The question needs to be asked: Are we in danger of worshiping worship?
The mood. The atmosphere. The melody.
The crowd. The emotion. Your favorite worship leader. Your favorite speaker.
The band. The performance. The feeling.
Are we being moved by the right things? Are our hearts aimed in the proper direction?
The problem with our worship culture is that we equate worship with an experience, a moment.
We end up loving worship more than we love God. We end up talking about worship more than we talk about God.
Our culture has made worship an end in itself, rather than what it should be – a way of life with Christ at the center.
But when life is chaotic, what do you turn to? When crises hits your life, what worship songs are you singing?
The Distracted Worshiper
I’m not advocating we create boring, terrible music or rid our gatherings of emotion. This isn’t a time to point the finger, listing all the churches, record labels, and artists who are doing it all wrong.
I’m issuing a caution – a warning to guard our hears from loving worship more than we love God.
The image you see on the top-right isn’t just a nice image. Cameras focus. They block out all distractions and zero in on what is most important in that moment.
Imagine hiring a photographer for your wedding who was so distracted by the scenery that he never took any photos of you and your spouse.
Not only would we call that unprofessional, we’d call it ridiculous. As a camera focuses in on a singular object, a special moment, so your life should frame itself around Jesus Christ.
But with good intent, many of us are running around focusing on anything and everything but God Himself. It’s as if Jesus is enthroned before our eyes but we’re taking Instagram shots of the throne itself.
We’re more enamored by the gifts and talents of God’s people more than the Creator of all things.
If we took away the music, the songs, and the artists, would we have anything to say to God?
Are We In Love With The Right Thing?
If you were alone in a room with Jesus Christ, what would well up from the depths of your heart? What would you say or feel? How would you respond?
Can you talk about worship music for hours but have nothing to say about who God is in your life and what He is doing?
Do you know all there is to know about the latest worship album but barren when it comes to knowing Scripture?
I’m not here to guilt you. I want you to know God. I want you to have a history of seeing God move and seeing His promises at work in your day to day.
I don’t want you to look back on the glory days of your faith. I want each day to bring new perspectives, adventures, divine appointments, and experiences that show the reality of God to the world.
That’s why the Biblical understanding of worship needs to be kept paramount in our minds.
How True Worshipers Experience Art
Being impressed by talented people and feeling good through the force of their performance is not enough. The wise worshiper will enjoy that, bless that, encourage that, but will also see through it to the Giver of all gifts.
The true worshiper learns to sing through the storm – cry out through the confusion of life.
The true worshiper knows how to scour the Scriptures for daily bread.
The true worshiper knows how to pray.
The true worshiper isn’t just moved by powerful music. They are moved by the weight of God’s glory. They are hushed by the magnitude of His presence.
It’s not that great art is wrong or unnecessary. The worshiper of God just knows how to use it. It’s never an end in itself but a gateway to seeing more of the glory and perfection of God.
C.S. Lewis says it better than I ever could:
“The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of the tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”
Question: How do you guard your heart, your team, your church from loving worship more than loving God? How do you use your full talent in the local church without swaying the hearts of God’s people away from Him?
Let’s talk in the comments. You can leave a comment by clicking here.
[ois skin=”Beyond Sunday 2″]
Thank you for your blog that makes my eyes be opened whenever I read your post. For loving God more than anything as a worshipper, I want to spend my time with my loving Jesus, and praying first in the presence of Him. I’m a worship leader at the local church in Japan. I’m always hoping and praying for that my heart just focus on and see God; His goodness, the beauty of Him, and so on… during leading worship at anywhere…
So this post is the message just for me at right time!
Thank you!
That’s awesome, Kenichi! Thanks for commenting. Glad to have a friend in Japan! Keep up the good work.
Dallas Willard suggests that we are much like the cat in the old children’s rhyme:
Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?
I’ve been to London to see the great Queen.
Pussy cat, pussy cat, what did you there?
I frightened a little mouse under her chair.
(quoted as I remember it, slightly different than Willard)
Willard’s point is that we stand before the great God of the universe, the creator and master of all life – – and instead of seeing him, we focus on the bits and pieces we’ve put together to impress him. Surely, as you point out, there’s a better way.
Thank you David for reminding us what worship is really all about. With rehearsals and discussions about set lists and harmonies, it’s easy to slip into this way of thinking. I often wonder if we put too much emphasis on defining worship as a musical experience rather than a lifestyle. Often times I sit in my prayer closet and worship without singing or humming….just lifting my heart and mind to Him and sitting at His feet, praising Him for who He is and thanking Him for all He has done in my life. It’s a very intimate time with Jesus and I treasure it. Thanks again!
Amen!!
Worship teams and such are utterly unscriptural, the article is correcting finding problems with the tinsel on the tree, but the problem is the tree itself. http://www.wheatlandbiblechapel.org/blog/p-alignleftworship-54134
What a powerful application this piece will be in my life as an upcoming worship leader in my local church in Ghana . Thank God for waking u to write this to open our eyes ?