good news.
  • I learned that he wasn’t just the God of people in my church, and not just the God of Christians, but of everybody.  We prayed for our town and about the leaders of the country, and for the leaders of other countries.  That they would be wise and that they would be obedient.
  • I also learned that God could do something about these things we were praying about.  My father prayed with expectation.  But I also learned that the prayer wasn’t some kind of a magic trick.  The prayer wasn’t valuable for its utility–there was something else going on.  That prayer was, in large part, for the sake of the one who prays.
  • At some point, I figured out that I could send my own small requests to God during the Pastoral Prayer.  My father had opened the conduit, as it were, so I figured I could still fire up some requests alongside his.

There are more things that I learned, but the important thing is that I learned them because they were repeated every week.  They have stuck with me for many decades now, because of the repetition.

My current church always prayers for another local church, and a missionary.  I love this ritual it shapes us.  we come to know, among other things, that the Body of Christ involves other congregations and denominations in this town.  These other churches are not in competition with us but are all trying to achieve the same thing–the learning and spreading of the Good News.

Offertory Prayer and the Offering

We continue in our response to the Word with the offering.

The offertory prayer is a regular reminder that God has blessed us richly.  All that we have comes from him.  He gives the gifts through which we love our neighbours.

Giving is both a sacred duty and a “joy.”

These terms seem contradictory, but they are not–when you fully understand that God has given you everything, and everything you have belongs to God, giving is quite easy.  When you think that what is your’s is your’s, cheerful giving is impossible.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Just as your parents always gave you a nickel to drop into the collection plate, the weekly giving, and the prayer that goes along with it, is a training exercise that is meant to train us into joy. #offering #tithe #tithing ” quote=”Just as your parents always gave you a nickel to drop into the collection plate, the weekly giving, and the prayer that goes along with it, is a training exercise that is meant to train us into joy. “]

Just as your parents always gave you a nickel to drop into the collection plate, the weekly giving, and the prayer that goes along with it, is a training exercise that is meant to train us into joy.  The joy that comes from understanding that all we have belongs to God and are to be used for his purposes.

Other posts in this series:

The Order of Worship (1): The Call to Worship and Greeting

The Order of Worship (2): Confession

The Order of Worship (3): The Sermon

The Order of Worship (4): The Creed

The Order of Worship (6): Lord’s Supper

The Order of Worship (7): The Benediction

 

Order of Worship (4) The Creed

pixagod / Pixabay

The dialogue continues.  God contributed most to the conversation in the Proclamation section of the liturgy.  In this section, we do most of the talking as we respond to the Word and the Grace we received from our Father’s hand.

Song or Hymn of Response

The song we sing after the sermon is not just a song.  At least it shouldn’t be.  It should be a song that articulates musically and poetically, the appropriate response to God’s Word and Grace.  Which song we sing depends on the sermon, for the service is a unified whole.

In some churches, a great deal of thought goes into the choice of this song.  The content of the lyrics is a significant determiner.  Some churches just sing one of the ten songs that we’ve been singing for the last few months.  What the song says doesn’t matter as much as the feelings the song generates.

The concern here is the dialogue of worship.  God says something, presumably significant–let’s say today’s sermon was about “Gracious Giving”–and our response is, “Glorious Day.”  It’s nice to have conversations each Christmas with dear Aunt Martha, they are beautiful and relational, but because of their lack of coherence, they don’t really go anywhere.  In this analogy, we are dear Aunt Martha.

The Apostles’ Creed

Although many proclaim it, there is no such thing as a “No Creed But Christ” church.

Either you affirm one of the traditional creeds, or you will affirm another more organic creed that rises up out of your context and your interpretation of the Bible within it.  The problem here is that culture tends to influence the formation of this creed.  Either way, you will be a “creedal” church.  And your creed will be reinforced with ritual.

I suggest that we might as well adopt the traditional creeds of the Christian tradition.  The Apostle’s Creed is the one that reviews the foundational doctrines of orthodox Christianity.

The Apostle’s Creed affirms

  • the Trinity,
  • the historical facts of the gospel,
  • the person and work of the Holy Spirit,
  • the existence of a “holy” universal church,
  • the communion of saints,
  • the forgiveness of sins,
  • the resurrection,
  • and life everlasting.

This creed is not infallible, but it is based on the Bible within a long tradition.  It is old, and in this, there is some merit.  New is not necessarily improved.

Even with the regular recitation of a traditional creed, we are still in danger of ritualizing other non-biblical cultural beliefs.  But without this practice, what is to prevent the church from sliding away from the basic tenets of Christianity without even being aware of having done so?

[click_to_tweet tweet=”In the absence of a Creed (or despite one), here are 12 organic creedal statements that some churches may have passively adopted. #noCreedButChrist #noCreedButTheBible” quote=”In the absence of a Creed (or despite one), here are 12 organic creedal statements that some churches may have passively adopted. “]

Here’s a partial list of organic creedal statements that rise out of context and a particular interpretation of the Bible.

  1. “New means improved.”
  2. “We experience the Holy Spirit in worship through our feelings.”
  3. “The most important aspect of the Bible is its inerrancy.”
  4. “It is better to be married than to remain single.”
  5. “There are spiritual things and then there are sacred things.”
  6. Sin is doing bad things.”
  7. The worst sins are sexual.”
  8. Christian living is about striving.”
  9. “All people are created equal” 
  10. The worshiper’s experience is important in the Sunday service”
  11. “Worship is singing and singing is worship.”
  12. “Efficiency and practicality are Christian virtues.”

Would you add anything to this list? The comment section awaits.

If you don’t recite a creed, take a long hard look at the implicit creeds that have been ritualized in your church.   This is a good practice for every church, even those who regularly recite a traditional creed.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Either you affirm one of the traditional creeds, or you will affirm another more organic creed that rises up out of your context and your interpretation of the Bible within it. Either way, you will be a ‘creedal’ church.  #ApostlesCreed #NoCreedButTheBible ” quote=”Either you affirm one of the traditional creeds, or you will affirm another more organic creed that rises up out of your context and your interpretation of the Bible within it. Either way, you will be a ‘creedal’ church.”]

Other posts in this series:

The Order of Worship (1): The Call to Worship and Greeting

The Order of Worship (2): Confession

The Order of Worship (3): The Sermon

The Order of Worship (5): Pastoral Prayer

The Order of Worship (6): The Lord’s Supper

The Order of Worship (7): The Benediction

Order of Worship (3): Proclamation

If the liturgy is a dialogue between God and his people, in the Proclamation section God does most of the talking.

God speaks to us primarily through his word–the Bible.  The sermon is an encounter with, not just the Bible, but God as revealed in its pages. What we find in the Bible is a collection of ancient texts that were written for us, but not to us.  The Bible is a story.  That’s not all it is, but it helps us to understand how to approach it.  It is not our story, but it is the story in which we live, not just Christians, but all of humanity.  It is a story centered on Jesus Christ–the Word as spoken of by John in the first verses of his gospel.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Prayer for Illumination

Rituals are not empty, they are full in the sense that they train us on the deepest level.  What sort of training is provided by the weekly repetition of the prayer of illumination?  It trains us how to approach the Bible.  This prayer is an admission that we need God’s help, to understand what we find in scripture, an admission that we can’t rely on our own reason and knowledge to understand.  This is an acknowledgment that the Bible is a book that must be read with spiritual assistance–the Holy Spirit.

This prayer focuses our attention beyond ourselves as readers, indeed, beyond the text to our Lord, Jesus Christ, the Word of God.  In this prayer, we anticipate the working of his Grace through our encounter with the text.  In a real sense, then, we are preparing for a supernatural event.

The Sunday Prayer of Illumination will change how we approach daily devotions on Monday, for it is a reminder that the words of the Bible are a site of miraculous encounters.

The Sermon

The sermon is, or ought to be, about the Bible.

What is the Bible?

What the Bible isn’t is an encyclopedia, or an instruction manual for life, or a rule book.   It’s hard to resist looking at the Bible in these ways because our cultural default is set to view everything as an object that might have a use.

In a recent Tweet, Tim Keller said, “It is impossible to understand a culture without discerning its idols.”  This applies to our culture as well.  And one of our idols is Reason.  Rationalism is the idea that the best, or even only, way to know things is through human reason.  Our confidence in human reason has taken some blows in the last century, but we still stubbornly hold onto our faith in it.   It is so powerful that it has effected how we read and understand the Bible.

As Christians, we believe that the Bible is true.  As Westerners, we believe that truth is an object of human Reason.  The Bible, then, becomes nothing more than an object that we study and use as rational subjects. We look for “applications,” instead of implications.   We get too wound up about biblical inerrancy.  But truth is much bigger than fact or useful information.  The Bible becomes something more like an encyclopedia than a story, or a poem, or a painting.   As Western Christians we must resist this limited notion of Truth.

So what is the Bible?

Rather than give a long rational treatise on what the Bible is, let me do what the Bible does and offer a picture of what a sermon, rooted in the Word, can be.

The image is found in Ezekiel:

37 The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lordsays to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”

So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army

We are dry and lifeless.  The Word of God, preached by inspired human authors, brings life.  God could himself speak directly to the bones, but he chooses an intermediary–Ezekiel.  He uses the preacher before us.

This image presents the Word, not as an object that we approach as rational subjects, but as active agent.  We are the passive pile of dry bones–we are the object; the Holy Spirit is the subject.  He brings life though the hearing of the Word.  God is active in the sermon.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Do we listen to the sermon to learn about life or to receive it? The former is a happy by-product.  The sermon is not the reflections of a pastor. It is an act of Grace, and we receive the life that flows from it. #sermon #preaching #liturgy” quote=”Do we listen to the sermon to learn about life or to receive it? The former is a happy by-product.  The sermon is not simply the knowledgeable reflections of a pastor.  The sermon is an act of Grace, and we receive the life that flows from it.”]

Other posts in this series:

The Order of Worship (1): The Call to Worship and Greeting

The Order of Worship (2): Confession

The Order of Worship (4): The Creed

The Order of Worship (5): Pastoral Prayer

The Order of Worship (6): The Lord’s Supper

The Order of Worship (7): The Benediction

 

Order of Worship (2): Confession

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

In some churches, there is only an occasional song of confession, but somebody usually includes a confessional element in a prayer at some point, but confession isn’t a very big part of what I call modern, non-liturgical church services.

Confession is important.  It is about sin, and sin is a big thing in Christianity.  We all sin more or less continuously, so we need to repent again and again.  And when we do so honestly and regularly, we get a much better picture of who we are.  And how much we need forgiveness.

In the traditional liturgies of most denominations, we practiced confession weekly, and in this repetition, garnered long term beneficial effects.  These benefits are derived from turning our love toward God, through ritual.  Rituals have the power to shape our identities, and if we are not deliberate, cultural liturgies will shape them instead.

The Law

The liturgical worship service is structured around a dialogue between God and his people.  God calls us and Greets us, we respond with praise.  Then God speaks through his word; we are reminded of God’s expectations for us in the reading of the Law.  This is often the Ten Commandments, but there are many suitable passages, like Micah 6:8.  The point here is that we need to be reminded that God has expectations, and we have failed to live up to them.  We are disobedient and rebellious.

Thus, we need to repent.

Call to Confession

We are called to confession.  We have to be called because we don’t really want to do it.  True confession is hard because we have to look at who we really are.   An honest look at oneself does not happen easily.  We might need some practice–maybe even a thousand cracks at it.  But if you deliberately practice confession in church every week, it will begin to be a daily rhythm, and you’ll be good at it in less than 20 years.

The call to confession reminds us that what’s wrong with the world is not out there somewhere but within me.  I need a reminder, especially if I look at social media occasionally.  The sins of others are so obvious on Twitter.  The call to confession repeated weekly can begin to remind me that I am the problem with the world.

Until we realize that our biggest problem in life is not out there, but in us, we haven’t really come to a Christian understanding of reality.  The repetition of ritual helps us to accept this reality in ways far deeper than intellectual consent.  This is the power of ritual.

Prayer of Confession

If confession is just a mention in a prayer by the worship leader, then I might quickly confess the first sin that comes to mind.  I can usually remember one.  But, this is inadequate.  I have committed a lot more sins than this one.  Then there are the sins of omission.  Then there are the sins that I would have committed in different circumstances.  All of these damn me.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Our appreciation of God’s Grace is proportional to the degree we understand our need for it.  #Grace #Sin #Confession #Liturgy” quote=”Our appreciation of God’s Grace is proportional to the degree we understand our need for it.  “]

Our appreciation of God’s Grace in Redemption is proportional to the degree we understand our need for it.  The only way for us to understand our need for God’s salvation is to meditate on our sin, and then confess it.

This past summer I was in England and I worshiped in Anglican churches.  Praying in unison each week a prayer of penitence from the Book of Common Prayer is a moving experience when you attend to the words.  Here’s an example:

Most merciful God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we confess that we have sinned in thought, word and deed.

We have not loved you with our whole heart. We have not loved our neighbours as ourselves. In your mercy forgive what we have been, help us to amend what we are, and direct what we shall be; that we may do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with you, our God.

Amen.

Ritual Confession

“But if you confess every week it is no longer moving, or special.”

We overemphasize experience in our culture–in church, we have a danger of emphasizing religious experience.  Occasional experiences don’t shape us as regular ones do.  The function of the liturgy is not to be new and special, but to shape us into a particular people.  To conform us to reality, if you will.

It’s almost a given that we must avoid “empty ritual.”  But what we must realize is that there is no such thing.  Rituals are full.  We give a child a quarter to drop into the collection plate every week.  We insist a child say the words, “I’m sorry,” even when they clearly don’t mean it.  These are important things to do, for they shape the identity of the child.  The shaping isn’t intellectual–in the head–nor is it a changing of the heart.  In Desiring the Kingdom, James K. A. Smith says that routines and rituals affect us in our gut or bones.

We are shaped into a certain kind of people by a liturgy of confession.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”The ritual of confession reminds us of two things–it reminds me that I am no worse than anyone else, and it reminds me that I am no better. #liturgy #Confession #Grace” quote=”The ritual reminds us of two things–it reminds me that I am no worse than anyone else, and it reminds me that I am no better.”]

Then, in the dialogue of worship, God speaks again.

Assurance of Pardon

As difficult as confession is, before we even start the confession, we know what’s coming.  Amazing Grace.  The assurance of pardon.

Human sinfulness is a big deal in Christianity, but God’s pardon and adoption into his family is the other half of the story.  Both should, then, be a significant part of our weekly gathering.

God’s pardon is really good news.  In the Old Testament, regular blood sacrifice established a pattern of purification.  Sacrifice was God’s way of removing human uncleanness so that people could be restored to fellowship with God.  The sacrifices reinforce the idea that death is the penalty for sin. But it’s clearly an act of Grace that God even allows for a substitute.  Old Testament animals functioned as a substitute death.  The inadequacy of these sacrifices is evidenced by the need for repeated sacrifice.

The death of God himself on our behalf is a once and for all sacrifice for our sake. We do nothing to earn it.  It is a free gift.  We do nothing but open our hands and receive it.

At this point in the liturgy, God gives pardon.  And we receive.  Repeated every week we become persons and a people of Grace.

In the prayer of confession, we come to realize and admit that we are in a hard place.  We cannot save ourselves.  We are unworthy to be anywhere near a holy God.  When we get honest about our sin, we come to an understanding of how much I need Jesus, and then we experience his Grace.

Response of Thanksgiving

We confess, God pardons, and then we express gratitude.

This is to be the pattern of the Christian life.  Like inhaling and exhaling.

But in order for this to become the pattern, it needs to be reinforced.

If we don’t practice it weekly, we won’t ever get the hang of it.  We will spend a lifetime not knowing ourselves, and worse yet, not knowing the extent of God’s Grace.

Occasional confession is a liturgy of omission.  A church that occasionally confesses is not much better than one that never confesses.  The repetition is where the shaping occurs.  The church that has a significant confession element every week will more effectively disciple the people into experiencing a pattern of confession and forgiveness that will alter their lives. The Sunday confession models the prayers we can offer on Monday and beyond.

If your church does not practice regular Confession and Assurance, is it time to consider including it in our weekly worship services?  If it does, allow the power of ritual to turn out love towards God.

Other posts in this series:

The Order of Worship (1): Call to Worship and Greeting

The Order of Worship (3): The Proclamation

The Order of Worship (4): The Creed

The Order of Worship (5): Pastoral Prayer

The Order of Worship (6): The Lord’s Supper

The Order of Worship (7): The Benediction

The Order of Worship (1): The Call to Worship and Greeting

pixagod / Pixabay

When I was a kid, Sunday church services were interminable.  I thought that it might be a lot easier to endure if I had some idea as to where we were in the service.  So I asked my dad, the pastor, if he could write out the service elements, in order, onto a piece of paper so that I could track along.  I reasoned that the long bits, like the congregational prayer and sermon, might be easier to suffer if I knew where we were in relation to the end.

Being the child of the pastor, I thought I had privileged access to this information. He chuckled and showed me last week’s bulletin.  There it was–The Order of Worship–a list of all the elements in the worship service.  It had been there all along, for just anyone to follow.  So every Sunday, I followed along and found that the church became less arduous when I knew where we were.

I discovered something else–every service followed the same pattern.  The order of worship wasn’t this week’s order.  It was every week’s order.  Eventually, I didn’t need to look at the bulletin.  I always knew where we were and the pattern became a comfort.

The Pattern of Worship

For a long, long time, all Christian church services were liturgical.  They followed a regular and predictable pattern.  Even after the huge disruption of the Reformation, services were still governed by a liturgy regardless of denomination.

I am only speaking from my own experience, but I began noticing some congregations were abandoning formal liturgies in the late 80s.  I started seeing church signs announcing “Liturgical Services” at a different time from the “Regular Service.” Now we have lots of these modern, non-liturgical churches.

These have a very simple order of worship.  If they did publish one, it would look something like this.

Songs

Sermon

Songs

I’m being a little facetious because there are a few prayers and an offering, but these events have been shortened and are now rather streamline.  It should be noted that the songs will sometimes connect to elements of the old liturgy they’ve supplanted–songs of praise certainly, sometimes confession or Thanksgiving or even a re-worked apostles’ creed–but when we rely on songs to carry these liturgical elements, they are no longer weekly occurrences and this is significant.

I suppose we’ve simplified things so as to avoid confusing visitors to our Sunday service.  After all, many of our neighbors are no longer familiar with church.  This may be reason enough to keep the Order of Worship simple.

But perhaps we’ve lost something.  Through the liturgies we practiced and learned together important patterns that are meant to shape the way we live out lives.

An Active God

What does God do during the church service?

In the modern, non-liturgical churches it is easy to get the idea that God doesn’t do very much.  At least little is implied about his actions.  During the songs, he might be sitting there listening and smiling.  And what does God do during the sermon?  He is of course speaking, but do we frame the sermon in such a way as to leave the congregants no doubt that it is not just the preacher who is speaking?  Are the faithful are allowed to think God is listening indifferently–after all, he knows it all already.  How many people would say that His attention is drawn to another church somewhere else in the world that happens to be singing at the time because God likes the singing part the best?

In modern, non-liturgical churches, it’s easy to think that the people are the main or only actors in the Sunday service.   We arrive, we sing, we pray, we listen, we eat and drink and then we leave.  (There is another scenario, which is a concern for worship leaders, were only the worship band is active, and the rest passively consume, but this is a topic for another day.)

God merely receives human worship.

Passivity is not a characteristic of God as presented in the Bible.  The passivity we attribute to him is a product of secularization.  In the West, we have created artificial categories between physical things and spiritual things and then we marginalize the spiritual things.  The Western church is not immune to secularism.  Lot’s of people still believe that God is there, but they aren’t really sure what he does.   It seems like he’s a long way off, no doubt hearing our prayers, but is he really acting on them?  Christians influenced by Modernism experience a narrowing and weakening the presence and power of transcendent things in the immanent frame.

By stepping away from traditional liturgies, we’ve not eliminated liturgies, we’ve just adopted new ones.  If we haven’t been deliberate, we’ve simply replaced tratitional liturgies with secular ones.  Thus promoting and perpetuating secular ideas through corporate worship.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Some churches are promoting secular ideas through corporate worship because they’ve replaced traditional liturgies with secular ones. In secularized Christian worship, God is passive.  Agency lies primarily with people. #worship #liturgy ” quote=”Some churches are promoting secular ideas through corporate worship because they’ve replaced traditional liturgies with secular ones. In secularized Christian worship, God is passive.  Agency lies primarily with people.”]

Habits and Rituals

Habits, rituals, and liturgies are important.  They shape how we think and they shape who we are.  We can ritualize God’s passivity and the weekly repetition will eventually shape how we think, and even who we are.  God’s passivity won’t just stay in church, we will eventually come to think of God as passive in our lives and in the world as well.

The converse is also true.  If we shape our worship service around God’s active interaction with his people, this idea will leak into Monday and beyond.

Traditional liturgies shape worship as an active dialogue between God and his people–(all his people, not just the ones with instruments.)

The Call to Worship and God’s Greeting

The first words the worshipers hear in the service are important.   At one service, the first words I heard were,

“I want to thank you all for coming to church this morning.”

Seriously?

Who greets us?  This greeting is all about the actions of the worshipers.   We have decided to come to church this morning.  Apparently with some inconvenience, for we have earned gratitude from somewhere.  Who owes us this gratitude?  The worship leader?  God?  Does God owe us something because we chose to come to church instead of watching the first half of the football game?

The Call to Worship suggests that someone is calling.  It is God himself who draws us to church.  He gets the first word.  We are not there because we chose to be there; we are not there because our parents made us come; we are not there because we are trying to impress that cute girl with our religious zeal; we are not there because this is what we always do on Sundays.  We are there because God has drawn us there.

Our bodies are there, but where are our hearts and minds?  The call to worship marks a turning toward worship, toward the throne of heaven, toward God.  The preceding week was full of joys and challenges involving relationships, obligations, worries, and diversions.  In the call to worship we are turned from ourselves, toward God.

And The Greeting is his.

What kind of people do we become if we are regularly thanked for deciding to come to church?  What kind of people do we become if we repeat, week after week, God’s active calling to corporate worship?

Acts of Praise

Next comes an act of praise.  Our action follows God’s action.

Importantly, this act of praise is not the result of the worship leader asking us to stand and sing nor is it caused by the first cords of music.  Praise is the result of our attention being directed toward God.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Praise is not the result of the worship leader asking us to stand and sing. Praise is the result of our attention being directed toward God. #Worship #PraiseandWorship” quote=”Praise is not the result of the worship leader asking us to stand and sing. Praise is the result of our attention being directed toward God.”]

This may not be automatic for everyone.  But it’s what the liturgy teaches through repetition.  With ritual repetition, this will eventually come to be our natural response.

To make the Sunday worship service just a bunch of human activity, well, that’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit without Roger Rabbit.  Our Sunday worship needs to show God’s activity because he is active.  If we can’t see what he does in Church, how can we see him as active in our lives, let alone the world?

God doesn’t just sit up in heaven waiting for Sunday when some people will sing songs at him.  A weekly reminder that God calls us to worship will begin to change how we view ourselves, the world and the God who sustains it all.

Other posts in this series:

The Order of Worship (2): Confession

The Order of Worship (3): The Sermon

The Order of Worship (4): The Creed

The Order of Worship (5): Pastoral Prayer

The Order of Worship (6): The Lord’s Supper

The Order of Worship (7): The Benediction

The Liturgy of Loud

Bru-nO / Pixabay

Why is the music so loud?

Before we go any further, I want to make clear that I’m not talking about loud music, because I don’t mind loud music.   I’m talking about bass levels that evoke the adjective “ridiculous” from someone who doesn’t mind loud music.  Levels that make me wonder if there is some technical malfunction because there’s no way this could be intentional.

I spoke with some sound engineers and musicians from various churches and I asked them why the loud bass mix.  Here are the answers I received:

“It Isn’t Loud”

Most were quick to assure me that the music wasn’t too loud from the perspective of safety, pointing out there is little danger of hearing damage at the volumes of even the loudest worship bands.  I told them that I wasn’t worried about my hearing or my cholesterol or my blood pressure.  Other concerns were in play.

I explained that it wasn’t the volume.  It was the bass–the bass guitar and the bass drum were disproportionately high.  I explained that the bass hum dug through my ears into the back of my jaw, that my shirt was vibrating against my body and that I worried that my buttons would vibrate open.  I explained that sometimes I had to stop singing to check if my heart was in atrial fibrillation, that I was uncomfortable with feeling my esophagus vibrating and feeling ripples in my stomach acids.  I explained that I think it is too loud because my bowels had been liquified.  They nodded–they knew what I was talking about.  They told me it wasn’t a mistake.

“We Love it Loud”

Who is the “we” of, “We love it loud”?  Christendom?  Is it everyone but me? True Christians?  The worship team?

I pressed one song leader and he said, “Young people prefer the high bass mix.”

I have been to places where young people listen to music and dance.  They do love it da bass.  I usually leave.  Is this what is expected of me on Sunday mornings.

The singing we do in church is corporate worship.  A diverse body of believers worships God with our voices.  We do so in cultural ways.  We used to have one culture, but about a hundred years ago, youth culture began to diverge from that of older generations.  So we now have two cultures–what does culturally expressed corporate worship look like when we have two distinct cultures?

[click_to_tweet tweet=”What does culturally expressed corporate worship look like when we have two distinct cultures? #Worship #PraiseAndWorship #WorshipLeader” quote=”What does culturally expressed corporate worship look like when we have two distinct cultures?”]

Do we go with the majority?  Do we go with a mix?  Do we go with a homogenization?  Do we go with one of the subgroups and the other can lump it?

This is serious stuff and none of these options are very good.  It seems to me the last one is the worst.  I don’t think anyone has ever considered exclusively singing songs like “Jesus wants me for a sunbeam,”  or bringing back the pipe organ.  These are fine for their subgroup, but a minority ought not to dictate how the whole church worships.  So why does it seem obvious that we need to crank up the volume and bass levels because “we” like it that loud?

I’m thankful that I attend a church that doesn’t crank up the bass every Sunday.

“People are Less Self-Conscious if It’s Loud”

Another answer to my question, “Why so loud?” was that people sing better when it’s loud because they feel less self-conscious.

This might be so, but how do you know?

Are they really less self-conscious if the music is still loud, but the bass is more balanced?

When I look around there are a lot of people singing enthusiastically, but these people sing enthusiastically whatever the volume or mix.  I also see people not singing at all, but these folks don’t sing even when it’s loud.  I know of at least one person that has stopped singing because he’s focused on his shirt buttons and his pulse.  If there is one, perhaps there are others who find that the mix is getting in the way of worship.  And again, I am not opposed to loud music.  If you want to support tentative singers with loud music, you have my blessing. I am questioning the ridiculous.

The Liturgy of Loud

Corporate singing is a liturgical element of our worship services.  As with all liturgical elements, it is what we learn in the repetition that makes rituals so powerful.  What we learn isn’t just in our heads, it’s deeper than that–we learn it in our bones.  Let’s look at what we learn through the singing of songs when we can consistently hear the voices of the worshipers.

  1. We learn that we have an individual voice that is important in worship.
  2. We learn that our imperfect individual voice blends with other voices to create something beautiful–the gift of worship to our Lord.
  3. We learn that worship involves active participation.

What do we learn from a very loud praise band with a high-bass mix?

  1. I learn that my individual voice is unimportant.  When I cannot hear my own voice, we are ritually practicing the insignificance of the individual worshiper.
  2. We learn that the voices of the corporate body are also unimportant.  When we can’t hear, we are ritually reinforcing the negation of Christian unity and community.  If that sounds too strong, well then, we are at least missing the opportunity to ritually reinforce the importance of Christian unity and community.  One of the greatest joys I derive from corporate singing is the sense of “the throng of worshipers.”  It starts with hearing my wife singing with me, and then the sound of one or two voices behind us, and then I become aware of my place within a choir of hundreds of voices coming together in the praise of our Lord.  It is a liturgy of unity.  Sometimes, I cannot hear my own voice, let alone the strong voice of my wife’s strong alto 10 inches from my ear.  When the mix and volume obliterate the sounds of all these voices we are ritually negating the throng.
  3. With the elimination of the sound of other voices, worship becomes highly individual.  Perhaps this is why the same bass mix we are using in worship contexts is so popular in rave parties and dance clubs.  Our culture is hyper-individualistic, so it makes sense that our music would reduce a collective experience to individual physical sensations.  Marshall McLuhan was right when she said that the media is the message.  What message is the media of rave/club music communicating?  Do we want to communicate this message in Christian corporate worship?
  4. In Modern churches, worship can easily become passive.  Part of this is because Modern worship resembles a secular concert, where our passivity is expected.  The other part is that I don’t have a role to play in worship if I have no voice and can hear no others.  Sure, I can worship individually, but that would be counter to the purposes of corporate worship.

All rituals, including those in church on Sunday, shape our identity as a people.  Therefore, corporate worship should be designed to shape us into the people of God as active worshipers.  (Importantly, we ought not to mistake movement with active worship.)

[click_to_tweet tweet=”When the mix and volume of the praise band obliterate the sounds of human voices we are ritually negating the worshiper in corporate worship. #Worship #WorshipLeader #PraiseAndWorship” quote=”When the mix and volume of the praise band obliterate the sounds of human voices we are ritually negating the worshiper in corporate worship.”]

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Perhaps the most important things about corporate worship is placing your voice among those of others. High bass and volumes remove the corporate from #corporateworship; I can’t hear anyone else. Worship is reduced to an Individual experience. #LoudWorship” quote=”Perhaps the most important things about corporate worship is placing your voice among those of others. High bass and volumes remove the corporate from corporate worship; I can’t hear anyone else. Worship is reduced to an Individual experience.”]

 Dynamics and Earplugs

There are two arguments behind which advocates of a ridiculously loud and high bass mix advocates hide.

  1.  Music needs a variety of dynamic levels.  This is absolutely true.  But one of them need not be absurdly loud.   The first verse is usually fine because it’s just a soloist and an accompanying acoustic guitar and/or piano–we can hear ourselves and each other.  The second verse builds.  We have left corporate worship; natural human voices have been stifled.  Chorus–now comes the bass, even the words from the amplified voices are incoherent.  If we ever hear each other again, it’s on one of the repetitions of the bridge.  [click_to_tweet tweet=”Is it still corporate worship if I’ve only heard the voices of other people during one verse of the song? #Worship #WorshipLeader #PraiseandWorship #LoudWorship #TooLoudWorship” quote=”Is it still corporate worship if I’ve only heard the voices of other people during one verse of the song?”]
  2. Ear plugs are a courtesy provided for those who find the volumes discomfiting.   This is a nice gesture, but misplaced.  First, the earplugs do nothing to block out the discomfort created by the high bass-mix.  Second, earplugs do the same thing as the loud music does–they block out the voiced of other worshipers.  The take the corporate out of corporate worship.

“The Bible Says It Should Be Loud”

Another answer to my question is that the Bible mandates the music should be loud.

One verse that is cited to support this assertion is Psalm 150:5.

“Praise him with loud crashing cymbals!”

Another, is 1 Chronicles 15 where David commands the people to play loudly on musical instruments, which they did.  I certainly agree that our corporate worship won’t always be solemn or contemplative; much of it should be joyful and exuberant and some of it will be loud.  It is appropriate to respond to God’s grace with enthusiasm.

Revelation 19:1 tells of the great multitude in heaven is crying out,

“Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God!”

There is no mention of a musical accompaniment here. This verse may suggest that we turn down the bass;  the very fact that the words sung by the heavenly host are recorded in the rest of Revelation 19 indicates that they were heard and understood, despite the accompaniment, if there was any at all.

I’m no theologian, but I think that these verses have very little to do with volume, but are reflective of an attitude of worship.  It is a bit of a hermeneutical stretch to suggest that they indicate a Biblical mandate that the electronically amplified instruments in enclosed spaces must approach 90dBA.

It strikes me that the Biblical defense of the bass mix is an attempt to justify one’s musical tastes with isolated texts.

“You’re Just an Old Fuddy-Duddy”

In my interviews with worship leaders and sound engineers, nobody told me that I was just an old fuddy-duddy.  But since they were all 25 years younger than me, I wonder if they were thinking it.

Maybe I am a fuddy-duddy. When it’s too loud, I am agitated and lead away from worship into irritation.  But even if I am the only one who feels that excessively loud and bassy worship music is irritating, we should evaluate the hidden consequences of the Liturgy of the Loud.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Perhaps the most important things about corporate worship is placing your voice among those of others. High bass and volumes remove the corporate from #corporateworship; I can’t hear anyone else. Worship is reduced to an Individual experience. #LoudWorship” quote=”Perhaps the most important things about corporate worship is placing your voice among those of others. High bass and volumes remove the corporate from corporate worship; I can’t hear anyone else. Worship is reduced to an Individual experience.”]

Further reading: Here is the first in a series called “The Poetry of Worship” 

The Poetry of Worship: Engaging the Heart and More (9)

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

Songs that are written just to teach a moral lesson or some theological principle are not very good songs.  Written just for the head, such songs are more like a sermon or a lecture.

Because our culture is no longer a thinking culture, we don’t have too many didactic songs turning up in our worship sets.  Our culture is a feeling culture;  many of our songs are written for the heart.  At their worst, they are meant to manufacture worshipful feelings, and little else–this is sentimental worship.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Sentimental worship is no better than intellectual worship because it engages only a part of the worshiper. #praiseandworship #worshipleader #worship” quote=”Sentimental worship is no better than intellectual worship because it engages only a part of the worshiper.”]

Holistic Worship

Human beings are complex creatures.  According to Jesus, we are heart, soul, mind, and body (Mark 12:30).  But these aspects are not distinct.  They are involved in everything we do in life–in the meals we eat with family, in conversations with friends over coffee, when we visit a museum or attend a concert.

Each of these aspects can be evoked in our imagination.  I can imagine being thirsty.  I can imagine frustration.  I can imagine temptation.  Poetry can evoke these in our imagination as it engages our hearts and our souls and our minds and our bodies.

Our experiences are richer if they involve our emotions and spirit and intellect and body.  The most meaningful worship of the Lord our God, will be the worship of the whole engaged worshiper.

Holistic worship should be the ideal for which we aim.  It is not enough to say that the singing will be emotional, the sacraments and offering will be physical, and the sermon will be intellectual.  For the most meaningful worship, each element will seek to engage more of the aspects of the worshiper, more significantly.

Bad poetry does not deliver the experience.  If it is didactic when it delivers only an idea.  When it goes directly for the emotion, it is sentimental.

Sentimental Worship

Sentimentality is indulging in emotion for emotion’s sake.  It seeks to stimulate the emotions directly, rather than through experience.

A sentimentalist is simply one who wants to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it. — Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde talks about the cost of emotions–emotions are paid for through an experience.  We feel grateful when given a gift.  We feel sad when someone we love is sick.  In these instances, a price is paid for the emotion.

I chose the picture at the top of this post because it is a beautiful example of sentimentalism.  Anyone who has experienced actual love, knows its cost.  The whole hand-heart thing can create a flutter in the chest (when it doesn’t evoke nausea).  I understand this hand gesture to mean, “Here, have some of my love,” or “Loving this!”  But it’s cheap.  It cost nothing to give it.  It costs nothing to receive it.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”We obviously want to avoid singing praise and worship songs that are the equivalent of the hand-heart gesture. #preaiseandworship #holisticworship #worshipmusic #worshipleader #worship” quote=”We obviously want to avoid singing praise and worship songs that are the equivalent of the hand-heart gesture. “]

The poet/songwriter seeks to communicate experience through their words.  With physical, intellectual and emotional dimensions, experiences are holistic.  While we sing, the emotion will be a by-product of this experience.  A sentimental song will seek to evoke the emotion, by-passing the experience.

With some praise and worship songs, the emotion, not the experience, is the goal.  The music builds, the instruments blend with soaring voices, the lyrics repeat and the melody rises in a perfectly orchestrated conquest of our emotions.

How can we avoid such sentimentalism?  By offering worshipers a holistic experience.  Our songs will certainly engage the emotions, but they ought not to leave the mind, spirit, and body in the foyer.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Emotions should not be the object of sentimental worship. Emotions should be a by-product of holistic worship. #preaiseandworship #holisticworship #worshipmusic #worshipleader #worship” quote=”Emotions should not be the object of sentimental worship. Emotions should be a by-product of holistic worship. “]

7 Ways to Avoid Sentimentalism in (the Singing Part) of Worship

  1. Be very selective when it comes to lyrics.  Words are important.  They can bring the heart, soul, mind, and body into worship through significant experience in the imagination.
  2. Make sure the song is unified around a specific purpose.  When it is, our heart, mind, and body are directed to a particular experience.  Without unity, we begin to ask questions, not the kind that leads to deeper worship, but the kind that draws one out of worship.
  3. Fill out music sets with songs that are more concrete.  This is where the body comes in.  Experience is made up of physical interactions, therefore, songs with physicality will engage the imagination.
  4. Use metaphor effectively.  Effectively used metaphors can engage our spirits as we can catch glimpses of higher things.
  5. Use symbolism.  In symbols, the spiritual indwells the material.  It is here where we might encounter the transcendent.
  6. We must avoid Cliché — a cliché is a phrase we’ve heard so often that it no longer has meaning.  We don’t want meaningless lyrics.  Only a few of the big-name writers are letting clichés slip into their lyrics, but many amateur writers have a real problem here.
  7. We must avoid nonsensical phrases.  I recently came across the phrase, “release the chains.”  Instead of experiencing gratitude for the unearned freedom I had in Christ, I was thinking of the plight of oppressed chains.  Engaged minds experiencing the words that we sing.  These words must make sense.  If they don’t, we are thinking, “That doesn’t make sense.”

[click_to_tweet tweet=”7 ways to avoid sentimentalism in worship: #preaiseandworship #holisticworship #worshipmusic #worshipleader #worship” quote=”7 ways to avoid sentimentalism in worship.”]

The Modern church was guilty of attending too much to the desires of the mind.  In an attempt to right this imbalance, churches (indeed our whole culture) are now creating a space for feelings in the songs we sing.   However, the pendulum has swung too far.  Balance can only be achieved if we appreciate holistic worship.

It doesn’t do for us to fragment the worship, any more than it does to fragment the worshiper.   Holistic worship does not consist of intellectual parts, the sermon; emotional parts, the singing; and physical parts, the offering and sacraments.  Consider all parts of the worship service holistically.  A preacher thinks his sermon a failure when it touches only the head of the hearer.  So too the worship leader dispairs when the singing falls only on the hearts of the singers.

I hope that this series helps songwriters write more powerful lyrics and helps those who select the songs for singing in church services to choose the good ones.  By signing only good songs, more good songs will be produced.

My ultimate hope is that the body of Christ would be edified as we bring the best of our flock, the sacrifice of our praise, to the altar before our Saviour and Lord.

Posts in this series:

The Poetry of Worship: The Sacrifice of Praise (1)

The Poetry of Worship: Diction (2)

The Poetry of Worship: Developing a Poetic Ear (3)

The Poetry of Worship: Unity and  Focus (4)

The Poetry of Worship: Avoid the Abstract (5)

The Poetry of Worship: The Magic of Metaphor (6)

The Poetry of Worship: Sound (7)

The Poetry of Worship: Symbolism (8)

Related: Why Is the Praise Band so Loud? (it shouldn’t be)

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