When You Don't Feel Like Worshipping

A church member recently passed on an article to me called *When You Don’t Feel Like Worshipping. I found it incredibly valuable and shared it with the Worship Committee at my church. I’d also like to share some of my thoughts about it with you.

A part of the reality of the Christian life is that frankly, we don’t always feel like worshipping. Often times church leaders address this fact by trying to incorporate things in worship that people do feel like doing, hoping that these things will help the body of Christ to worship. The problem is that these church leaders ask the wrong question. They ask, ‘What do our church members want to do?’ and then label those things as worship. They should be asking the question, ‘What does God want us to do? And how do we encourage our congregation to do those things even when they don’t feel like it?’ 

What I appreciate about this article is that it addresses this question from the perspective of the individual. It’s not the responsibility of the Pastor or Worship Leader to make you to want to worship; that is your own responsibility. The article encourages the Biblical concept of waiting on the Lord. It says, “The Hebrew word for waiting does not mean passive waiting; it means eager seeking. It means taking the steps that God has promised to use to help us, while trusting him expectantly to work.” I think this is incredibly helpful as a believer. Even more helpfully, the author gives four specific action points that I want to share with you:

1. Look to Jesus expectantly. Don’t focus on your lifeless heart. Instead, look to Christ with faith, trusting him to meet you, help you, and change you.

2. Pray and ask him to help you worship. Be honest with him about the dullness of your heart. Confess any known sin, and be assured of forgiveness based on the finished work of the cross. Then ask for more of the Spirit’s work in your heart to enable you to feel joyful praise, awestruck wonder, and heartfelt longing for him.

3. Set your heart on the truth of who God is as revealed in Christ. If worship is fire, then truth is the fuel that causes the fire to burn. The more fuel — the hotter the fire. So focus prayerfully and relentlessly on the truth in the songs, the prayers, and the Scriptures.

4. Continue the above steps — patiently. It’s called waiting for a reason. God might change your heart instantly — or not. But his timing is all about his perfect love for you. So humbly continue waiting for him.

What I most appreciate about these action points is how Christ centered, Spirit dependent, and Gospel saturated they are. Even as we are waiting on the Lord we are to lean on the Spirit to awaken our hearts anew to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And when that happens, it seems there is nothing more appropriate to do than to offer worship to the God who is worthy.

* The article ‘When You Don't Feel Like Worshipping’ by Steve Fuller can be found here:http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/when-you-don-t-feel-like-worshiping

Worship - One, Two, Three

I've been reading this book called "Rhythms of Grace" by Mike Cosper. It's excellent. It was suggested to me by a Pastor in our area. He said that after the Worship Director at his church read it, it changed his whole mindset on worship. Rather than changing my mind on worship, Im finding myself agreeing a lot with what Cosper has written.

One concept that Cosper talks about in the book he calls Worship One, Two, Three. Instead of assuming that you'll pick up the book and read it yourself I want to share this concept with you here. Now, to be clear, I didn't come up with this. Im just summarizing a concept that I read in his book (I just want to give credit where credit is due).

Worship One, Two, Three is a way of summarizing some basic theology of worship. There is One object and author, Two contexts, and Three audiences. This helps us to remember first that worship is about God and by God's grace. Second, we worship as a scattered body in all of life as well as a gathered body on Sunday. Lastly, the three audiences of worship are God, the body of Christ, and the World.

One.
It is vital that we remember that worship starts and ends with God. It is by His grace that we are able to be in relationship with Him. It is by His grace that we are able to hear from Him and respond. Worship is also about God. During worship we retell His Story of redemption through out the ages. We hear His Word, and we are participating in giving Him glory. God wrote the story, and it's all about Him and His Glory, and in worship we get to participate in that.

Two.
Worship occurs in two contexts. First it occurs as the Gathered Body of Christ. This is when we meet together, usually on Sundays. We participate together in retelling the story of redemption and we hear from God, respond, and then are sent out. Which then leads to the second context, worship as the Scattered Body of Christ. This is each individual Christian worshipping God through daily life, offering his body as a living sacrifice. This worship occurs when Christians do everything in life as unto God, seeking to give Him glory through all they do, and working to tell The Story to anyone who will listen.
These contexts feed into each other. The worship of the Gathered Body spurs on individuals and encourages them in their worship as the Scattered Body. The worship of the Scattered Body proclaims Christ's sovereignty to all nations, which then increases the worship of the Gathered Body (at least it should).

Three.
Three 'audiences' (I dont like the word audience, but it's the word Cosper uses, and Im not sure what other word to use) participate in and observe Worship. The first and most important audience is obviously God. God participates in worship by giving us His Word, offering us forgiveness, and telling us how to live (among other things). The second audience is the Body of Christ. To be clear, the Body of Christ does not come to observe the service and be entertained. The Body of Christ becomes an audience when they participate with one another in proclaiming the Gospel. We hear our brothers and sisters proclaim The Story and also proclaim it back to them. The last audience is the World who observes from the darkness. They see the Body Gathered and Scattered, and hopefully hear the Gospel. The world observes worship by being in relationships with the Scattered Body. They also observe worship by actually attending a service with the Gathered Body. In both cases Christians need to be aware of the World and intentional in the work of proclaiming The Story clearly.

In sum: worship is about God and by God, it occurs when Christians gather together and when they are scattered into the world, lastly there are three audiences who participate in and observe worship: God, Christians, and the world. Im thankful for Mike Cosper's work in the renewal of worship in the Church and I think his Worship One, Two, Three concept is great. I hope you do too.

A late mother's day post... sorry Ma'... I didn't think of the idea to write it till today.

When I was growing up my mother was the Worship Director at our home church Park CRC. My dad was also heavily involved in Worship ministry at our church through being on praise team, running sound, and for a while he even sang in the choir. As a result of this I was always at church. It makes sense then that eventually I would start to be heavily involved in Worship ministry. In 3rd grade my parents bought me a bass guitar for Christmas, Im pretty sure my mom had me playing on praise team by fourth grade (even though I was terrible) and eventually I began singing in choir, singing on praise team, and in middle school I even picked up acoustic guitar.

Worship Ministry was a family thing. My mom played piano and lead, my dad played guitar, my brother played drums, I played bass, my older sister played piano, my other older sister played viola in the church orchestra… Eventually us kids figured we might as well embrace it because there’s no getting out of it (but some how my younger sister got out of it…).

As someone steeped in Worship ministry from grade school, I have learned a lot from my Mother about Music and Worship. Not to mention the fact that she was my main professor when I was getting my degree in Music and Worship. But after doing full time worship ministry on my own, what I’ve recently realized is the most important thing that she taught me was something that I didn’t even realize she was teaching me.

When we were growing up, often times on the way to praise team rehearsal my brother and I would ask “So what songs are we doing this week?” My mom would always respond “Oh… something about Jesus, the cross, and God and stuff…” We’d always get so frustrated because we thought she didn’t pick cool songs and she just didn't want to admit it to us. What my Mother was teaching me (through what I thought was avoiding the question) was that it doesn’t matter how cool or catchy or fun the songs are, what matters is what the songs are about. And they should be about ‘Jesus, the cross, and God and stuff.’ (Not all popular 'worship songs' are...)

Before I even understood what worship was, beyond just singing at church, my mom was instilling in me the value for Gospel shaped, Christ magnifying, God glorifying, Spirit lead worship. And for that I’m very thankful.

Trinitarian Worship

My goal for this article is to give a brief summary of what Trinitarian Worship is, and is not. I also hope to give some practical points of application about how Trinitarian Worship informs (or at least should inform) our Worship services.

Trinitarian Worship is not Unitarian Worship. Unitarian Worship is the worship of those who believe they have a direct line to God the Father. You might be Unitarian if you believe that worship is primarily something that humans do. Or if you believe that you can directly access God the Father, offer him a sacrifice of praise and have him be pleased with it. If you believe that the burden of creating an acceptable offering of praise to God is on you, you might have a Unitarian view of worship.

Trinitarian Worship is not emotion driven. You might have an emotionally driven view of worship if you’re only goal when you come to worship is to experience an emotional high. Or perhaps your view of worship is emotionally driven if you only sing things like “I want to feel your presence.” If you are constantly seeking a moving experience when you are in worship, you probably have an emotionally driven view of it. Eugene Peterson says this about how we feel and worship, “We can act ourselves into a new way of feeling much quicker than we can feel ourselves into a new way of acting. Worship is an act that develops feelings for God, not a feeling for God that is expressed in an act of worship (p.54, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction).” We worship because God commands us to worship, not because we want to experience an emotional high.

So then what is Trinitarian Worship? James B. Torrance in the book Worship, Community & The Triune God of Grace, says: “Trinitarian Worship is when we the Church participate by the Spirit in the incarnate Son’s communion with the Father.” Trinitarian Worship is the Father’s downward movement through the incarnation of the Son and by the Spirit’s work in us. We as Calvinists believe that God has saved us through the Holy Spirit quickening our hearts to accept Christ as our savior in order than we may be right with the Father. Trinitarian worship is the reflection of that very same process. We approach the Father as those who are in Christ, through the Holy Spirit. Paul talks about it in Ephesians 2:18 “For through Him (Christ) we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.” This Trinitarian theology of worship emphasizes the idea that it is only by God’s volition that we are able to engage with Him. God is the primary actor in worship.

Also, in Trinitarian Worship we are invited to participate in Divine Community. The relationship between the Father, Son, and Spirit has been described with the Greek word “Perichoresis.” In sum, this word describes the co-indwelling, same substance yet distinct persons of the Trinity. Perichoresis helps us to understand the mutual submission and glorification of each member of the Trinity. There is perfect unity, yet constant submission and glorification going on between each person. I've had perichoresis illustrated to me with the image of a divine dance. In this dance each member of the Three is distinct, and yet weaving between each other in perfect rhythm working to glorify the next, all the while submitting to each other in perfect love and unity displaying the oneness of the Three. We see a great example of this mutual submission and glorification in John 17:1 where Jesus prays “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.” The Spirit is not left out, in John 16:14 Jesus says of the Holy Spirit; “He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.” It's this divine community that we get to be enveloped into in Trinitarian Worship.

How does this change the way that we think about Worship on Sundays? It comforts us. We are relieved to find out that there is nothing we can do to offer a perfect sacrifice of praise to God so we lean more heavily on to Christ, who takes our sacrifice of praise and makes it holy and pleasing to Him. We are comforted because we know that even when we do not feel like worshiping it is the Spirit that will move us, help us, and intercede for us. We are comforted because we know that God is the primary actor in worship and that even if things don't seem to go correctly, God will direct worship as He pleases. We are comforted because we are invited into the perfect community of the Trinity.


Lastly, Trinitarian Worship changes how we think about worship because it reminds us that the primary reason for our worship is Glory. Our eyes are drawn away from ourselves, our own wants and needs, as we participate in the divine mutual submission and glorification constantly occurring between the Three Persons. We are comforted as we are reminded that even as we give glory to God, we have great hope because we get to share in His glory.

Using The Entire Service To Proclaim The Word Of God

One of the things I love about the Reformed tradition is its intense focus on and love for the Word of God. The Reformation came about as a result of multiple issues in the Catholic Church. One of those issues was that the people of God did not have an understanding of the Word of God. This had a lot to do with the fact that Mass was held in Latin. Also there were no Bibles available in the common language of the people, they were all Latin too. You had to be a scholar to be able to read it for yourself, and if you weren’t a scholar and you went to mass, chances are you didn’t understand much of the sermon either. Thank God that we have the Word in our own languages!

The Word of God is vital in the life of a Christian. The Word of God is the Gospel of Jesus Christ! The Reformed Tradition understands this, and as a result rightfully emphasizes the preaching and proclamation of the Word of God in Worship Services.

The negative result of this emphasis on the Sermon is that sometimes the other aspects of the worship service get de-emphasized and even misunderstood. We often think of every aspect of a service in relation to the sermon. Many people think the first portion of the service is meant to get the people excited and happy to worship God, guide them through an emotional experience which then in turn will prepare their hearts to hear the sermon. Many people see the singing time after the sermon as a time that is meant to allow the Sunday school teachers time to get to their classrooms and set up before their students come. (Just an aside for your information: Martin Luther did not think this way, neither did John Calvin… read chapters three and four of Christ Centered Worship by Bryan Chappell if you don’t believe me… and if you’re going to read those chapters you might as well read the whole thing.)

Let me come right out and say it. The music before the sermon is not meant to prepare you for the sermon. The music after the sermon is not meant to give you time to get out of the sanctuary before everyone else. The music  in the service (if used appropriately) is not secondary to the sermon. Music is not a tool meant to be used to prepare hearts for the sermon; it is meant to be a tool used for glorifying God and proclaiming the same Gospel that the sermon is meant to be proclaiming. (Note: The sermon is also a tool used to accomplish goal of proclaiming the Gospel.)

Our services are meant to be an engagement with God formed by what I like to call the Gospel Pattern. This is how Bryan Chappell, in his book Christ Centered Worship, describes this Gospel Pattern in the context of an individual’s interaction with the good news of Jesus Christ:

 “The gospel first affects the heart by enabling us to recognize who God is. When we truly understand the glory of his holiness, then we also recognize who we really are and confess our need of him. The gospel then assures us of the grace that he provides, and our hearts respond in both thanksgiving and humble petition for his aid so that we can give proper devotion to him. In response to our desire for his aid, God provides his Word. We heed his instruction, know that we are both charged to do so and have the promise of his blessing as we live for him (p 99).”

Our services should be formatted in such a way that every element proclaims some aspect of this Gospel Pattern. Thankfully we don’t have to come up with this format all by ourselves. We see it in scripture (check out my last post about the dialogue of worship) and we see it in many of the liturgies of the churches throughout history.

Bryan Chappell summarizes the consistent elements found within many Historic Liturgies (p 100):

                        Recognition of God’s Character (Adoration)

Acknowledgment of Our Character (Confession)

Affirmation of Grace (Assurance)

Expression of Devotion (Thanksgiving)

Desire for Aid in Living for God (Petition and Intercession)

Acquiring Knowledge for Pleasing God (Instruction from God’s Word)

Living unto God with His Blessing (Charge and Benediction)

This same Gospel Pattern should shape our worship. Not because it’s tradition. But because if we follow this pattern in worship, each element of our service will work with the next to proclaim the Word of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ—this is of utmost importance.

So in the next service that you attend I’d encourage you to think about each element of the service individually and then think about them all as a whole unit. Think of them as different scenes in the drama that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Without one of the scenes the drama might make a little bit of sense. But when all scenes are put together there is no mistaking the drama for anything but the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Here’s the point: the Word of God is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Our entire worship services are meant to proclaim this Gospel, not just the sermon. If the Gospel Pattern is followed in our worship services, we have proclaimed the Gospel, participated in the Gospel, and personally and corporately experienced the Gospel. We leave the service having encountered the Triune God and His power to save. This is life changing!

The Dialogue of Worship

Dear Church family,

Recently I have felt God tugging at my heart to begin to share some Biblical concepts about worship with you. Since I have been put in the position of Worship Director, it is my responsibility to make sure those whom I am leading in worship understand what we are doing. In our culture of consumerist, experiential, and “my-way-or-the-highway” worship it is very easy for people to lose sight of the Bible’s teachings on the matter. There are actually right ways and wrong ways to worship! However, surprisingly to some, these correct and incorrect methods of worship have little and even nothing to do with the style of the music!

It is my prayer that the following articles will teach you something that you did not know about worship or maybe re-enforce something you already knew about worship. Ultimately I want to help you to grow in your relationship with the God who is most worthy of our worship. May He be glorified in all that we do!

The first concept I’d like to share with you is the one of the most important things that anyone can understand about worship (other than the fact that God is to be the only subject of our worship). This is the fact that our Worship must be shaped by Christ and the Gospel that he came to proclaim and fulfill! In worship we gather together to hear the gospel, participate in the gospel, and proclaim the gospel to one another.

One of the ways that we make sure that our services are just that is often referred to as “The Dialogue of Worship.” It has a lot to do with the order of our worship services and why we do what we do when we do it. To summarize it briefly, it is the way in which we engage with God in a conversation… some might even call it a dialogue! And as we all know (some of us better than others) a conversation is not one person talking at another person. A conversation is two or more parties engaging with each other, listening to what the other party says and responding appropriately. In worship the ‘parties’ that we engage with are God and the other people gathered.

The best Biblical example of this dialogue can be found in Isaiah 6:1-13. Before you continue reading I encourage you to open up your Bible or your internet search engine of choice and look up those verses. It’s an awesome example of heavenly worship and a wonderful display of the Gospel and how we are to respond to it!

Notice the first 4 verses we see God’s character revealed. The heavenly creatures are declaring that He is “Holy, holy, holy.” Let’s also take note that Isaiah did not get to see God because he went looking. He saw God because God showed himself to Isaiah. In worship we call this Adoration.

In verse 5 we see Isaiah responding to God in confession. “Woe is me…” It’s when we see God’s character that we realize our own character: unclean. The glory of God not only displays his holiness, it illumines our blemishes. Isaiah experiences this first hand and responds accordingly with a confession of his sinful character. In worship we call this Confession.

In verses 6-7 it’s God’s turn in the dialogue. He responds to Isaiah’s confession by the cleansing touch of a coal from the altar. He then says “See this coal has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away and your guilt atoned for.” Notice how not only does God make sure Isaiah’s sins have been forgiven, He also makes sure Isaiah understands the forgiveness that he has received. What wonderful grace! Not only does God forgive us once and for all, He constantly reminds us of that forgiveness! In worship we call this Assurance.

In verse 8 we see Isaiah’s response to this wonderful grace. When God ask’s “Who shall I send…” Isaiah without hesitation responds, “Here am I, send me!”. Paul encourages the same response from us in Romans 12:1. He says, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of Gods mercy offer you bodies as a living sacrifice holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship.” You see, when we experience God’s mercy there is only one logical response and that is worshiping God in all of our life. In worship we call this Thanksgiving.

Next, in verses 9-12, God gives Isaiah instructions. He tells him what to do and how to minister to the people of Israel. Basically, God gives Isaiah His Word. He tells Isaiah what to say to the people. In worship we call this Instruction.

Lastly, God assures Isaiah that He will uphold the covenant blessing that he promised Israel, in spite of the judgment that will occur. In verse 13 God says, “But as the terebinth and oak leave stumps when they are cut down, so the holy seed (referring to the remnant of Israelites that will be left) will be the stump in the land.” God sends Isaiah out reminding him of His covenant blessing and assuring him that He will keep His promises. In worship we call this the Sending, or Blessing.

Now, you may be saying to yourself, “Wow AJ, this is great stuff, but I’m not sure if God meant for this passage to be a model for our worship services… Wasn't he just showing the calling of Isaiah?” Why, yes! Thank you for bringing that up! Here’s a quote from the book Christ Centered Worship by Bryan Chapell (the book I took the outline of this passage from).

My purpose for outlining this passage in this way is to point out that when faithful persons encounter God’s glory, there are common responses. Isaiah’s pattern of response also is not unique. Check out Jeremiah 1:4-19 or Ezekiel 1:26-3:15 (p. 103).

Bryan Chapell goes on to say that if this is a common pattern of what happens when people meet with God in the Bible, shouldn’t we expect similar patterns to be reflected in the worship of others who encounter the glory of God in the testimony of his Word (p. 103)?

Here’s the meat and potatoes of the matter: following this pattern in our worship services insures that the Gospel is proclaimed in the whole service, not just the sermon. If our goal is for our worship services to be focused on the Gospel of Jesus Christ and shaped by that same Gospel (which it is) this Dialogue of Worship is a valuable pattern to follow.

*If you’re interested in reading more about this Dialogue of Worship I’d encourage you to read the books: The Dialogue of Worship by Milburn Price, or Christ Centered Worship by Bryan Chapell.