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.