As a child, I remember going to church when church services were held in long sanctuaries and organ music was the predominant instrument. As we entered the sanctuary for the service, the organ would be playing to set the mood. It gave a sense of the power and glory of God. As we sang hymns, the pipe organ would bellow out with sound coming from all around us it seemed. The organ had become such a central part of the worship service that many thought it to be irreligious to not have one, or worse, to use any other instrument.
In my late teen years, I became a part of a youth movement in my hometown, where we would meet weekly for singing and Bible teaching, but there was something quite different than what I was used to. First, it wasn’t held in a normal church building, but in a local barn. Secondly, the sacred organ was replaced by guitars, electric and acoustic, drums, and the like. And on top of that, I saw young people like me clapping to the music, lifting their hands to God, and thoroughly enjoying the experience. This was not what I was accustomed to on Sunday mornings, where hymns were sung with an expected austerity that was interpreted as reverence. But in this young assembly, I saw other young people celebrating the God I had become so deeply endeared to. I realized that my emotions, given by God, could be expressed so that others may see my joy in being His child. This experience was a game changer for me. I was no longer content with the traditional worship style. And, although, I continued to keep my Sunday morning routine, I moonlighted on Saturday nights when the city youth would gather at the barn.
It was an interesting era. Church music, in general, was going through a transformation, a kind of modernization. The new generation was no longer content with the old hymn styles of music. In fact, a growing number of artists were creating contemporary style pop and rock music with religious lyrics. I became so excited about the new music that I threw away all the secular albums that I had. When I started college, I signed up for the campus radio station and started a Christian music show every Sunday afternoon. Soon, another DJ joined in and we had two shows back to back. It was exciting to be a part of a new movement and to help make it known to so many other students and listeners in the county.
It didn’t take long, however, to see that something was going awry. The music, which had a powerful message, bringing the Good News to a whole new generation in their musical language, was increasingly becoming an industry. It was obvious with each concert I attended, each interview we did, and with each new album and group coming out, the movement was becoming commercialized. It was losing its original zeal, organic naturalness, even its effectiveness on the listener. I realized then that it was time to leave it behind. I still embraced the changes that were happening and I clung to certain groups and singers that impacted my faith walk, but I realized that I would need to walk away from radio and the commercial world that was encompassing the music and the musicians.
Over the next few decades, I saw similar transformations going on in the churches. The old organs were slowly being replaced by contemporary worship bands. What I had been so impressed with at our Saturday night youth meetings in the barn, was quickly becoming the norm. A new standard was being raised up. At first it was a few guitars, drums, and an overhead projector to display the words. Hymnals were gone, or used very little, replaced with overhead transparencies. But in time, new church buildings were designed with large stages, expensive sound systems, multi-media screens, and even theater lighting. The Sunday service had become a show that was put on by professional musicians, singers, speakers, and technicians that rivaled most theater companies.
Church has become commercialized. The big show has become a major attraction meant to draw in as many folks as possible each Sunday morning. Worship services are even advertised on TV, radio, social media, billboards, and the like. Churches compete with one another for attenders. Bigger churches are more admired and set the standard of what the new norms are, which are quickly adapted or imitated by smaller ones in hopes that these methods will result in more attenders. For a while, even I attended a large church, commonly called a “mega-church,” where thousands of people gathered each week. At first I accepted it as the norm, a cultural adaptation of the worship service that was reaching a new generation. But I heard a preacher say many years ago that what you win people with is what you win them to. That statement never left me. And what was becoming obvious so quickly was that what people were being won to was a big show, that consisted of a concert and a speaker, and everyone was expected to help fund it with regular giving. This, for most folks, had become what it meant to follow the Lord. What was so terribly wrong with all that?
Most of my life I have been a strong student and an avid daily reader of the Bible. I was taught early to read the Bible regularly. I studied the Bible formally and informally. I taught and preached the Bible to many age levels throughout the years, from first grade to adult. In my later years, however, the Lord showed me some very important issues around worship. We erroneously call the Sunday morning services “worship services.” Worship has become synonymous with the order of events that go on at each service, and more specifically the singing part. I have many friends who almost use the term singing and worship interchangeably, as though when we sing a religious song we are worshiping, especially if there is a strong emotional response attached to it. People have become conditioned that when the band starts playing, to clap or raise their hands, get emotional, etc. And the more emotion, the more worshipful the song is. But is this what the Bible teaches worship is supposed to be?
The first time we see worship in the Bible, it has nothing to do with a song service, or a religious meeting of any kind. The word worship is used by Abraham after he is instructed by God to sacrifice his son, his only son, on the altar. He, his son, and his servant travel to “the place,” apparently somewhere the Lord had chosen for him. When he arrives, he tells his servant to wait with the donkeys while he and his son “travel a little further, worship there, and then we will be right back.” Abraham knew what he had to do. He had to obey the Lord. God had promised him his son, and now, at His command, he was to sacrifice him. He referred to this as “worship.” There was no music, no choir, no heavenly portal of angels singing. There was, I’m sure, great expectation in heaven as Abraham, God’s only known follower at the time, was put to the grand test. The account tells us that he built the altar, tied his son, placed him on the altar and raised the knife to slay him. It was the ultimate sacrifice, even greater, I’m sure, than if he had sacrificed his own life. And this he called worship.
We don’t know what worship is. Anyone can sing a song, get emotional, watch a show, hear a speaker, give a little change in an offering plate, but we don’t really understand worship. We leave the “theater” and go about our daily lives thinking we had given God some time, some emotion, some money, and He must be okay with us now, perhaps even pleased. But one only has to read the prophets to see the heart of God on this issue. It was Amos who said as he spoke for the Lord, “I hate all your show and pretense–the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies. . . Away with your noisy hymns of praise! I will not listen to the music of your harps. Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, an endless river of righteous living” (Amos 5:21). Isaiah, likewise, stated, “These people say they are mine. They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God” (Isaiah 29:13). This passage is quoted by Jesus himself as he rebukes the religious leaders of His day (see Matthew 15:8). And likewise, this generation has strayed far away from the path of truly worshiping the Lord. We have forgotten His commands, his ways, his heart, and replaced them with our own ways and ideas that seem right to us. We have forgotten Jesus’ words that “all who love me will do what I say” (John 14:23).
To Abraham, worship meant obedience. It was not a financial offering, nor a little time spent in a religious gathering. In this case, it was the giving of his precious offspring. It was holding nothing back. We know the end of the story. God intervened at just the right time and stopped the blade from entering the boy. But the goal was accomplished. God knew he had all of Abraham’s trust and heart, for he did not withhold even his son, his only son (Genesis 22:12). It was Abraham’s obedience that resulted in a whole new nation being born that would be set apart for God’s purpose. The apostle Paul builds on this in his letter to the Roman church when he says, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.” Paul got it. For the Jews, worship always involved a sacrifice. One could not come to God without first bringing a sacrifice to the altar. But now Christ had become that sacrifice, paving the way for us to come to God directly. And now Paul puts it on us, and says now we are to be that living sacrifice. Jesus said we are to “deny ourselves and take up our cross.” The cross meant death to every Roman citizen. To become a living sacrifice is to die to our plans and will for our own lives. We are to take on the purpose and plan of God. That is what it means to be holy–to be set apart for God’s purpose.
God wants our whole being and our lives. He gave us His in the life of His Son. That’s what love does. It gives all of itself away for the one loved. That is worship. To “love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.” To hold nothing back.
God requires us to do what is right (justice), to be merciful (because he is merciful), and to walk humbly with Him (c.f. Micah 6:8). We are to live in obedience to Him as a sacrifice, one completely given over to Him. We will sing, yes, because there is His joy in our heart, and we won’t need a band. But our worship will not be the song, but our very lives. That is purely worship!
Categories: Ekklesia Community, Living It, Uncategorized
Beyond Traditon 
I miss coming
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