I have spent all of my life in the church. My earliest memory of Sunday mornings is filled with the rough wooden pews of an episcopal cathedral, the smell of incense and candles, and the thunderous power of the pipe organ. When I reached middle school, my church experience shifted, gone were the pipe organs, quickly replaced by guitars and drum kits. I didn’t realize at the time that I was living through what many now call the “Worship Wars.” Beginning in the ’70s, this theological battle often divided churches along the lines of, “Contemporary” and, “Traditional.”
On the contemporary side were those who insisted that the church needed to get with the times, stop singing those dusty old hymns that nobody understood, and preach the gospel in a way that showed the unbelieving world that it was relevant. Those who took the traditional stance warned that bringing the electric guitars in would make Sunday mornings no different from a rock concert on Friday nights, besides, those dusty old hymns were classics for a reason. Some churches attempted to walk the line, offering both styles in separate services, while others committed themselves wholly to one side or the other, but the ultimate result was division.With all of this turmoil, what can we say about worship as a spiritual discipline? Is it even possible to tackle without kicking a hornets' nest and setting off another debate about style, form, and content? Probably not, but I’m going to try.
A Working Definition
In his introductory essay to, “Worship By the Book” Don Carson offers a paragraph long definition of what worship is. It’s not particularly easy to remember, but several lines from it can help us get a handle on what it is we’re talking about when we discuss worship:
“Worship is the proper response of all moral, sentient beings to God, ascribing all honor and worth to their creator-God precisely because he is worthy, delightfully so...worship therefore manifests itself both in adoration and in action, both in the individual believer and in corporate worship.”
Though it isn’t going to win any awards for catchiness, Carson’s explication captures several key facets of what worship is, at its very base. The act of worship is about declaring the goodness, the kindness, and the supremacy of God in all things. To describe worship as our, “proper response” is also important. Many of us have felt the discomfort that comes when we witness an “improper response” to an event.
Several years ago, a viral video circulated of a prominent Baptist pastor, John Piper, speaking to a group of Christian counselors. Piper is widely known for his grave, somber, and intellectual sermons. Unfortunately, the conference organizers got the event schedule mixed up, and the audience was told that the next speaker was a stand-up comedian. What followed was an unbearably awkward sermon. Seriously, I can’t even get past the first two minutes. “I am a sinner” Piper would say in somber remorse, and the audience would erupt in laughter. The response was improper, laughter was foreign to the weighty topics being preached, and it felt unnatural.
Think about everything that the scriptures say about God: all things were created by him and through his powerful word, all things hold together in him, the cattle on a thousand hills belong to him, he is the giver of every good and perfect gift. If all of these things are true, the most unnatural thing we can do is be indifferent to him. Yet so often we are. Because of sin, we are not always inclined to see God as he is, we are tempted to, “Forsake the fountain of living waters.” But this is unnatural, and whenever we find this impulse in our hearts, it should make us uncomfortable. It’s like laughing in the middle of a sober sermon.
Worship and Justice
Carson’s definition explains that when we do respond to God like we should it comes out as both in adoration and in action. You see, a God that is so grand could never adequately be praised in only one area of our life, he must capture all of it. We declare his glory and his worth in the way that we live out our day to day lives. This is what Paul is getting at when he talks about us offering our lives as a living sacrifice in the book of Romans. Songs are not enough, if worship is to be a spiritual discipline, then we must discipline ourselves to glorify God in every area of our lives.
This is part of God’s indictment of Israel in the Old Testament. In Amos 5 God rejects the musical worship of Israel because they had not sought justice in their nation and in the world. The prophet’s words should shake anyone who thinks that God’s people shouldn’t be speaking out with clarity in the face of evil, cruelty, and injustice in our day: “Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” This is important, so don’t miss it: God’s willingness to accept Israel’s musical worship is contingent on his people living lives that embody the songs they sing. We should not expect any difference in our day, our musical worship is only as good as the way we declare God's worth throughout the week. This includes declaring and defending the worth of human beings who are made in his image.
Lifting Our Voices
On the other hand, we can’t say that worship doesn’t include music. During the worship wars of my youth, it became common for people to declare triumphantly that worship was more about how we lived than what was played on a Sunday morning. True enough, but there’s also no way around the fact that the Bible says a whole lot about singing. The longest book in the Bible is, after all, a divinely inspired hymn book. In that book the Psalmist calls us to praise:
Oh sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth!
Sing to the Lord, bless his name;
tell of his salvation from day today.
Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous works among all the peoples!
-Psalm 96:1-3
Unfortunately, this is a discipline that many of us have neglected. Often, even when we’re present for the musical portion of a worship service, we exist in the room as spectators rather than participants; watching the band, the vocal team, and the worship leader sing as we nod approvingly. What a profound tragedy: Jesus told the Pharisees that if his disciples had not praised him the very stones would have cried out. While we, the church, can barely find ourselves enthusiastic enough to mouth the words, let alone cry out in praise. This should not be.
While there’s no way a blog post could do justice to the scope of what it means to worship God, hopefully, we’ve made a start. Worship is not a choice between singing songs or living out lives of justice and mercy, it’s both. When both of these things are wed together, adoration and action, you will see the gospel going forth with supernatural power. What God has joined together, we as the church should never tear apart. So this week, as we look towards another Sunday full of songs, may you sing with a full heart. But may the words of your songs find their way into your bones, muscle, and marrow, the God who’s spirit calls you to lift your voice also calls you to lift your eyes to see the oppressed, the poor, and the downtrodden and to advocate for them to the glory of Jesus name.