I was recently interviewed on TCT Today about my new book Worship Primer for Pastors and Planners: What you Wish You Learned in School with host Tom Nolan. You can watch it here (it’s only 11.5 minutes). I was amazed at what they can do with a green screen studio!
Category: Worship in the church
“Me” songs vs. “God” songs in worship
I’ve been ruined. For one of my classes I read and wrote about the criteria for choosing songs used in worship. One of those criteria considers whether a song (or “song set”) is “me-centered” or “God-centered.” The other day I was asked if there wasn’t room in church to sing a song about what God has done for me. It’s a very good question.
We live in a consumerist, materialist culture. Nearly every choice I make in a day centers on what I like or don’t like. Scrolling through my Facebook feed I decide every second whether or not I like a post enough to stop and read. Watching American Idol(or any other talent show) I judge what I like or don’t like. Every commercial, every song, every route I drive to work, every incoming phone call, every fast-food restaurant, I decide what I like or don’t like. This mindset is the reality and totality of our existence, like a fish surrounded with water. For ten thousand minutes every week, life is about “me.”
So when we walk through the doors of our church we are still in this mode of reference. We constantly judge the experience according to what I like or don’t like. The songs we sing, the volume of the music, the style of the preacher, the perfume of the person sitting next to me, the cute (or not so cute) child two rows back, the temperature, the comfort of the seats, and a hundred other things.
I contend that for the seventy-five minutes the church is gathered in one place (set against the ten thousand they spend not gathered), we must do everything in our power to set our attention on the only reality that truly matters. That reality is that that the God of inestimable excellence in glory, holiness, and love has invited us into his presence. He chooses to speak to us, he chooses to listen to us, he chooses us to be his people. In the words of John Jefferson Davis, “The ecclesia,the assembly of the living God, the true church, is that entity constituted by those people elected and called by God, assembled by his authority in his presence to experience and respond to his presence in the worship-event.”[1]
Notice the only defined human activities in the above statement are to assemble, experience, and respond. It’s not a response that rates the event or the environment. It is a response to the One who invited us into this event, the One who delights to interact with his chosen people. The only “rating” that should happen is to assess the worth of the One before whom we assemble. For seventy-five minutes we have the opportunity to focus our fickle attention on the God of inestimable excellence. We worship pastors must do all in our power to counter the ten-thousand minutes of self-centeredness, and have laser-like focus for these seventy-five minutes on our God.
Davis continues to examine what is the nature of an individual Christian. Once we are in Christ, we are no longer an “autonomous, individualistic self, but a trinitarian and ecclesial self.” [2]To put in plainer English, when we are saved we enter into the unique community of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Triune God inhabits us (John 14:16, 23). These words are spoken over us in our baptism. Baptism also ushers us into the body of Christ constituted in the church. While we remain individuals, we are now individuals in relation to Christ and his body. Think of a married couple: while they remain a man and woman, in their new condition of marriage they are one person. Same with the individual in Christ. He or she is indeed an individual, but now is identified in relation to the Triune God and the body of Christ, the church. So Paul can write, “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price” (1 Cor. 6:19-20).
So back to the question of songs that focus on what God has done for me; are they the best songs to use in our 75 minutes together? Chew on the above thoughts and we’ll continue soon. Tell me what you think here.
[1]John Jefferson Davis, Worship and the Reality of God: An Evangelical Theology of Real Presence(Downer’s Grove, IVP Academic, 2010), 62-63.
[2]Davis, Worship,71,
Routine and Liturgy
Routine. We all have one. We need routine in order to maintain our sanity in a chaotic world. In any given day we do not know what lies head, but our routines help us cope. We have a certain order of getting ready in the morning. A certain route we take to work. We get our young children into a routine of eating and sleeping at regular times.
The early Christian disciples faced this need for routine. They lived in a realm where the Romans controlled everything. And the Romans grew to hate the Christians. They also faced growing persecution by the Jewish leaders for their “different” beliefs. All this forced them out of their normal routines. They fled their homes. They were forced to quit their jobs. They had to worship in caves and catacombs, away from the Jewish leaders and the Roman soldiers.
Out of this persecution flowed their worship liturgy. In a world of chaos and fear, these forms of worship brought stability and ingrained the deep truths of their newfound faith. They retold the story through the readings, they continued tradition and obeyed the Apostles in their prayers, and they sang the songs and hymns to rehearse their faith.
This Maundy Thursday, Riverwood will join these ancients in a form of communion liturgy that is hundreds of years old, but made fresh in modern language, all intended to draw us closer to our Savior and to each other as we obey his command to “love one another.” Join us at 7:00 PM.