My Issues with Evangelicalism: (1) Worship

71 thoughts on “My Issues with Evangelicalism: (1) Worship”

1. I maybe off on this one but I have to think out loud here:
   I don’t have problems with being “connected to the Great Tradition of the church”. I desire that one too. But I will have problems being identified with a church body (ELCA) that is on a slippery slope.
   Also, like our late beloved I-Monk Mike Spencer, I’ve attended Episcopalian services albeit occasionally. What gets me really uncomfortable is the portion of the liturgy wherein there is the intercession for the dead. Somehow I can not reconcile this with my hardcore traditional Evangelical upbringing that concerns this matter

   LikeLike

2. Pingback: Worship: Not Just Words and Music in Church | Wascana Fellowship 2.0
3. Pingback: Forms of Worship « The Cogitator

4. I practice liturgical worship not only because of what I see to be its inherent advantages over “free” worship, but because it is historically rooted in the Great Tradition of the Church, and it is important to me to be connected to that in a living way.

   I wouldn’t say everyone should practice any specific form of liturgy. Michael Spencer’s series on the Evangelical Liturgy (find in the archives) would be a good place for any “free church” person to start if looking for a way to make their church’s worship more robust.

   I should say finally that everyone has a liturgy. The question is whether it’s a good or bad liturgy, meaning whether or not it accomplishes the purposes of worship.

   LikeLike

5. Great thread of thoughts here!!
   If I understand Chaplain Mike correctly, the High/Liturgical type of worship is what he FEELS to be the more more appropriate one…..

   LikeLike

6. It’s odd to be commenting on this, as I’ve attended relatively few services in my life (although quite a few Quaker meetings, after working at a Quaker school). The one that gave me any insight into this entire worship idea was a Roman Catholic Easter service. I loved the ceremony, the sense of something greater coupled with the joy the priest was projecting.

   However, I think that in a lot of ways, I got more out of it than most of the other teenagers there in the chapel at the time. (This was a shared chapel for multiple denominations and faiths.) I was there by choice, wearing a freshly ironed suit (an attempt at a gesture of respect), soaking it all in. My peers were there because they had to be. Some might have might as well been in a boring lecture, which saddened me.

   I compare this to the African American worship services that I see when I walk around my neighborhood on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings (I live in a mixed Hispanic/Black part of Brooklyn.) The congregation is fully engaged, singing, listening, more entranced than I ever was in that distant Easter service. While I cannot speak to how much God is present in whichever aspect in these services, the praise offered up to Him by the congregation seems much more sincere in the storefront Black churches than it did in that Easter service. (Although I grant you that a great deal of this might simply be teenagers and not an artifact of the means of worship.)

   LikeLike

7. But the the reason for the split is because the Filioque is the Sum of all Heresies:

   http://dialectic.wordpress.com/

   😮

   LikeLike

8. Which in the eyes of EO/Oriental/RC is one and the same, as in the eyes of these Churches, you can’t be truly and/or totally united to Christ unless you’re united to His Church (which all three take an exclusivist approach in varying degrees). Due to the separation of the three groups, this is ONE area where the Great Schism is in some ways worse than the split caused during the Reformation-era, at least from a Catholic perspective,

   LikeLike

9. But again that’s because for the Orthodox as well as for the Roman Catholics partaking of the Eucharist is not just a matter of one’s (comm)union with Christ but of one’s (comm)union with the EO or RC Church.

   LikeLike

10. If they think the RCC is bad, forget the Orthodox. They don’t even allow Catholics to receive, despite a more-or-less shared understanding of the nature of the Eucharist.

    LikeLike

11. Sounds more like a lack of understanding or appreciation for the meaning and symbolism of what the liturgy is. That may lose something the further you get away from the original western liturgy of the Roman Rite, I don’t know.

    LikeLike

12. I have known many people who attended liturgical churches from childhood and never had clue one about the gospel, and what it meant. This frightens me, and to my mind is an fiery indictment of the entire liturgical enterprise.

    Sounds like more of an indictment of their catechesis, and less an indictment of liturgical worship. I speak from experience of being a Catholic growing up in the years after Vatican II, when, when more of the Bible was being read in Sunday Mass, we seemed to not do a very good job of teaching it. I went to CCD (Catholic Sunday School) until graduation from HS, and I never really learned much from the Bible until well after college, aside from the basics that I hear every Sunday on a three year cycle. Some of the most biblically knowledgeable folks in the world are in the center of the Western Liturgical Tradition, Rome. I have a cousin who is a Benedictine priest currently studying Scripture at the Pontifical Biblical Institute.

    LikeLike

13. RE: Recreating heaven-on-earth. In the Catholic, Orthodox, and Oriental Churches’ view, the earthly liturgy is supposed to be a reflection on the heavenly liturgy, hence the angelic hymn (the Sanctus “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord, the God of Hosts, etc.”), Gregorian Chant in the west, Byzantine, Maronite, Chaldean, etc. in the east, so on and so forth.

    LikeLike

14. Yes, and depending on the particular Lutheran church you attend, your liturgy may be more traditional in appearance, and more “High Church” than many RCC parish Masses, excluding of course, my favorite Extraordinary Form Latin Mass.

    LikeLike

15. Compared to Holy Ghost Hokey Pokey and You Spin Me Round Round Jeesus Round Round, you’re practically Tridentine. Any liturgical church would be.

    LikeLike

16. I won’t lie — I’m just not real big on highly-structured worship services, whether they’re of the traditional variety or the newer, louder, more expressive varieties. But that’s just me. I love variety and spontaneity and creativity, and rote repetition just drives me crazy. I can’t help it. Heck, it gets on my nerves when I hear the same song on the radio more than once a day. But I do understand that many (or even most) people need a certain degree of structure and order and repetition in their lives and in their worship. And I understand that only so much variety, spontaneity, and creative expression can be practically pulled off in a sizable gathering of believers — which is why I prefer relatively small, intimate, and informal worship gatherings.
    But, regardless of the venue, form, or style, I suspect that God is looking for worship that is genuine — worship in which His people are focused on Him (body, heart, mind, and spirit) and expressing their love, adoration, and thankfulness toward Him in the best way they know how.
    Still, I think that too much emphasis has been placed on the worship service throughout most of church history — by which I mean that the worship and relational life of the church has been too narrowly confined to particular places and particular time slots. I think that even home churches like mine can become too centered around our once-or-twice-a-week gatherings, while neglecting to be a closely connected and Christ-centered family of believers during the rest of the week.

    LikeLike

17. I tend to find these sorts of judgments manifestly unfair. It’s understandable to think that way as a child, but life experience often breeds compassion. That bored-looking person may be having an intense internal encounter with God. Maybe he’s burdened by what happened in his week. Maybe he’s feeling joyous and peaceful and it just isn’t reading in his expression.

    Isn’t it somewhat of a problem, though, if he stops focusing on God and starts worrying about how his expression is affecting those around him? And what if you appreciate his smile, but someone else thinks he’s smug? Or flippant? Whose interpretation means the most? That’s a slippery road, until we remember that it’s God’s knowledge of our hearts that matters, not any person’s opinion.

    I’m not suggesting everyone should be monotone or look glum. And a little reminder to engage mentally in what we’re saying/doing is always helpful. I’m sure that’s the real spirit of your post. But I think it’s missing the point to start assuming a lot about the spiritual state of the congregation based on superficial judgments about their expressions (or lack thereof).

    LikeLike

18. “Personally, I find that I can pour much more of my self into worship when I engage in singing a more culturally relevant worship song. For me, there is more heartfelt worship in the style of Bob Dylan, Sade, Bjork, or Tricky than in the style of Bach, Wesley’s hymnody, or Luther’s 15th century beer hall songs, which frankly are just not genuously resonant for me in the same way.”

    This is a side issue to the question of liturgical vs. non-liturgical. Liturgical does not imply any particular musical style. The liturgy can be set to any sort of music you want.

    That being said, aiming for “culturally relevant” raises problems. For one thing, “culturally relevant” is a moving target. The hip young pastor who really connects with the kids one can easily find himself a few years later as the mildly embarrassing middle aged pastor who isn’t nearly as hip as he would like to think. The same happens with music: Exhibit A is any of the countless 1970s folk masses.

    This is the problem of culturally relevant for whom? I grew up with Bob Dylan. I know who Bjork and Sade are, but I couldn’t identify their music. I have no idea who Tricky is. So culturally relevant for you and for me clearly aren’t the same thing. There probably are even people out there who really related to those 1970s folk masses. The logical conclusion of this is to segregate our worship services by age group and social background. Is this really our goal?

    The ideal, it seems to me, we should be striving for is just the opposite: to be timeless. The lazy approach is to have a book of music by dead white guys; but well done, we should be including the best music from any time, from Medieval plainchant through, I dare say, Tricky. We have an advantage with the older material in that we have had many years to winnow out the mediocrities, which abounded. But a good hymnal should include new material, even as we realize that a lot of it will fall by the wayside. In any case, we should not suffer the indignity of trying to convince our children and grandchildren that Bob Dylan is hip. Convincing them that he is good is much likelier path to success.

    LikeLike

19. excellent thots; thanks

    Greg R

    LikeLike

20. I agree that following the will and moving of the Holy Spirit is more important than any human tradition or custom we may create – however ancient or beautiful. I agree that, insofar as any custom prevents people from so following the Spirit, it has gone wrong. However, it seems to me that when the will of the Spirit leads us to something wholly new and unexpected, when it forces us from our habits and customs, when it drives us away from the mundane and headfirst into the unknown – those are blessed times. They are also very much the exception. In the same way that God, though capable of miracles, ordinarily allows His physical laws to act without drastic intercession, in the same way He, for the most part and for most people, seems content to leave them be – to learn about Him slowly, through the simple loves and labors and beauties of mundane existence.
    I will go one step further. I do not think it is otherwise in worship. God may act in extraordinary ways whenever it pleases Him as we worship. If it happens to us, may we follow eagerly. But what do we do the great majority of the time when this doesn’t happen? We can’t just sit there hoping to be inspired by the Holy Spirit. We need to do something. And we can just try and make it up as we go, as more charismatic churches try to do. This is, in my opinion, usually awkward and unlovely. Why not follow a form, if we must follow a form, that is tried and tested, and filled with meaning? I have nothing against new liturgies; I do not think something’s age makes it good any more than something’s newness makes it good. But they should be well and carefully crafted. If older styles of music no longer resonate with us, make new music; but look to the old as an example. Aspire to its quality. Do not make new things for newness’ sake. Do not throw away the past; unlike bread and wine, liturgies do not spoil.

    Let me try to give a bit of context here. I have been attending church twice weekly my entire life – that is, a few more than twenty years. In that time, I have felt what I believe to be the ‘will of the Holy Spirit’ twice. Two times. Both times, the rigidity of the church made a coward of me, and I did not do what was asked. I can only blame myself, of course; given even a large obstacle, I should have done what He asked. But the obstacle would not have been nearly so large were the church and its customs not so rigid. And so when I say we should have a good liturgy, I do not say it lightly; obviously, more than that is necessary. The liturgy should only be considered a ‘good enough’ practice, perhaps, until something better comes along. But we shouldn’t expect that to happen often.

    LikeLike

21. To expand on this a bit, back in Reformation days the Lutheran church mostly took the existing liturgy and translated it into the vernacular. The Church of England did the same thing. German immigrants to the US initially worshiped in German. English-language services begin to appear in the early 19th century, and by mid-century this was widespread enough that formal service books began to be published in English. (I assume that Scandinavian Lutherans followed a similar pattern, but have never looked into this.) But rather than translate the German liturgy, they lifted wholesale from the Book of Common Prayer. The service books used through the 1970s followed this tradition closely, with much of the language taken verbatim. A new book came out in the late 1970s with a revised, more contemporary liturgy, making a noticeable break from the earlier versions. This is the “green book,” which replaced the “red book.” It has recently been replaced by the “cranberry book,” but it follows closely in the green book tradition.

    I strongly suspect that Chaplain Mike uses either the green or the cranberry book. The form is clearly derived from the Western Rite liturgy, but it is several steps removed. If you can find a Lutheran church still using the red book (there are a few here and there) you would find a liturgy even closer.

    LikeLike

22. The problem is that when you feel manipulated by the environment, but you don’t feel deeply compelled to comply, you look around the room at hundreds of others who are “getting into it” and start to wonder…. Am I missing something here? Is there something wrong with me? If I was more spiritual would I be feeling what they appear to feel? It is pietism at it’s worst. Sometimes I come to church just feeling like a dirty rotten sinner… Ok most times I do… and these type of experiences serve to accomplish the opposite of reconciling me to God. Not because I won’t participate. I give it my best and feel every bit as estranged when it is over than before, if not more.

    LikeLike

23. Thanks. My husband did have a kick preaching a sermon on love in a Catholic church (he grew up Catholic, but ended up somewhere else). It was supposed to be “just” a eulogy but he thought he’d milk it. People really appreciated it :0)

    LikeLike

24. This is a wonderful post for so many reasons – detailed definitions, pointed questions and insightful comparisons. I don’t come from a high church tradition, but find myself longing for certain elements of it as I continue in my walk with Christ. Born a pragmatic, the pursuit of beauty, whether in architecture or liturgical expression, seemed wasteful to me for many years. Now I see its inherent value. Beauty is an expression of our Maker. If we are formed in His image and expected to imitate Him, shouldn’t we also pursue beauty in everything we do – in worship, in language, in work, in the arts and in the ways we love others?

    Another element I find myself longing for is the unifying force of high church worship. In the same way that classical education provided themes for civilized public discourse for centuries, liturgical worship seems also to bring worshippers into the Great Assembly in a way that nonliturgical worship can’t. Since I attend a nonliturgical church, my sense is that while my congregation sometimes experiences unity within itself, we experience little unity with the worldwide Church.

    Another thought that I had as I read this post is that I often fail to come into my church already worshipping. If I have failed to pray and meditate on God’s word in my waking minutes I tend to come to the service flustered and distracted, hardly ready to give my love to the One who has bought me with a price. I recognize the same condition in most others I encounter on Sunday mornings. If it is not that, it is shallowness, resistance to give to God or merely attending to satisfy some social need. At any rate, true worship doesn’t start when the music begins; it starts privately in individuals and merges into corporate adoration of the Maker of the heavens and earth, the God of all flesh.

    LikeLike

25. Not that it necessarily helps, but if you don’t ascribe to the Roman Catholic beliefs about the Eucharist and the Real Presence, the priesthood and the priest’s Eucharistic authority/power, and the authority and primacy of the Pope, as well as assent to and confess the required Roman Catholic dogmas (e.g., Papal Infallibility, Purgatory, The Immaculate Conception and Bodily Assumption of Mary, etc.), why would you want to partake of a Eucharist that is a public and spiritual declaration of unity and communion with these things and the Church that decrees/declares them? Partaking of the Roman Catholic Eucharist is not a communing in/with whatever you hold to or believe re: communion and Christ and His body and blood and the other believers there, but a sign and symbol and effectual uniting and pledging of yourself in agreement with the Church of Rome as the One, Holy Apostolic Church that is Christ’s Body and whose head on earth is the Bishop of Rome as the Vicar of Christ.

    I.e., Roman Catholic communion exclusion is not just a matter of “rules n stuff.” It’s fundamentally related to who and what the Roman Catholic Church believes about Christ and the Church.

    LikeLike

26. Damarias,
    Romans 9:4 (KJV)
    Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises;
    The word here used for the service of God, could also be translated the worship of God, Latria. Of course in Lutheranism we call sunday morning worship “Divine Service”.
    you are though right. Liturgical worship has its roots in the Old Testament Church, among the liturgies of both the synagogue and those of the temple. And this would make sense even by Anthonie’s naive view that these are just codified forms of what was once a comfortable form of worship. The earliest Christians were Jews, or gentiles who considered themselves Jewish proselytes. The Apostles continued to worship in the Temple, and also in Synagogues for a long time. When they were kicked out of the synagogues, it would only be natural that they would continue with those forms of worship with which they were raised.

    LikeLike

27. Damaris: I think that scholars like Paul F. Bradshaw have raised questions about theories of liturgical development like that proposed by Dom Gregory Dix (THE SHAPE OF THE LITURGY) such that a nice straight development from, or adoption/overlay of, Jewish synagogue worship can’t be assumed or firmly held. The Didache, whether early or late, certainly testifies to a different eucharistology and maybe even a different Christology than became the norm. Read David Aune’s book on Prophecy in the early church. 1 Cor 11-14 shows us that something quite different from a Christianized synagogue/Temple service was going on, at least in some of the churches. Perhaps Jewish worship styles formed the backbone of much of what became St. James’/Basil’s/John Chrysostom’s Liturgy, but I’m not sure that scholars are in agreement that this was the predominant nature/style of Christian worship in its early decades.

    LikeLike

28. There is a certain freshness to anything new. In my own limited experience, I have seen a lot of folks attracted to non-denominational free worship and churches over the years because it is different and appears more free. Many of them also later go back, realizing its shallowness and inability to sustain a robust faith for them, compared to something that has deeper roots and more theological depth.

    LikeLike

29. The verse tha provokes in terms of worship is Deuteronomy 30:11-14:

    “For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.”

    For me worship starts with scripture and faith.

    LikeLike

30. Anthony — You say, if I understand you correctly, that the liturgical forms evolved out of comfortable practices that became codified. I had heard that the liturgy, at least in part, was a direct adaptation and continuation of Jewish Temple worship. Certainly some things have been added and changed over the years, but the backbone of it is supposedly Jewish. Can any scholars help me out here?

    LikeLike

31. Oddly I have heard the same story yet in reverse. I know several men who grew up in the old CRC Churches who when they step into their respective local mega-churches, felt like they were worshiping for the first time. One of them even used the word “freedom” to describe the sensation of not being stuck to the liturgy.

    LikeLike

32. Come to think of it, I do remember “ringing endorsements” of the Anglican style of worship. However I also recall iMonk not wanting every discussion on worship to degenerate into “my way is better…no your wrong my way is better”. I’m not saying your post goes that far but it has clearly inspired some of that type of response.

    Please don’t see this as criticism, I really like your effort here at the iMonk website.

    LikeLike

33. One more thing, my MIL’s funeral was in the Catholic Church. My husband(former protestant minister) was allowed to say a piece as part of the funeral mass, which was received well. We all really enjoyed the liturgy and it was meaningful and enlightening. But when it came time for communion, and the priest passed us over as if we didn’t exist, I felt such a punch in the stomach to be recognized(well, not even that)as NOT a part of THAT body of Christ. I know they have rules n stuff on who takes communion and I respect that. But it just really HURT to be left out like that and it really took awhile to get free of that, like a bruise. I was sure raised with the sacredness and meaning and responsibility of communion, I just have to say that hurt a lot. For my whole family too.

    LikeLike

34. That so well expressed the things I have been thinking and struggling with for several years. The church in which I grew up has, in recent years, become more of a show, and it makes me feel really uncomfortable. (At the same time, I attended a few more liturgical churches here and there, and while I thought the liturgy was a great thing, I didn’t think those churches were where I fit either.) When I went to college I found a church that was not really liturgical, but which had more of a congregational mindset that preserved a sort of liturgy. For instance, we had a time of quiet or silent prayer every week and Communion every week (my home church does it once a month). It was a very set structure but within that structure there was so much freedom for the Spirit of God to move. I think evangelicals (and I still consider myself one) are afraid that sticking to “tradition” hinders the Holy Spirit, but I think it’s really just the attitude of the congregation that can do that.

    I think your definition of worship (with the bullet points) is good as it relates to corporate worship. Worship in general, I think, is less about specific acts and more about the attitude of the heart – it’s responding to God with thanks and praise and reverence and awe. I believe we can do this any time of any day, doing any activity. Brother Lawrence, in The Practice of the Presence of God, writes about constantly being in communion with God, whether it was at the altar or washing dishes in the monastery.

    I think it non-liturgical churches can be great (I went to one) as long as their focus is on Christ rather than on how many people are in the pews. Similarly, I think liturgical churches can be great as long as their focus is on Christ rather than on respecting tradition. Basically I think that for every “kind” of church, there is a temptation somewhere for something to come between the church and Christ, and whatever it is must be put behind, or maybe even removed altogether.

    LikeLike

35. Michael, this is awfully good writing. I haven’t had time to read it as well as I want yet, but will very soon. I attend a mainline church that follows most of this practice and I wish we were doing all of it.

    LikeLike

36. I often said that Michael Spencer was peeking inside my head when he wrote some of his posts. Apparently, you (Chaplain Mike) have inherited that talent. I was a life-long (40 year) Baptist before moving to an ELCA Lutheran Church a little over a year ago. Your experience and mine are so much the same that I could have written this post. You saved me the trouble. 🙂

    During the time I was contemplating leaving the Baptist church I was attending and moving to my current church, my father was a bit concerned about me. He didn’t understand my dissatisfaction with the Baptist church we both attended, nor the attraction of the Lutheran service. That is, until he decided to come with me to a service at the Lutheran church.

    After the service, we stood up. He turned to me with tears in his eyes, hugged me, and said, “Thank you. I think I’ve actually worshiped for the first time in my life.” This is a man approaching 70 who had attended Baptist churches since the day he was born.

    Over a year later, we still sit together in the same pew at the Lutheran church, worshipping, not just “attending a worship service.”

    LikeLike

37. Oooooh, Bob Dylan… Yeah!!!

    LikeLike

38. You make many excellent and salient points, but it is, after all, a one-sided argument, and omits many important points which are not consistent with its thesis. I would like to make a scattered few which strike me as particularly apposite. Firstly, I think that you neglect the important historical similarity of the liturgical and non-liturgical forms (which glosses the larger point that you appear to confuse this distinction with the distinction of evangelical and non-evangelical orientation, for certainly there are non-liturgical non-evangelical congregations and evangelical liturgical congregations in abundance). The higher liturgies were instituted by people who found certain patterns emerging in their worship, patterns following from the experiences they had of God’s face in worship, and which were subsequently formalized, institutionalized, made habitual. The non-liturgical communities have done much the same, but have arrived at different forms.

    You aptly observe some of the deficencies of the latter. The former have some painful deficiencies as well. Importantly, they are alienating to a very large number of people. Certainly to the majority of naive Christian and non-Christian persons alike, unschooled in the liturgical form, find the form to be an empty rote exercise, and a large proportion of the youth of any liturgical community are often alienated from the Church by the same causes. It is good therefore that both forms are available, to help in preventing tragic losses of persons who could otherwise find no place which they were comfortable to call a spiritual home.

    Personally, I find that I can pour much more of my self into worship when I engage in singing a more culturally relevant worship song. For me, there is more heartfelt worship in the style of Bob Dylan, Sade, Bjork, or Tricky than in the style of Bach, Wesley’s hymnody, or Luther’s 15th century beer hall songs, which frankly are just not genuously resonant for me in the same way. Responsive reading does not strike me as poetry, but as assembly-line work, a dumb, thumping machine rythym. Poetry is a thing of Pound, Du Fu or e.e.cummings, not limericks and heroic couplets.

    I have known many people who attended liturgical churches from childhood and never had clue one about the gospel, and what it meant. This frightens me, and to my mind is an fiery indictment of the entire liturgical enterprise.

    Finally, I must say that you are certainly right that most of the time the evangelical or charismatic orders of service are no less rote than liturgy. This is not, however, an argument for liturgy. Both are bad in an important way. The times when I have seen God manifest Himself meaningfully, perceptibly, even miraculously, have always been times in which the rituals and rote forms of worship have been abandoned in favor of the will of the Holy Spirit, which blows the way He will. When He moves, and we follow responsively, wonders occur. The tragedy is that rituals and rote forms so often interfere, even preclude this following — I certainly will not say they preclude the Spirit from moving as He will, merely that we chose to adhere to our comforting habits rather than obediently following, perhaps because we do not know how, for lack of sound teaching.

    All the human traditions which seek to capture long past historical movements of the Spirit are doomed to fail in that end. I am glad that you find fulfillment in liturgical worship. I think there are important merits in it, and would that more of these benefits could be captured in my own home Church. But far higher priority in my mind is that each and every local body that is called by His name should seek his face earnestly, and follow the Spirit where it will go. If fulfilling the expectations of our co-congregants, our community leaders, becomes more important, the loss is tragic, evil, and much to be grieved.

    LikeLike

39. PS, just sayin the song request/testimony/prayer times really followed the flow of what people were experiencing in their lives at the time, and the spontenaity was indeed really cool. Of course you have to have folks willing to be honest, and not just fluffy.

    LikeLike

40. To try to put it in a nutshell I would say worship is a collective “yes” and “thank you”. I grew up in a holiness type church, which kinda had the both worlds of liturgy(sunday morning) and informal(sunday nite). But I have to say the most meaningful, or closest to heaven, or what I would pin as bestest worship ever, would be the Sunday night song request/testimony times(songs included both hyms and choruses), and youth group times just spent singing, and of course singing aroud the campfire, either camp or a church picnic. The most invigorating element I think was that we pretty much knew each other really well, and had a history together, on both peer and cross generational levels. This deep body knowing on such a wide scale is unheard of now, maybe you can get that in a bible study, but TIME does things. Sure there were the squabbles, but it was very family. Of course I won’t rule out that one can worship alone too, of course, but then that’s how I’ve felt the last years, alone in the crowd(I still keep in touch with my growing up church friends, miss them horribly).

    Might sound weird, but I think “genreal” humanity can worship too(without knowing it). I was at a Styx concert and when they sang “Come Sail Away” the longing for “the hole” to be filled was sure there. After all the bible says every knee shall bow, we all long for our Creator, whether we know it or not.

    LikeLike

41. Miguel, what an interesting comment–“My experience with evangelical worship is that when I’m in a rock concert worship service, I have trouble connecting with God because I feel like everything is being scripted.”

    Like everything is being scripted? I thought this kind of service was supposed to be filled with “free,” “spontaneous,” “from the heart” worship!

    Thanks for stating the real truth, Miguel.

    LikeLike

42. MWPeak: “I really wish the focus would move away from trying to reach up to a God in heaven and instead recognize that God descended in the flesh for our sins.”

    That’s why I think the Lord’s Supper should be a part of every Lord’s Day service.

    LikeLike

43. The form of the Lutheran service is essentially the Western Rite.

    LikeLike

44. Our church is not high liturgy, and we use contemporary music.

    LikeLike

45. Go to the Archives and check out Michael Spencer’s “Evangelical Liturgy” posts. And remember that Michael made a beeline to the Anglican church to worship whenever possible.

    LikeLike

46. I agree with your comment that in many church services the worship is more like a stage show. Your list of worship offerings (praise, thanksgiving,… ) is very good, especially the last one – readiness to hear & respond to God’s Word. This ought to be one of the main goals of the worship in the service, to help people to get focused on God and ready to hear His voice and then respond. People need and want to hear from God. Eccelesiastes 5:1 is a great verse: “Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools.”

    I know your article is about corporate worship, but I would say that worship is much more than just the worship service itself, it needs to be more of a lifestyle of devotion & love & passion for Jesus; a lifestyle of daily fellowship with the Lord and total submission to Him (Romans 12:1-2) that incorporates your list of worship offerings.

    Thanks for the good post.

    LikeLike

47. General comment: I’ll be the first to admit problems exist everywhere. I have to also admit, though, occasionally when I read entries and comments, I catch myself wondering where in the world everyone lives if all the surrounding Protestant churches are going crazy.

    Not an indictment, just an observation.

    LikeLike

48. A couple years ago my wife and I started attended Episcopal and Catholic liturgies. The thing we’ve noticed, and it seems to make ALL the difference, is what the worship is about: the Word (mostly the Gospel reading) and the Eucharist, but mostly the Eucharist.

    The homily might can be uninspired, the priest might be awkward, the music might be bad, or the people may be unfriendly. But all this doesn’t matter, because this miraculous, holy, mysterious, sacred thing happens when the Eucharist is consecrated and shared.

    I know Catholics or Episcopals who have a strong preference about music or hearing one particular priest, and it’s good when these things are inspiring. But it’s so not about the preacher or the instruments.

    LikeLike

49. How true. 🙂 To my Evangelical pastor friend who asked if they even read the Bible during Orthodox worship, I laughed and told him that we probably heard more Scripture recited during a single Liturgy or other service than in a month of Sundays in our prior ProtEvangeMatic churches.

    LikeLike

50. Yeah, I agree. This also was a big point for the iMonk if I remember correctly. He was very much against the “anecdotal combat” and the false “I’m right and your wrong” dichotomy. Based on reading his stuff I would say he would personally agree with the Chappy, but I’m nor sure he would have gave such a ringing endorsement of the Western Liturgy.

    However, in all fairness, Chaplain Mike is his own man. Continuing the legacy of Michael Spenser doesn’t mean cloning him.

    LikeLike

51. Very well done, Mike. You’ve really been hitting it out of the park the past couple of weeks. Keep it up.

    LikeLike

52. Thanks for this. As a worship pastor who is wrestling with his theology and trying to come to a concise definition of worship, I find this to be extremely helpful. However, my conclusions may not keep me in good standing with the Baptist church I work for. I like Webber. But I also like Bob Kaufflin and some of these Calvinist guys.

    A definition I read recently is: Worship is the work of the Holy Spirit in the Body of Christ to the glory of God the Father. I think it is helpful to remember the C.S. Lewis illustration in regards to prayer being a manner of being caught up into the life of the trinity: God the Spirit is the source, God the father is the aim, and God the Son is the means by which we pray. I think the same applies for worship, and therefore any definition of what worship is must be Trinitarian by nature.

    My experience with evangelical worship is that when I’m in a rock concert worship service, I have trouble connecting with God because I feel like everything is being scripted. The drums become more intense and I’m supposed to have this emotional rise as a result. But the fact that I feel the drums are manipulating me into this destroys any desire I might have had to comply. Ironically, I feel totally able to connect to God at home with my Book of Common Prayer every morning, though my every word is scripted for me, most of it is scripted by God.

    Isn’t it ironic that low church types who claim to value scripture so highly will not take seriously the forms of worship that are most saturated with it?

    LikeLike

53. I remember hearing this line from the Phos hilaron as a young adult at some service, but in a mass-monotone: “You are worthy at all times to be praised by happy voices.” The irony of the moment almost made me laugh out loud, then it just distracted me with various degrees of sadness on and off for the rest of the service.

    A side note: trained singers (and some phone salespeople) know that the sound of a person’s voice actually changes when they smile. I wonder what the liturgy would actually sound like if half the congregation were smiling? And I’m not suggesting that people start faking a smile. I just think that if we think about and believe what’s being said in the liturgies, we may cry, we may shout, we may just smile, but we won’t sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher.

    In all seriousness, I bet it would be a great experiment for a priest/vicar of a liturgical church to talk about this issue with his church and then ask them all, for just a few months, to stay silent in the response or even the hymns whenever they sense they are just going through the motions, or can’t say what the congregation is saying with conviction. Anyone in silence could just take the opportunity to listen, pray about the words, and join when they could speak with their heart, soul, mind and strength. I wonder . . . it sounds a little risky . . . things could get . . . interesting . . .

    LikeLike

54. I like the analogy of honoring a war hero. Jesus, He fights for us.

    The one problem I have your description of a liturgical service is that it seems too poetic. Again, one problem I have with the pop-evangelical service is its effort to recreate heaven-on-earth, i.e. Revelation 4. I see the same issue with overly-ornate liturgical services.

    Granted, I am glad that both evangelical services and liturgical services are at least trying to worship God, but I really wish the focus would move away from trying to reach up to a God in heaven and instead recognize that God descended in the flesh for our sins. That, for me, is my aim when I worship God in or out of church.

    LikeLike

55. Pingback: Recommended Reading: Chaplain Mike on Worship | Eric Pazdziora

56. This is a great post, Chaplain Mike, and the comments are great, too. How do we actually communicate with the megachurches and those who attend them? How can we persuade them that being the “hottest show in town” is NOT what Jesus had in mind? This kind of stuff drives me crazy…

    LikeLike

57. Amen Brother! Preach it!

    How’s that for a witness? 🙂

    It is understandably difficult to get a large group of people to say/read something in unison without getting very chaotic unless everyone tries to drain it completely of all emotion, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. You can always set it to music (Rich Mullins Creed for example) and I’m sure people could eventually learn to read together with some gusto and still be mostly in-synch. Maybe we could take the really old fashioned approach and break out the Gregorian Chant! I think it would just take a church deciding that they

    I’ve always wanted to find a church that uses a mostly traditional liturgy with some slightly more modern music. I have a rather strong dislike of pipe-organs, which seem to be extremely popular where I live. I find that plenty of people can drain the life from most hymns pretty well too, and I always thought Amazing Grace should be more upbeat.

    LikeLike

58. I’m sure there are lots of reasons for it, but I think it’s more than just coincidence. Each tradition has its own strengths and weaknesses to which it is disposed. Unfortunately, the formality and reverence of the liturgical traditions don’t exactly tend toward “Corinthian” style problems like my charismatic brothers do! I think your and my experience is too often the norm.

    LikeLike

59. Great post, Chaplain Mike. I especially like your point about beauty. It occurred to me recently that God is not just beautiful, as if He were being measured against a standard outside of Himself; He is Beauty. Our participation in worship has all the purposes you express so well here. It also, when rightly done, will have the effect of training us in what is beautiful — in what is like God. If we are steeped in the beauty of God, vile art, manipulative music, and mindless and pedestrian books will cease to attract us. We talk a lot about how the Church protects us against the nasty parts of human culture, and I think this is one way it should be doing that. “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.” (Psalm 84) If we truly felt that way, so many things would no longer be temptations.

    LikeLike

60. Gee, Lukas, so are you saying that we Americans have a tradition of scorning tradition? Hmm.

    LikeLike

61. Wow! Where to start. Good job on this piece and yes, I think it is imperative that we begin by defining “worship” and what exactly is our purpose for gathering. Are we free to do just whatever feel like worship to us?
    But the main issue that that I would like to reflect on is that of congregational involvement. Anyone who has had significant exposure to both free form and more structured liturgies will readily see that how we typically do “free form” services today is anything but participative – very spectator. On the other hand, while our nearby Anglican (AMiA) church may have a fixed liturgical structure it is nonetheless very participative. How refreshing! The congregation is not all sitting back sipping their Starbucks and shouting “amen”! There is a beautiful flow and participation as the gospel is represented; the music supporting that movement, responsive readings, congregational prayers of confession, and moments of silence (perish the thought:-). It’s a beautiful thing indeed as we meet with and respond to God in all of his greatness.

    LikeLike

62. Great analogy, Lukas!

    LikeLike

63. Thank you for this comment ,it is a subject that has concerned me a lot lately. I had thought that it was perhaps because I was getting older.
    I spent many years in the Baptist Church where worship was fairly formal and used some litugy and had plenty of opportunity for meditation and clergy led prayer. But over the past few years the church I have been attending has gone so far down the “charismatic” road that it has no form. I find that I become irritated and resentful after singing the same chorus for the 8th time, a power point presentation instead of prayer and no scripture reading. I have changed churches,which made me feel rather petty but this has helped me put things in perspective.
    I was going to quote C.S. Lewis too Eric, I so agree with what you wrote.Worship is more than music but then that is what Chaplain Mike is saying. God is awesome and I want someone to lead me into His presence in an ordered way. Thats what we need the man at the front for,and why he trained for so many years. A guitarist just isn’t my bag!
    I also agree that with the solemnity, we can smile and rejoice over what God has done for us…somewhere we have to get the balance right.

    LikeLike

64. T Freeman,

    This is my experience as well, growing up with the liturgical focus. It was a lot of long faces and a sense of stifling near morbidity. Although probably not true of many liturgical churches, outside of the service and the rote prayer at mealtime no one ever even talked about God. When I asked questions they told me to go see a priest. I felt spiritual starvation, while hearing about God in a scripted and ritualistic fashion. It felt much like the servant’s kid, never having enough food to eat, while being forced to stand at the side of a formal baquet room every week while people dined on fancy food but never seemed to enjoy it one little bit.

    Having said that, perhaps the lack of joy is something not correlated with whether one experiences a liturgy or not. Maybe it was just a coincidental time and place thing.

    LikeLike

65. Now, contrast this with a typical service from the liturgical church we attend:

    That sounds like a standard Western Rite Liturgy, with a lot of commonality to Mass at St Boniface. The main difference is you seem to sing a lot more in the interludes. Our only song between the Kyrie and the actual Communion is a responsive psalm between the first two readings. And we use the formal Consecration between the Offering and Communion proper.

    All us Romish Papists (the original Western Rite Liturgical Church) can start snickering “What took you so long?”

    LikeLike

66. Oh, well said, sir! I’m ecstatic over your “war hero” illustration and very pleased by the focus on the need for congregational involvement.

    You overlooked my personal pet grievance: “Worship = music, preferably in a particular style.” That annoys this church musician to distraction. No, music is one technique for expressing worship, and it does very well when you let it, but you can’t express what you haven’t got.

    C. S. Lewis: “The ideal worship service would be one we almost didn’t notice; our attention would have been on God.”

    LikeLike

67. Mike,

    Don’t hold back, brother. Go on and let it out. Tell us how you really feel. 😀

    I’m really, really with you on the growing appreciation for, in essense, what our higher-church brethren have been doing for some time. The depth and wisdom of the BCP is still impressing me almost every day. I still have some reservations, though, about the typical high-church worship service. I think it’s fair to say that mainline denoms have not done an especially good job at what many low-church folks claim to value, whether it be fresh interactions with the Holy Spirit, or evangelism, or other typical low-church goals.

    I personally can’t shake the memory of the tone of the congregation’s response in the Lutheran church where I went to grade school. I occasionally went to church there with a friend from school and was repeatedly perplexed and surprised by the monotone replies of the congregation in the liturgy. The tone and the expressionless faces spoke volumes to me as a child (just like my mom said my tone of voice did to adults!) about what this group really felt about everything being said and what they really thought about the God they were “worshipping.” It (and He) was all kind of a drag.

    I think it’s that same tone and what it communicates that has led many folks out of those patterns of worship, or even out of the church. Again, I think you’re right that the evangelical church could learn volumes and volumes from their higher church brothers and would do well to copy them in many respects. But that really does work both ways at least a little bit. Would a little informality, a little authentic human emotion to go with those beautiful words and expressions, kill anybody? It might even save a few folks. The mainline churches are dying for a reason, and at least part of that reason lies with the near constant lethargic tone of the people “worshipping.” Can I get a witness? (or am I in the wrong church for that?) 🙂 C’mon high-church people! Help a low-church brother out! Look alive (at least one Sunday a month or something)! In all seriousness, it matters. A lot. I don’t care if you weep or shout or just smile when you sing, just do something that fits what you’re saying from time to time. Some little kid is listening and trying to figure out if it’s the words or the tone that gives the real story, and the tone and facial expression is more pursuasive almost every time. Lord, have mercy!

    LikeLike

68. I think it’s a mistake to couple, in any way, right/wrong worship and traditional/liturgical vs. new/contemporary. It always ends up in anecdotal combat.

    I’m a classically trained singer. I love traditional and more difficult stuff and how that translates into worship. But I also love how you can embed huge theological truths into a pop tune, and repeat them until they become something more than words.

    Both worlds can be rote, boring, etc. Both worlds can be careless and shallow. Both can miss the point and be something else besides worship.

    In the end they are tools, techniques, and mechanisms that are applied to what worship is. Worship starts before any decision regarding what’s going to happen. If is starts as worship and stays that way, then any execution will be beautiful and pleasing to God.

    LikeLike

69. “In general, liturgical worship is poetic while evangelical worship tends to be prosaic.”
    A lot of evangelical worship is more of the “magic book” mentality that Michael Spencer criticized: worship and Christianity in general is offered as the answer to all our problems, which echoes the list of things you mention that worship is not.

    I would agree that worship, i.e. liturgy, is the work of the people. With all works, the motivation is key. If I worship and laud God so that he will in-turn shower his blessings on me, then I am no different than the old testament baal worshippers. If I worship God out of love, then I get closer to Christian worship. But my sinfulness and brokenness remains, so that my worship, as all of my works, are tainted with selfishness – rendering them unacceptable.

    God is not ultimately pleased with my sacrifice of praise – as I so often hear as the motivation for whipping the congregation into a frenzy, but is pleased with His Son, in whose name I worship. It is in that faith that I work and worship, knowing that it is Jesus who takes my foul excuse for a heart of worship and sanctifies it through His perfect, final, and finished sacrifice.

    So, how we begin worship – in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – is so key to what follows and why.

    LikeLike

70. Way back when I first started practicing martial arts, I had an idea that mastering techniques was an intellectual activity. I just needed to memorize the movements involved, muster the physical dexterity necessary to pull it off, and that was it! Technique mastered.

    However, through a long slow process I discovered that this didn’t work. In the heat of a fight – even a mock fight, during practice or competitions – the body acts based upon instinct, not intellect. And so you need to practice a move thousands of times, until that is how you react naturally under fire. Then you have mastered the technique, and only then can you really use it.

    I think worship is kind of like this. Those who try to act ‘spontaneously’ in worship are placing themselves at a serious disadvantage. You try to create a service by pulling it out of your hat, and almost always the hat ends up empty; and so you just go back to the unpolished, unimaginative patterns that you’ve always done.

    Traditional, liturgical services have been practiced a thousand times. They bring in the insights of lifetimes, and the influence of deep thinking in solitude as well as spontaneous inspiration. One cannot just make up a great hymn of praise in the heat of the moment – it takes long, careful thought and labor to do so.

    I find it interesting how Americans resist tradition. It’s part of our culture. We are individualistic, and we are suspicious – even contemptuous – of the past. It’s probably a vestige of the Enlightenment ideal of progress, and I think it’s a tragic reversal of the philosophy of previous times, where the past was seen as being greater than the present. Now, everyone feels themselves better and more enlightened than anyone much older than themselves. The elderly are no longer wise; they’re senile. Send them to rest homes, drug them into oblivion, treat them like children. Traditional medicine? Nothing but quackery and superstition. Never mind that nearly all our useful drugs are derived from traditional medicine. The word ‘medieval’ has become synonymous with ‘violent’ or ‘barbaric’ – this from a century that has birthed more genocides than existed in a thousand years of medieval history.

    How can traditional liturgy survive in such a culture? I’m surprised it’s done as well as it has.

    LikeLike

71. Good stuff! I praise God for the blessing this provided me.

    LikeLike