Category Archives: Worship

Focused worship

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[Another old bulletin article… I’ll get back to fresh writing soon…]

I’m not really into poetry. I’m often frustrated by my lack of culture, my lack of appreciation of many of the “finer things.” I don’t particularly care for opera, nor ballet nor classical music. And I don’t read poetry.

When we had to read poetry in school, it was the rare poet who really appealed to me. One that did, however, was Robert Burns. And one of his poems that stands out in my mind is one called “To A Louse,” with the subtitle “On Seeing One on a Lady’s Bonnet at Church.” The poem addresses a louse which is crawling around on the head of a young lady. The real point of the poem, however, is the vanity of the young lady. She, noticing the looks and pointing directed her way, vainly thinks they are admiring her and begins to toss her hair. The last stanza, in modern English (Burns wrote in Scottish), says:

O would some Power the gift to give us
To see ourselves as others see us!
It would from many a blunder free us,
And foolish notion:
What airs in dress and gait would leave us,
And even devotion!

It’s a brilliant thought, and I could certainly do worse than write an article on this idea. Yet my thoughts are turned a different direction. I’m wondering how many of us would play the part of Mr. Burns in that church service, focusing our attention on the young lady in front of us and the people all around us, rather than focusing on the worship we profess to perform. How many times have we come away thinking about Jenny (the name of the girl in the poem) and her louse, rather than our Lord and His sacrifice.

I remember numerous times in Sunday School when, following a prayer, one of the children would announce: “Mrs. Davis, Bradley didn’t have his eyes closed.” This would lead to the inevitable question of course: “How do you know?” It never seemed to dawn on us children that spying on one another during the prayer was worse than not closing your eyes! (And, of course, you couldn’t close your eyes and still spy, so you were guilty of the same offense as the accused).

It’s easy to laugh at such things in children. It’s much harder to laugh at them in adults. In fact, it makes me want to cry from frustration at times.
“He raised his hands!”
“She tapped her foot!”
“He didn’t sing!”
“She sang too loud!”
and the list goes on and on.

It makes me want to reply: “How do you know?” Before you answer, let me help you with the answer: you know because you weren’t focused on God. “Well, she distracted me.” Is that her problem or yours? If you are truly focused, you don’t get distracted that easily.

I can see it in myself. There are many times when I can’t even tell you what the person next to me was doing during the service. Those are the times I was focused on God. There are other times when I’m watching the passing of the communion trays, when I’m seeing if Brother So-and-So is here, when I’m worried about the sound or the air conditioning, and I realize that God does not have my full attention.

Not to criticize Mr. Burns, but I wonder just how concentrated he was in his worship to notice the louse, to follow its movements for several minutes, to notice the reactions of those around him, to watch Jenny toss her hair, etc. If I were in his place at that moment, I would take a moment and apologize to God for my disrespect to him.
Maybe we could rewrite the poem a bit:

O would some Power the gift to give us
To see ourselves, not those around us!

Nothing good is said in the Bible of those who critically observe the worship of others (think Michal and David!). Much good is said of those who strive to worship God in Spirit and in truth.

Don’t let the lice distract you. Fix your eyes on things above. Concentrate on your worship. Because, in the final day, whose worship is God going to ask you about: yours or those around you? Will He praise us for having spotted the errors in those around us or rebuke us for neglecting Him while spying on our brothers? I’d rather not find out.

Everyday acts of worship

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[Here’s another bulletin article from a few years ago. Love to hear your thoughts on the subject…]

We can learn a lot by looking at worship in the Old Testament, especially those passages in which God’s prophets told the people what they were doing wrong. Since we don’t want to repeat the mistakes of the past, we do well to find out what mistakes were made.

One of the biggest mistakes made by God’s people was the mistake of ritualistic religion. That is, they thought that religion was made up of doing certain things during a time of worship. God tried to tell them that more than “religiosity,” he wanted a people that dedicated themselves to doing good. A good example is this passage from Isaiah 1:

11 “The multitude of your sacrifices — what are they to me?” says the LORD. “I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. 12 When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts? 13 Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations — I cannot bear your evil assemblies. 14 Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts my soul hates. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. 15 When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood; 16 wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, 17 learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.

It’s not that God was against sacrifices and such. he merely wanted the people to realize that our religious acts must be accompanied by compassion toward our fellow man.

We see in the New Testament that things haven’t changed. Look at what the Hebrew writer says in Hebrews 13:16: “And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.” Our good deeds toward others are “sacrifices” that we offer to God. Remember James’ words in James 1:27: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” Paul said, “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.” (Galatians 6:10)

When people come to us looking for help, we can often see that as a distraction from the “true work of the church.” Yet nothing could be further from the truth. We are to be about helping people. We should be grateful when people present us with an opportunity to help. Jesus, in his ministry, spent much time helping people. Remember how Peter, when preaching to Cornelius, described Jesus’ ministry: “…how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.” (Acts 10:38) Jesus went about doing good and expects the same from his followers. Remember how he described Judgment Day in Matthew 25. He doesn’t speak of doctrinal correctness or church attendance. He speaks of helping those in need. And he says, “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’” (Matthew 25:40)

In fact, Paul says that God’s plan for us is that we do good. In Ephesians 2:10 Paul writes: “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Paul told Timothy what to teach the rich people: “Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.” (I Timothy 6:18)

We, as Christians, are supposed to be helping people. It’s what we were made for. It’s what Jesus modeled for us and what he expects of us. Every time that someone presents us with an opportunity to help, we should be grateful. Otherwise we would have to go out looking for those who need our help.

For some, it’s second nature. They are constantly aware of people who have needs and are constantly meeting needs. For others of us, we need to depend more on God and his Holy Spirit to help us develop a heart of compassion for our fellow man.

It’s not a small thing. It’s central to who we are as Christians. It’s a critical part of our worship of God. May God help us do it better.

Liturgy vs. variety

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C.S. Lewis was no fan of change within worship services. He wrote, “Every service is a structure of acts and words through which we receive a sacrament, or repent, or supplicate, or adore. And it enables us to do these things best—if you like it, it ‘works’ best—when, through long familiarity, we don’t have to think about it.…But every novelty prevents this. It fixes our attention on the service itself…” He goes on to quote an unnamed source that said, “I wish they’d remember that the charge to Peter was Feed my sheep; not Try experiments on my rats, or even Teach my performing dogs new tricks.” (The Joyful Christian, pp. 80-81)

Personally, though I highly esteem Lewis as a thinker and a writer, I don’t agree with his views on familiarity in worship. I find that familiarity often breeds unthinking repetition. It becomes too easy to “go through the motions,” without being aware of what we’re doing or why. We say things without even thinking what they mean. We sing without being aware of who we’re singing to (is it a song of encouragement to my brothers or a song of worship to God?). We instinctively reach for our checkbook while sipping the homogenized grape juice from the plastic cup.

I think that we need change at times if only to make us aware of what we’re doing. My high school choir director used to say, “A rut is just a grave with both ends knocked out.” We need to be conscious of the forms of what we’re doing and the meanings behind those forms.

What do you find to be true? Is change a distraction or a call to awareness? Is routine an aid to worship or a hindrance to our worshiping with our minds as well as our actions?

[Edit: Changed the title of the post; had used “spontaneity,” which really didn’t fit]

Sermon-less assemblies

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pulpitNick Gill made an interesting comment on the last post:

Ironically, I wonder if online sermons might offer an opportunity to reshape the assembly of the saints into a more healthy pattern?
If we could get more people to listen to sermons on their iPods, et al, we wouldn’t have to give so much assembly time to sermons — there’d be more time for communion, for public reading of Scripture, for dialogue.
What do you think? Am I dreaming?

The answer is yes, of course, Nick is dreaming. We’ve got a whole industry built around Sunday sermons. What would we do with all of the out-of-work preachers?

OK, seriously, it’s an intriguing idea. Sunday sermons are a relatively recent addition to Christian assemblies. [Edited at noon, August 13: OK, I’ve had to back off this statement. I may write more about this in a future post. I believe that sermons in their present form didn’t exist in the first century, but my original statement was misleading]  They’ve come to dominate the time that God’s people spend together. What if we could remove that teaching experience to another time of the week?

I enjoyed yesterday’s poll. Let’s do another one:

What do you think of sermon-less assemblies?
They are an abomination. You have to have sermons in the assembly.

I would feel cheated.

I think the church would not grow as much spiritually.

I think they are a great idea!

I do not really care one way or the other.

View Results

Photo by Ian Britton, FreeFoto.com

When they started worshiping

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hieroglyphicsOn Sundays, in our Bible class, we are studying the book of Exodus, using some materials that Mark Hamilton prepared for our church. This past Sunday we were looking at Exodus 12-13, the establishment of the Passover. It struck me that this would have been something totally new to the Israelites. They hadn’t been worshiping God as a community, from what we can tell. Remember that Moses worried about who to tell the people had sent him to free them. He couldn’t say “our God” because they wouldn’t have known which god he was talking about.

Then you add to that the fact that we don’t see any sort of structured worship in the book of Genesis. No assemblies. No feast days. No weekly gatherings. All you have are some people who recognize that God is God and offer sacrifices to His name, circumcising their young men as a sign of their identity as God’s people.

I guess such realizations make me stop and look at what I consider as worship. Even the establishment of Passover doesn’t fit most of my presuppositions. It was family-based worship, not community assemblies. It was once a year, not once a week. It was meal-based, not act-of-worship based. That’s where things started as far as corporate worship. I don’t think that’s where we’re supposed to be today, but I do think there are some things we can learn. I certainly don’t think we should look to be at the other end of the spectrum.

I’m grateful that God has such grace that he can meet each of us where we are and take us where he wants us to be.