True confessions...my wife is a graduate of Baylor University in Waco, Texas. She is also a graduate of The Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University, and, since that is a longer name, we claim that one more often. I recently read an article in "Baylor Magazine," a publication of the university. The article was named "Learning to Lead a New Song." That interested me because of the clear biblical implications of the term "new song." I am also always interested in learning more about worship, so I started on the article...
...and didn't get past the first paragraph where I read the following sentences, "Churches are looking at who they are in their worship identity...As congregations shift in their musical tastes and appreciation, church leaders are trying to match worship styles to who's in the pews now-and who the church would like to see there."
Now I understand that there are a variety of styles of worship songs and so forth out there. I've even pastored churches where we have used most of them. But the sentences I highlight really have nothing to do with worship of the Living God; they have to do with what the people attending a particular church would like to hear, and what will draw other, presumably "desirable" people to the church.
Forgive me for saying so, but by that standard, this sounds a lot more like a stage show than worship. Do we really want to call a presentation contrived to please one group of people and attract another "worship?" I think not. What is worse, when we teach people that this is worship, they mature not only with a faulty understanding of what makes up worship, but also with a faulty understanding of Who God is.
I say this for one simple reason; worship is to always be directed to God, not man. Once we direct "worship" toward man, everything gets out of kilter, and we cannot properly understand the roles of God and man in relationship with one another. Once we lose the perspective on that relationship, the relationship of God as Covenant Giver and man as covenant recipient, we have lost sight of the ground of our salvation, the hope for this life and the promise of the next.
Please, please do not allow this to happen to you or your church. Worship is nothing if it is not a celebration of the King of the Universe in all His transcendence and the bringing of ourselves as gifts of gratitude to Him for caring for us in His immanence. Focus on that, and not on the styles of certain songs or churches and you will be worshiping God in the splendor of His holiness (Psalm 29:2.)
