Through my bible study I write about what I read and what I
feel God is trying to teach me. I look at this time as personal devotion and
sometimes I share this in a public setting that God can use for other people
too. Yesterday’s section was on Orderly Worship. Worship is a has been a hot
topic button at so many churches as of late. As I was praying about it and
reading the scripture I debated writing about it. Could this offend people? Am
I truly qualified to talk about this subject? Am I doing this out of the wrong
desires? The more I read the scripture and prayed the more I felt God was
telling me to write this. So before you is what I learned about worship through
1 Corinthians 14…
I think back to my own desires of worship. If I had a choice
of worship music, DC Talk’s In the Light would
be played every Sunday. It’s a song that has always touched my heart and love
for the church and Jesus. This would be pointless. People would get tired of
hearing this song even if I wouldn’t. Those are my own desires. One question we
have to ask ourselves is what we want from worship? We have different songs,
instruments, singers and leaders that touch our hearts. We constantly have to
ask ourselves is the worship service supposed to be for me or for more then me?
At Seminary I was taking a preaching class and was taught
about humbleness from a man who has been preaching for about 40 years. Chuck
Sackett was teaching about the overall worship service. He said something along
the lines of…
“For the most part I don’t enjoy the worship at our church
and that is a good thing. I have been a Christian for over 50 years. If
everything we did was to make me happy we are pleasing an already baptized
believer who has been preaching for a very long time. That is not the intent of
the worship service.”
I pray that I have this humbleness when I am older. Worship
isn’t about my own desires, it’s about God. Hailee and I had a guest over the
weekend. This guest over the age of 50 has visited our church several times and
said this is the first time they felt the Spirit of God in the service. The
goal of the worship service is to plan a service designed to grow people closer
to God not to please people. If it was to please people I would imagine most
would want five minute sermon.
On a couple of different occasions we have had communion
mediations go longer then the three-five minutes they are supposed to go.
Sometimes I will have a guest with me and they will turn to me and say, wow
that was a great sermon, it was short and had a point. I have to tell them that
was the communion meditation. They will look at me with shock and disgust. One
said to me, “You mean I have to listen to two sermons!”
1 Corinthians 14:26 and 40…
“What then shall we say, brothers and sisters When you come
together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction a
revelation, a tongue or an interpretation Everything must be done so that the
church may be built up.…. But everything should be done in a
fitting and orderly way.”
We need to make sure we try not to take scripture out of
context. Now there is much I can say about speaking in tongues and
interpretation but that will be for a separate time. One of the words I first
see that can cause division is the word hymn. We have to have a hymn. The word
hymn is translated from a word meaning Psalm. We need to make sure we aren’t
looking at just what we want with worship.
The Christian Church was broken up about musical instruments
in worship. Some people hated the use of the piano in the church. It caused a
church to divide. The people didn’t like the traditional hymn Hallelujah Thine the Glory. Why? It was
a bar song (The only place the piano was in were bars and carting that over to
the church was wrong) and titled “Hallelujah I’m a Bum.” Therefore the church
was divided on it. Honestly, I am glad they kept with the instruments in the
church. My brothers and sisters at non-instrumental church I have much love for
and no hatred. They still love Jesus just as much if not more then me, but we
can worship in that difference and still love each other.
The point of verse 26, we are supposed to be lifted up
through the worship service. In order to please God there has to be a plan and
practice to execute that plan. Opening Up
1 Corinthians…
“When Christians gather together to praise God and hear his
Word, nothing should be given prominence that draws attention to human
personalities or distracts from concentrating on the Lord himself and his
message to his people. ‘Does it edify?’ is a question to be asked about every
part of any coming together of the church.”
We are not supposed to have our own desires in mind with
worship. The musical aspect of worship is not supposed to be a request line.
People need to pray and think about the song selections to whether they tie in
with the overall message about God. This can take hours of planning and
sometimes we as non-worship ministers have no idea how much time and planning
goes into every aspect of a church service. I see this from the two worship ministers’
I have served beside in Wally and Kris. These guys put a ton of effort more
then anyone would know.
The second verse that goes hand and hand with this verse is
verse 40. The Corinthian church was struggling with the worship services and The Message writes verse 40 like this,
“Be courteous and considerate in everything.” The worship leader needs to look
at not their own preferences but God’s. The
Bible Exposition Commentary puts it this way…
“The Corinthian church was having special problems with
disorders in their public meetings (1 Cor. 11:17–23). The reason is not
difficult to determine: they were using their spiritual gifts to please
themselves and not to help their brethren. The key word was not edification, but exhibition. If you think that your
contribution to the service is more important than your brother’s contribution,
then you will either be impatient until he finishes, or you will interrupt him.”
From this section we are to learn that the worship service
is supposed to build the church up and it needs to be done to with careful
consideration. This is why I have a special love for those in this position.
The worship minister is not an easy position. We need to realize that we can be
part of the problem rather then the solution. No matter how much I want In the Light played every Sunday, it’s
my own selfish desires and not for the Glory of God.
When you worship this Sunday, no matter what the song, who’s
singing, who’s doing the communion meditation and who’s preaching, all the
Glory goes to God and not the individual.
What can you do to lift up God instead of yourself? This is
what God keeps telling me through this post.
Have a great day.
