worship

i had a talk with some guys today about the whole "pentecostal two-step" thing that a lot of people do onstage at church nowadays. this brought up modern worship, which i've been thinking about a lot lately. i've never been to a truly transcendental worship service, where i just felt swept away. i've had glimpses of that transcendence, but i still found myself pushing against the atmosphere of the service when it did happen. i was worshipping almost in spite of what was happening on stage.

well, jared, you might say, perhaps that's a YOU problem. maybe you just connect to God in a different way than most people. if that's your response, then see if experience bears it out - if you're in a fairly charismatic church, look around and see how many people are actually lost in worship. usually there are a few (perhaps 5% of the congregation, in my experience at the Rock Church and CCC Oxford Falls) and usually they're girls. there are a few more people who are trying really hard to worship: rocking back and forth, praying, with their hands up in the air, trying to push through. then the rest of the people are either singing the songs and slightly getting into it, or clapping halfheartedly, or just standing there. i've never been to a church service where i felt like the entire crowd was genuinely lost in unforced worship. i don't want to be told to raise my hands, i want God to show up so strongly that i HAVE to raise my hands.

with all that in mind, i think there are a few problems with worship, which i'm obviously going to discuss. modern worship needs more personality, a more rounded perspective, and most importantly, a true connection with the God of the universe.

PERSONALITY.

i've long been of the opinion that most worship music tends to be bland and personality-less. let's take a case in point - the opening night of the hillsong conference this year. i heard joel houston speak at awakening this year, and was completely impressed with his humility and heart - the guy seems to be the real deal. but for a worship leader, i want somebody who pulls me in and shows me the presence of God, someone whose personality sweeps the whole crowd into intimacy with God. I want the personality of David's Psalms or Augustine's Confessions. when St. Augustine says "the promises are yours, and who fears deception, when Truth makes the promises?" i believe him. i feel the heart and passion behind that statement. no offense to joel houston, but when he sings "won't you break free and dance in His love" i don't really want to break free. nothing in me is drawn towards the words or action.

Jesus had a specific personality - he had a profession (carpenter), a group of friends, a specific geographical location which he was raised in, etc. He was perfect, and 100% man/God, but he wasn't a neutral personality which could mold itself to any situation and relate to everybody. the pharisees found him confrontational, violent, and dangerous. his disciples found him challenging and sometimes enigmatic, but loving and loyal. the people found him full of compassion and generous towards the faith-filled. Jesus had an individual human history and story, which shaped His worldview just as it shapes ours. why do we expect our worship leaders to be faceless everymen? Jesus wasn't the everyman - He pissed off a lot of people, and continues to do so.

for a more easily accessible example of what i mean by having personality on stage, watch this video of scotty avett playing "famous flower of manhattan" live. he just opens up and plays, and it's powerful to watch. i've seen mates of state play three times, and every time they just blew me away and sucked the crowd in.

"BUT JARED!" they cry. "WORSHIP IS DIFFERENT THAN ENTERTAINMENT!" worship is meant to, essentially, put God in his place, us in ours, and facilitate intimacy with the divine. if we're going to get the performance aspect out of it, then we have to do it solo, with just us and God. the second you put people up on the stage, it's going to be partially about performance. i don't think you can escape that aspect of corporate worship.

that said, we need to sense where the worship leader is coming from. we need to feel their part of the story in order to find ours, to find the threads that bind us. we need to feel their hurt and their knowledge of the Healer so we too can know the Great Physician. we need their testimony in their mannerisms and tone of voice, in the passion of the words echoing from their throat. i don't want a faceless worship leader any more than i want a faceless preacher. we need personality, because God is personal and so is His creation.

A ROUNDED PERSPECTIVE.

life sucks sometimes. a lot, as a matter of fact. sure we win in the end, but we have to fight this flesh in the meantime. almost every Biblical character had flaws, and in their weaknesses God was made strong. so why do our lyrics and attitudes not bely this fact in worship? we are frail creatures whom God, in His grace, loves and has redeemed. as jeff crabtree mentioned in class the other day, rabbi simcha bunim used to carry two slips of paper in his pocket - one had "the world was created for my sake" on it, the other said "i am but dust and ashes." worship needs the perspective of both, not just the former. nowhere in the Bible do we find a positivistic denial of reality as a substitute for true faith. so why is it everywhere in our worship lyrics? why is this unrealistic attitude held up as our exemplar in modern charismatic christendom?

johnny cash sang about wearing black as a way of reminding people about the "poor and beaten down." the world hurts while we sit in our church and sing happy songs about how great life is. note i'm completely guilty of this - i don't want to go out and do something about it, because i'm lazy. we all are. how much time do we want to invest into the work God has set out for us - feeding the widows and orphans, loving one another, and making disciples? we can come together and have a somewhat feel-good, superficial worship evening, but it just doesn't cut it.

what we need in worship is a deep, powerful revelation of the reality of a broken world (take note that this revelation necessitates actually engaging with the world) coupled with the pure and fierce love of a white-hot God who wants so desperately for us to be whole that He sent His Son to die for us. we need a desperation in our worship, and desperation comes out of a low place - the end of ourselves. mountains are brought low if not for valleys, and valleys are plains without mountains.

worship also lacks an eternal perspective. harriet beecher stowe famously put the last stanza (when we've been there 10,000 years...etc.) into "amazing grace," and hearing it sends the same shivers down my spine and evokes the same longing for home that reading c.s. lewis' "the great divorce" does. we were not meant for this earth. we were meant for the true reality of heaven, of God's eternal presence. our songs simply must acknowledge that one day the dawn will come and we will find that, to quote lewis, "the term is over: the holidays have begun. the dream is ended: this is the morning."

we need eternally focused, real, broken, honest, well-rounded worship.

INTIMACY WITH GOD.

this to me is the most personal of the points i'm making. it requires us to get down on our knees and talk with God, to engage him on purpose with a clear heart. it means we have to drop some things we can't bring into his presence. it means we have to make a choice to love Him, as He has first loved us.

it means we get real.

it means we connect and engage with God on a level heretofore unseen as a community. that connection requires transparency - it requires that we get honest with each other and talk about important things. we have to be able to glance at the person beside us, know where they are, where they hurt, and how they connect with God. if they know us and we know them, we can enter into God's presence unreservedly - matthew 18:20 says "for where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst." we need to include God in our conversations, and he will meet us and be intimate with us.

i had an experience the other night where i was typing to someone on msn and the presence of God hit me in such a strong way i had to turn off the lights and lay on the floor. it was all i could do to just lift my upward facing palms off the ground and weep. i want more experiences like that, where i can't help but be prostrate and feel the presence of the living God.


in summation, something needs to give. thoughts?