Reforming Worship
Found these nice insights on John DePoe's blog this morning. Fides Quaerens Intellectum: Theology of Worship from Exodus 32
As an occasional worship pastor I am deeply concerned about this issue. Specifically, I'm concerned as to what a fully-formed, holistic Christian life looks like in this an other contexts. To take this discussion to the level of form is a huge step in the right direction. All too often we evangelicals are so focused on the heavenly that we have a complete disdain for the physical and the formal. But shouldn't we strive to glorify God from every aspect of our worship and not just the sincerity of the content?
Sincerity is certainly key, but what about excellence? Sincerity is not an excuse for in-excellence, though it can at times make up for it. What about understanding the ways in which symbol, metaphor and sign communicate or the ways in which the arts communicate most effetively? If we're to have those as a part of our worship then shouldn't they be more than just emotional triggers or propaganda?
John's previous post resonates with my recent concerns and thinking here.
Nevertheless, I think a main reason for this problem in churches where John and I might feel most at home doctrinally is the subtle Manicheaism that dwells there (which values only the "spiritual" - as if we don't live the spiritual out in and through the physical), the hegemony of propositionalism (which would assume that the "meaning" of the Biblical text is roughly equivilant to what we can extract and put in -- take your pick: Ryrie, Berkhoff, Erickson, Grudem -- a sytematic theology text), and a modernist disdain for tradition (and by tradition I don't mean the barely 100 year old revivalism that passes for tradition in many of our churches).
The question remains: How do we overcome this in our churches and how do we re-form our churches in a manner that doesn't destroy the Body in the process?
Fides Quaerens Intellectum: Theology of Worship from Exodus 32
As an occasional worship pastor I am deeply concerned about this issue. Specifically, I'm concerned as to what a fully-formed, holistic Christian life looks like in this an other contexts. To take this discussion to the level of form is a huge step in the right direction. All too often we evangelicals are so focused on the heavenly that we have a complete disdain for the physical and the formal. But shouldn't we strive to glorify God from every aspect of our worship and not just the sincerity of the content?
Sincerity is certainly key, but what about excellence? Sincerity is not an excuse for in-excellence, though it can at times make up for it. What about understanding the ways in which symbol, metaphor and sign communicate or the ways in which the arts communicate most effetively? If we're to have those as a part of our worship then shouldn't they be more than just emotional triggers or propaganda?
John's previous post resonates with my recent concerns and thinking here.
Nevertheless, I think a main reason for this problem in churches where John and I might feel most at home doctrinally is the subtle Manicheaism that dwells there (which values only the "spiritual" - as if we don't live the spiritual out in and through the physical), the hegemony of propositionalism (which would assume that the "meaning" of the Biblical text is roughly equivilant to what we can extract and put in -- take your pick: Ryrie, Berkhoff, Erickson, Grudem -- a sytematic theology text), and a modernist disdain for tradition (and by tradition I don't mean the barely 100 year old revivalism that passes for tradition in many of our churches).
The question remains: How do we overcome this in our churches and how do we re-form our churches in a manner that doesn't destroy the Body in the process?
Fides Quaerens Intellectum: Theology of Worship from Exodus 32
posted by saument @ 10:13 AM
7 comments
7 Comments:
Amen!
I am going to post on this tonight. I think the answer is in John 4 where Jesus speaks on worship. I have preached many times on this and I may actually have an old blog post. Just a hint I think Jesus was anti-tradition too and anti-form. I realize this scares us because if we can "can" the form we think we can "can" the purity of the worship BUT..I think the opposite is true.
brad
I am a worship pastor, and a non-traditionalist. I've never been about following some kind of formula. Why? Because it's useless and a waste of time. yeah, I said it. Waste of time. Sincerity of the focus on Jesus, the passion and hunger that drives you to worship (which makes excellence follow), and Jesus Himself are all you need. The formality and liturgy is just plain humanistic. Last time I checked, worship is for God, not for how we want to do it.
Kent,
I completely agree with you that worship is about God and not us. That is why I said that we should strive to glorify God from every aspect of our worship.
I also agree that the elements you mentioned: passion and hunger for Jesus, sincerity of focus on Jesus, and the presence of Jesus Himself are essential to our worship.
I don't remember ever suggesting that we should worship the way we want to as opposed to the way God wants us to. In fact, that's the whole point of my post.
Did you read John DePoes's post to which I was responding? He pointed out quite clearly how sincerity and good intentions can be seriously misdirected.
I have to disagree with you that passion and hunger inevitably lead to excellence. There are countless p&w choruses and even hyms that were written with the utmost sincerity and from a passion and hunger for Jesus that contain sometimes serious doctrinal errors. Shouldn't excellence cover the truth of the words sung? Shouldn't it also cover the musicality of the song and artistry of the lyric? Shouldn't we strive to offer God the best that we have?
Next, I have to say that despite your protests to the contrary you are almost certainly a formalist and a traditionalist, even if you aren't aware of it.
Do your church services look something like this?
Opening song, prayer & welcome, announcements, scripture reading, greeting time, 20 minutes of worshi p in song, prayer, 30 minute sermon, prayer, invitation, closing song, benediction.
That's what the services look like in my very non-traditional, independent Bible church. Do you know wat that pattern is? A liturgy. You don't need candles and robes to have liturgy. Though we don't look it, we are also traditionalists, but the tradition we model is 19th century American revivalism. It doesn't look traditional, but that's an illusion.
Do you have any set patterns for your worship sets? You don't have to repeat them every week, but ever? Certain progressions like 2 upbeat praise songs followed by a prayer and 2 mid-paced transitional songs to 2 intimate worship songs?
That's formality and liturgy, too.
Do you sing Christmas songs at Christmas? That's utilizing a church calendar.
I'm not suggesting that we let formal elements interfere with our worship or let external religious elements get in the way of our relationship. I'm suggesting that we always worship through such elements.
The question is not whether we use form or tradition in our worship. We absolutely do. The question is whether we are conscious of it and deliberate about it, or whether we unwittingly use forms and traditions that may contradict our intentions and even be idolatrious.Listen, our goal is the same: To glorify God in our wourship. Please stick around for my follow-up post in which I discuss the way in which Scripture, tradition, and culture interact in the formation of our theology and in the formal elements of our worship.
I disagree that "the formality and liturgy is just plain humanistic". I'm not a worship leader nor a Biblical scholar but it's impossible of think of all that form specified in the OT worship of God is humanistic. I mean, why even have a priestly class and all that ritual. Why did He not just tell them to feel sincere in their heart? This is not an either-or issue. It is true that David is called a man after God's own heart and that in him we find a profound type of heart-worship. Yet he loved the form of worship God had given.
The Jewish tradition that formed the backdrop the early Church (which was mostly Jewish at first) was a formal, sacramental religion that was extremely concerned with taking care of both word and image. Surely this tradition had an effect on the early Church's approach to assembly and worship, as they began to work out the ideas and practices that made them distinctive.
Both Baptism and the Lord's Supper are formal, and were the primary means of expression for the early Church. Before there was a fully-developed theology, there were the sacraments. Before the Church could identify itself by a set of propositional truths, it identified itself by its forms of worship -- baptism and the eucharist.
The Incarnation itself is an affirmation of form. Christ inhabited a visible persistent form, and his ultimate work on earth was expressed through what was done to that form. We Christians affirm the signifigance of that act every time we take communion.
Form in worship is not humanistic, it is Incarnational, and profoundly Christian. The Christian faith is an embodied faith, that affirms image and form from Genesis on, from the Imago Dei to the Incarnation.
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