On Worship

February 23, 2018

(This could be a long post, and I'm not exactly sure how to tackle this controversial topic...but as Julie Andrews wisely suggested, "Let's start at the very beginning...a very good place to start." )

Music has always been a part of my life.  It started with piano lessons in kindergarten, which continued through my junior year of high school, and grew to include the acoustic guitar.  Just for fun I taught myself the bass, and then most recently I learned the drums.  (I fiddled around with a mandolin for a while in there.)  My teen years would often find me holed up in my room with my cassettes and cds, just listening to music, enjoying the way it made me feel.  Music was powerful.  When I'd have strong emotions of any kind, I'd sit down at the piano and play them out.  It was an outlet of sorts, a way to express myself.

It was natural, then, for me to participate on worship teams.  I had something of a gifting, people said, and this was a way that I could serve, a way that I could use my talents to honor God in the church.  I have always been rather shy and introverted, so getting up on stage in front of people was nerve-wracking (and even after years and years of it, that never really went away), but the sheer joy of collaborating musically, playing and singing together, was worth any of the anxiety.  When I learned the piano, I was trained as a soloist.  However the pressure of being in the spotlight - the pressure to perform - was too much, so I walked away from it.  But playing as a group...that was different.  I especially enjoyed the bass - there was so much to like!  It was a background instrument that most people didn't notice, but that contributed greatly to the sound, so while my role was important, the pressure was greatly lessened.  Also, being a girl playing the electric bass was something of an anomaly, so I felt like it made me interesting.   

For the first half of my life, "worship" meant singing hymns or laid-back praise choruses.  The hymns didn't generally "do anything" for me, but the choruses were a bit more moving.  I would sing about loving God, about giving Him my whole life.  Those were sometimes emotional songs to sing, but were also daunting - DID I really love God with my whole heart, like I was saying I did?  

My Christian school did annual retreats in junior high and high school, and I was excited to be able to attend them.  I distinctly remember the retreat being my first encounter with real "worship music".  The words were so personal, the setting was so intimate - dimmed lights, electric guitar and a cajon - I couldn't help but openly weep.  I recall being confused at the stoic faces of those around me, who seemed unaffected by this amazing scene.  I felt like God loved me, I felt like He saw me, I felt enveloped in our mutual affection, I felt...I felt...I felt.  My neighbors asked me if I was ok.  

Had I ever been better?

I was hooked.  It was natural for me to seek out a church, when I moved away from home, that provided that same worshipful atmosphere:  The Vineyard.  Getting to participate on the stage?  Even better.  I'd stand next to the drummer, lock into the bass drum rhythm, and drive the emotions high.  This was the setting where I discovered the true power of the bass.  I learned the ebb and flow of worship, and I mastered the art of "spirit-led worship."

Here's what I mean by that:  The goal was to be led by the Holy Spirit.  In worship, that's understood to mean that we make our plan for the service - we pick out the songs, we practice them thoroughly - but then we need to be spontaneous, we need to allow the Spirit to direct us as he wills, and we need to yield to his leading.  This is a tricky thing when playing music together.  How this is done is through a sort of practiced spontaneity.  Each worship leader would develop signals, tells, or motions to communicate to the team where to go next.  As a musician, you become an expert reader of that body language, and you adjusted on the fly.  Here's an example: We're nearing the end of the second chorus...now do we go to the bridge?  Or back to verse 1 again?  Oh, she did the repeat signal, so that means back through the chorus.  Are we going into it big (high-energy and loud), or are we going to drop out and bring it down?  That's the body language part.  She's kind of bobbing up and down and her voice is going high...ok, we're going in big.  (all of that takes place in about 1 second.)   Now continue that process through the whole worship set of 3-5 songs.

The goal of the worship music, which was generally sung at the very beginning of the service, was to "bring people into the presence of God."  That emotional experience I'd had on the retreat?  That was the presence of God.  We used the music to serve people in that way, to help them remove the distractions, to step away from the burdens of life, to block out what everyone else was doing, and to have a one-on-one connection with God.  We helped them focus on him, and prepared them for hearing his word in the sermon.  I practiced carefully, not wanting to hinder people's experience by making an obvious mistake musically.  Twice I even attended a weekend-long worship musician training seminar called CMS (Christian Musician Summit) where I (once literally - there weren't enough chairs) sat at the feet of the big names in contemporary christian music, learning from people like Paul Baloche, Norm Stockton, Daniel Ornellas (the bassist for Brenton Brown), Matt Maher, and Mia Fieldes (a songwriter for Hillsong, Kari Jobe, Meredith Andrews, etc.)  When you consider the ramifications of screwing this up - someone being robbed of an encounter with God and maybe therefore not receiving from him the guidance and encouragement they desperately needed  - then you do your very best to make sure you're getting it right. 

Where did things start getting shaky?  Well, a few places.  At some point I recognized that I became very good at predicting where the music would go.  There were patterns we'd follow, there were techniques that worked well.  I remember the light clicking that maybe, just maybe, it wasn't the Holy Spirit that was leading us as much as it was the emotions and knowing what triggered them, sensing what would affect people the most based on how they were responding.  That stuck with me a bit, but I tucked it away in my mind and continued on.  The end result was what we were after, and if getting people to "let go" emotionally led them to connect with God, then the means didn't really matter.  I didn't label it as "manipulation" at the time but...well yes, that is what it comes down to.

"A revival is not a miracle, nor dependent on a miracle, in any sense. It is a purely philosophical result of the right use of the constituted means—as much so as any other effect produced by the application of means." - Charles Finney

Another phenomenon that caused me to wonder was people's responses to the music.  I wasn't always affected, and in fact as it had become a way of life for me, it became harder and harder to "enter in".  I'd be perplexed when the music would do it's thing, and I'd be greatly moved, only to find others commenting about how they didn't really sense God's presence.  I'd sensed it...how could he not have been there?  Or when things would fall flat for me and others would rave about how wonderful and moving worship was, how God was truly in our midst...and I'd wonder why I'd been left out of that, wonder why my spiritual senses were so off.  I came to realize that it really was a subjective thing, which went against what I believed about God's presence - that if he "showed up", we'd all know it.  How could we not?

An acquaintance of mine recently shared this video with me, commenting on how strikingly similar it was to her experiences of worship.  I found the same.  Watch it and see how it moves you.

Click here to view the video in a separate window

That video captures the ethos of worship music...and in the fact that it is not worship music, I think it displays quite clearly the power that is behind it.  The way it builds, the energy driving it, is so very like what we did every Sunday.  Even the drums-and-voices part...how many times did we utilize that technique?  It is so powerful when the instruments drop out, and then come back in.  We can't help but have our emotions soar.

This kind of worship focuses our attention inward.  It is emotion-driven and emphasizes the experience.  In general, it points us to our feelings, toward our own commitment and resolve, and in that way the focus is on us and what we do for God, rather than Christ and what He did for us.  The basic assumption we operated under - that God would meet with us through an inner connection - was unadulterated mysticism (the idea that we can have direct, unmediated access to God;  I addressed that topic in this post.)  As my eyes were opened to the problems with that line of thought, my views on worship music couldn't help but change.

Click here to view the video in a separate window

In all of this, I thought the answer was to change the songs.  I thought we needed to amend our focus and check the theology in the lyrics more carefully.  I began analyzing the songs I was listening to on the Christian radio station (this was an extremely helpful resource), and I basically tried to figure out how to "fix" worship music.  What I ended up finding was not at all what I expected.

I found the liturgy.

It wasn't a quick, easy switch by any means.  The last time I played on a worship team, it was a little surreal.  I knew when I sat down at the drum kit that this was probably the last time I'd do so, and that knowledge was bitter-sweet.  Was I really willing to lay this down?  To walk away and never look back?  And to trade it for...what?  Something so cold, so formal as a liturgical service?  Hymns?  Responsive readings?  Was I losing my mind?

I've spent quite a while, sitting here trying to know what to say next, trying to figure out how to convey the truth that, when you understand what's going on in the service, the liturgy is anything but cold - that it is full of life, that it is profoundly moving in a much deeper way...but I've realized that's taking the wrong approach, and that's not why I embraced the liturgy.  The move had nothing to do with my feelings.  It had everything to do with a change in my understanding of worship.

If you were to ask most people what “worship” is, they might say, “Worship is praising the Lord” or “Worship is what human beings do to express their thanks to God” or “Worship is going to church,” or something like that. While there is some truth to each of these answers, they do not adequately describe the main purpose of Lutheran worship.

We Lutherans have a unique perspective on worship. We know that God’s Word and His holy Sacraments are His precious gifts to us. They are the tools the Holy Spirit uses to give us forgiveness, life and salvation. The main purpose of Lutheran worship is to receive these gifts from God.

Our Lutheran Confessions explain this truth as follows: “The service and worship of the Gospel is to receive good things from God” (Apology to the Augsburg Confession, Article IV.310).

-A.L.Barry (in this article)

The service on Sunday is not primarily about what I bring to God.  My praise and my sacrifice are not the focus of it all.  Rather than God responding to us, it is we who respond to Him.  The liturgy is largely composed of words straight out of the Bible.  As we come and hear His Word, we respond in thanks and praise.  He is the initiator. He is the one who serves.  We simply come with humble, beggar's hearts and open hands and receive what He graciously gives us.

This is a little bit of a shocking, grating idea.  We bring nothing to the table?  Rather we expect the Lord of Hosts to stoop down and act as our servant?  How undignified!  How presumptuous!  How...repulsive!  

How very like the Gospel.

"The Lutheran Church has a rich legacy to offer in its worship.  Here is reality, not symbolism  Here we have real contact with God; not as we come to Him, but as He comes to us.  [...] People are longing for God.  Where will they find Him?  In the shifting sands of the inner life or on the solid rock of the Word of His Gospel?  How are they to offer Him in their thanks and praise?  With trivial methods borrowed from the entertainment industry or in worship forms which focus on the praise of God's gracious glory?  This is the kind of worship that lifts the heart while it exalts Christ!  And this is what Lutheran worship does."  

- Harold Senkbeil, "Sanctification"

This kind of worship connects us not only to one another, but to Christians who have gone before us.  It reminds us that we're part of something far bigger than ourselves and far greater than our current cultural context.  We sing hymns from the first centuries of the Church, repeating words that have been spoken throughout the ages.  The songs in my former churches had a relatively brief shelf-life - a song from ten years ago would be considered old, and people quickly tired of them.  Musical styles changed as tastes changed, attempting to strike at a constantly shifting target.  As opposed to vague lyrics meant to stir emotions and appeal to as wide an audience as possible, these songs of the historical Church are rich with deep theological truths and have stood the test of time.

"In a changing world the liturgical service offers changelessness [...] Among people who are searching for roots the service offers a tie to the past.  To people who are terrified of the future the service looks ahead to the next generation of worshipers.  In a society of casual carelessness the service brings dignity. [...] The service is timeless and uncommon; it wants to be so.  And thereby it puts the mature believer for one hour each week into a setting which reminds him that his relationship with Christ is also timeless and uncommon.  The Sunday service with its historic order has nothing to do with earth -- and neither does the worshiper.  And yet, as he comes before the throne of God he receives power to live on his earth as God would have him live.  

-Professor James Tiefel "A Twentieth Century Look at Worship"

I didn't join the Lutheran church because I was looking for a liturgical service, but when I discovered that the theology I believed to be the most faithful to the Scriptures resulted in the use of liturgy, I awkwardly, then willingly, embraced it.  I learned that everything that is done is done for a specific, important, biblical reason.  It relies on the efficacy of the Word to change hearts, rather than any measures of our own devising.  As my pastor expressed to me recently, it is comforting that, even if he were to preach "a stinker of a sermon," the Gospel would still be clearly proclaimed through the Word in the liturgy.

As I stand and join with the saints who have gone before us, receiving from Christ, speaking His Word back to Him in praise and thanksgiving, sometimes my heart wells up and spills out in my emotions.  Hearing the Scriptures preached every single week through the sermon and the liturgy, reminding me of my sin and proclaiming Christ and Him crucified for my forgiveness, sometimes I am overwhelmed.  Feelings can be a natural byproduct, but they are never the aim...and when they are lacking, I know the words and the truths still stand, whether I feel like they do or not. God is present, not because I sense that He is - or because I've summoned Him with my singing - but because He has promised to be.

Click here to view the video in a separate window

-M

Next post: On the Lord's Supper