What is worship?

Singing or sacrifice?

Photo by Matt Botsford on Unsplash

Matt Redman recently penned an article for Christianty Today titled, Why Worship Leaders Need Theologians.

He writes:

Twenty years ago, I wrote to key pastors, preachers, and theologians asking them a simple question: “What are some essential themes of Scripture that are lacking in our current worship expressions?”

Many of the replies referenced God as creator, God as judge, and God as Trinity. While they offered positive comments about contemporary worship music, there was a sense of challenge: For the good of the church and the glory of God, we must do better.

Later in the article he ponders the question:

A couple of decades later, I wonder how much progress we have made. Worship music has evolved and progressed creatively, showing up across more musical genres than ever before. The production aspects of our expressions have moved forward too. But can we say the same about the lyrical, theological content?

The article basically explores the idea that contemporary worship songs and worship leaders are not sufficiently telling God’s story or engaging His community in deep and meaningful expressions of worship. Redman seems to be a bit lost in exactly where things are breaking down and a little stumped about how to repair this issue, but he ends with this sentiment:

My prayer is that the church will grow in this area—seeing ever deeper and truer songs—and leading worship services that help us to behold Jesus like never before.

However, I wonder if it’s not just the songs, song writers, and song leaders that are at the root of the issue, but our entire concept of worship. When Christians today speak of worship they are mostly referring to the song portion of Sunday services, inspirational events that engage them in a gratifying, personal, emotional moment of thanksgiving to God. This is fine. There’s nothing wrong with believers having moments of intense emotional gratitude to Jesus for what He has done. However, if that’s the full spectrum of how we conceive of worship, or even if it’s our main expression of worship, then we are not progressing and becoming mature in our worship; we are stuck, never arriving at the place where we understand that the implication of the gospel is that Jesus is building a global family and that family is organized in networks and clusters of churches who shape their entire lives around one another in such a way that their lives together are a reenactment of the gospel, that stands in stark contrast to the culture around them.

This is what Paul was trying to help the church in Rome understand, when he wrote to them ahead of his arrival, to make sure that they had fully grasped the gospel’s implications and were building their community life around it, with everyone prioritizing one another, even over their own needs and households, sacrificing their entire lives in order to build one another up and “add to their numbers”. (Rom 12:1-2) His hope is that they were mature, and he could quickly shape them into a base for taking the gospel to the outer reaches of the Roman Empire.

Paul also makes this clear in 1 Corinthians 14, right after his poetic description of what love looks like in the context of the weekly meal-gathering (the weekly gathering being the setting for 1 Cor 11:17-14:40), he strongly admonishes the Corinthian church that their gatherings should not be just a collection of individuals engaging in personal moments of thanksgiving to God (since each of them can do that in their own homes), but those gatherings should be defined by everyone contributing, according to how God has gifted them, in a way that builds up the entire body to shape their lives around Jesus family plan.

We need to reconsider, not just our worship practices, but the entire professionalized institution of worship. While it’s true that others may have created it, we remain largely bound to a set of practices and priorities that do not reflect the truth that Jesus is building an actual family, and that He expects us to live together in that reality.

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Scott Canion is based out of the NYC area and is part of the METRO equipping team, a network of global leaders who are establishing churches that are families, patterning themselves after Acts.