Teaching in Worship

I'm having a real hard time connecting with the experience of worship at our church. It has puzzled me until today...I think I finally put my finger on it.

I see worship as primarily an act of the heart. Therefore, I tend to connect with worship songs that use "heart language" or songs that reflect our intimacy with God. I have moved away from the traditional hymnody that is presentational or propositional. For me, teaching is teaching and worship is worship...so when a song tries to teach theology, I cannot connect with it.

Here comes the criticism: Teaching is, by its very nature, didactic. That is, it presents a proposition or truth and gives expository evidence to support its position. Teaching is best when its language is precise, its points well ordered and its conclusions strongly supported by Scripture. I love to receive good teaching! Our pastor is a fantastic teacher/expositor. His teaching is some of the best I've received since college. But the language of theology and teaching is precise.

Songs are lousy teachers. They have several weaknesses. The primary downfall of song-as-teacher is its use of language. The language of song is poetry. It is difficult, if not impossible, to express a precise theological proposition poetically. I will acknowledge rare exceptions, but as a rule language is either poetic or precise. Precise language typically loses its lyrical beauty and poetic language generally sacrifices precise expression in favor of meter or rhyme. This is why you will often hear a songwriter, singer or worship leader explaining a phrase or passage or entire song to an audience/congregation. He is in effect saying, "I wrote this poem that doesn't quite express the theological teaching in adequately precise language...here's what it means."

By doing this, the worship leader puts on the mantle of teaching for a moment. This is, in my thinking, superior because it allows the congregation to focus on the importance of the teaching and respond to it.

What I struggled with this morning was a particularly bad song about how we respond to God's invitation by His grace alone...a sound biblical teaching but one that requires some exposition to really build a case in our post-modern era of individualism and self-determination. Of course, the song lacked any exposition and reduced the biblical truth to a very vague (and dubiously poetic) expression of calling it a "gifted response." Lost: precise teaching.

The thing that bothered me most at the time was just how uncharacteristically cold and unmoved the congregation was. Everyone near me stood, silently transfixed on the projected lyrics, like so many deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck. No one seemed to get it. Lost: congregational response.

But all of that is academic. The real loss for me was that I was deconstructing the logistics of teaching in worship instead of experiencing worship. My heart was (uncharacteristically) not in it. The teaching-song had triggered something in me that shut down my heart and revved-up my brain. The entire service from that point on was a brain-only experience for me.

I'm a smart guy...but ultimately Christ didn't die to reform my intellect (although that is most certainly an effect of regeneration). He made that sacrifice to set my heart free. It is with our hearts that we truly seek God's presence and it is in our hearts that He makes the first, most visceral changes. It is there that His Spirit dwells and there that we connect with Him intimately. That is worship.

We need corporate worship that draws us to that inner sanctum of the heart where we can experience intimacy with God. If the worship leader is good (I mean really, really good), he may be able to incorporate teaching into the congregational experience but I don't really see the need for all of that spiritual multitasking since the teaching will come in a few minutes anyway.

Beauty

I ama dyed-in-the-wool Protestant. I am a modernist. I have cultivated a tendency to look forward in my methodology. My preferred "style" of worship is contemporary, emergent...

All of these adjectives and positions are products of my intellect...my reason tells me that in a post-modern society, the church must stay relevant. I understand that the hymns and architecture and art of the past were contemporary and modern and current and relevant in their own time.

But I go to a church that meets in a strip-center. I used to attend a church that met in a huge metal barn and looked for all the world like a big kicker-bar. The apartment building that I live in is more inspiring.

My heart tells me that our places of worship should be uplifting and inspiring. That a place of beauty is more appropriate for worship than a metal barn. Here is sit, looking out my living room window at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, all covered with snow. The sheer wonder of it makes my heart swell with praise for it's Maker. Such wonders in nature speak of the heart of God, who made it all and called it "good." Can we not offer some sort of small token of beauty in our place of worship?


If worship is indeed an act of the heart, should the places where we meet to worship seek to inspire the heart. It just stands to reason to me.

I'm not saying that there's necesarily a Biblical mandate for this. Certainly, the early Church met in homes. There are times when we are placed in circumstances that are so grim that worship must flow from reserves of strength deep in the heart. Paul and Silas worshipped in prison (certainly no place of beauty) and the Holy Spirit moved powerfully. BUT...It is also true that the Tabernacle and the Temple were both places of opulent beauty, dripping with gold and gems and finely finished woods...all at the specific command and inspiration of the Lord.

Obviously, there is a need to find balance between these extremes. I ask the question: What is God telling us about Himself, about His heart, in the instructions to build an opulent Temple?

Simplicity

I used to lead worship for children's ministry. We wrote a lot of the songs that we played because at the time (it's been about 8 years ago) there just were not a lot of simple songs with any depth. Children's worship requires simplicity...even when the songs were simple, I found myself giving explanations for conceptual truth because so many of the things that we worship and praise God for (His goodness, His grace, His provision) are conceptual in nature.

Kid's are so concrete. We sang a song that promised God would be "there when I'm in trouble." One kid caught me after church to ask me if God really was there when he got in trouble for hitting his sister. "Well, yes," I told him, "He is...but that's not really what I meant in the song..."

With kid's, worship is a lot about teaching them how to worship. I'm not talking about form, I'm talking about heart. Children don't understand big, conceptual words like surrender, communion or intimacy. And they have a narrow understanding of things like celebration, joy and freedom. So, there was a lot of teaching and modeling the first year. Then came the breakthrough...I've never seen such true heart worship as those children displayed.

That's when they started teaching me. It truly is a gift to be simple. Didn't Jesus tell us that we can't enter the Kingdom unles we become like one of these children? I find it very difficult to divorce myself from my theological conceptualism and just come to God as a child comes to his dad. But that is the key to heart worship.

I heard an interview with worship leader, Chris Tomlin, where he commented that he likes to write songs with simple choruses. And wow! he writes some fantastic songs. Here is a video clip of one of my favorite simple songs. It struck me that in spite of it's simplicity, the audience felt compelled to stand though no instructions were given to do so.



I want to write songs that call people to their feet to worship the majesty of God.

Weaknesses of Method-Worship

"Worship" is the big buzz word in the Church. I've been visiting churches in the Littleton, CO area since we moved here in November and everybody thinks they've got a handle on it. I don't want to come off as having a "critical spirit" in the very first post, but some of these folks are sadly mistaken.

I used to have my own very well defined idea about how to lead worship. There was a method to it. Song placement strategies...Up tempo here...slow it down there...a Capella tag...nicely done. I call this "method-worship" because it is similar in many respects to method-acting. Method-acting attempts to conjure the emotions of the character by reliving a similar situation in the actor's experience (i.e., reliving the emotions of a great loss when portraying a character at a funeral). In the same way, method-worship attempts to conjure a worshipful experience by following a specific best-practice. But method-worship fails in two ways:

First, it fails to bring the Presence of God. Period. It's almost humorous to watch a church try to recreate a visitation of the Holy Spirit...or it would be if it weren't so sad. But I've seen it many times in churches famous and not-so-famous for their spiritual awakenings. Some of them (once they've codified their method) will open a ministry school to teach others how to duplicate the experience. And while a list of actions, attitudes and activities that will drive out the Presence is easily composed, any methodology for bringing the Presence will certainly fail to produce consistent results because God is not interested in endorsing our methods. On the contrary, His eyes move back and forth on the earth that He may "strongly support those whose hearts are His." (2 Chron. 16:9)

The second failure of method-worship is that it seeks to manipulate the worshipper into a specific emotional state. I'm not advocating an emotionless worship...the problem is the manipulation. Jesus told the woman at the well the true worshippers would "worship in spirit and truth." If the emotions of worship must be conjured up by a clever arrangement of music, then I question the authenticity of the experience. No, the worshipper must prepare his own heart. We sully the intimacy of true worship when we counterfeit it in this way.

Heart is the center of worship. I am a musician, but the most intimate times of worship for me specifically exclude music. For me, the technique of music is a distraction from whole heart worship. I have found that I must enter into an intimate encounter with God before getting up to lead congregational worship. Otherwise, my leadership is compromised because my heart is not in it.

And it's not just the heart of the worshipper...it must be the heart of God that we seek. In these purposeful, intimate encounters with God, we get a foretaste of what it will be like to be the Bride of Christ. I daresay that most of the singing that goes on in the name of worship is lacking this kind of heart to heart encounter.

I want to encourage a dialogue about worship...one that is both intellectual and meaningful. I welcome the feedback of others that share this desire.