Thursday, April 9, 2009
Worship Chapel Offense
Yesterday, during corporate worship chapel, the worship leader made a comment that a lot of people thought was very offensive. We were singing Shout Unto God, and after singing it one time though she told us that we were going to sing it one more time and to shout and yell because every week we sit and cheer for our favorite sport teams but we are dead in worship of our awesome God. I totally agreed with her, this is something that I have said to people before. However, I heard that many people were greatly offended by this remark. They said that they do not worship by yelling and the way she put her words made it sound like if you do not yell then you are not worshiping God. This, however, is not what she was saying! She was simply saying that we should be excited about God! We should not stand and let the people on stage sing songs. We are to engage our God and tell Him how much we love Him. Therefore, my own opinion is that if you are excited about not going to Hell and you truly understand that God has saved you, then what would be the problem with shouting your love out to God? Let's not get offended about peoples words, and let us just remember that worship is not meant to be a dead event, God is not dead.
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I was not there, but I did engage several students regarding this event after the fact, including Jen M., Maribeth, Drewber, M.J.G., A. Davis, and some others.
ReplyDeleteI came to the conclusion that it is never appropriate to coax worshippers to worshipping your way, as a worship leader, when I lead worship in High School. And I stand by that to this day.
Having said that, it is also important to note a few facts:
1. She used guilt to coax the worshippers into her mould of worship. She did this by saying "All week you've been cheering for your favourite teams! Why don't you worship God the same way?" (a reference, by my inference, to March Madness).
2. By guilting worshippers into her mould, she rejected and disrespected the traditions represented in the present audience (Catholic, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Baptist, Church of God, Pentecostal, et. al.).
3. She directly contradicted the nature of that day in the liturgical calendar: the worship of all of Lent, especially Passion Week, building up to Good Friday, is to be somewhat reverent and respectful, and sombre during the latter part, to respect the graveness of the crucifixion of our Lord, and the sorrow felt by the Father, and to remind of of the gravity of our sin, and the grace required to provide us with the remission of its consequences.
4. She overrode the power of the Gospel to motivate worshippers. If God's Gospel is true, and it is, and if we have received that gift, which we have, then it would serve to reason that the power of that Grace would motivate us to worship. As you said, we should worship out of gratitude for the grace we've received. If the Gospel is not doing this, the remedy is not superficial, as the one she offered. It's internal, and is the work of the Spirit.
At the most, I believe she should have prayed for God to awaken us anew to the awfulness our sin, awaken us anew to the awesomeness of His grace, and awaken us anew to praise, serve, and love Him more.
Being someone who has lead worship, and someone who sees worship throughout Scripture as a life-or-death issue to God, I have a severe attitude to instances like these- having struggled with the issues myself, and having seen things done so well in some cases, and so awfully in others.
In the Old Testament, God told man that he was worse than dirt, because when a man carrying the Ark tried to catch it to prevent it from hitting the ground, the man was struck dead by God.
In the New Testament, Jesus told us that worship was more important than helping the poor, which in that context I believe to be evangelizing, when He reprimanded Judas for scolding Mary about pouring $30,000 worth of incense on Christ's feet.
Needless to say, at the end of the day we agree on the doctrine of the issue, we disagree on the execution.
As a side note, I don't know Molly, and I don't know her heart, but from all accounts she's a great person, a dedicated disciple, and had the best of intentions.
Enjoyed the post! Expound more next time, and maybe you could post an edited copy, and maybe my comment if you felt like it, to the TSBR blog.
Have a great Easter!
Shabbat Shalom!