The Long Promised Blog On Worship...

"Christians don't tell lies, they go to church on Sunday and sing them."

-A.W. Tozer

For those of you who do not know who A.W. Tozer is actually a pretty big name in Christianity. He was a pastor, teacher, author, speaker, etc. According to Wikipedia his gravestone says this, "A.W. Tozer - A man of God." I just wanted to establish some credibility prior to continuing this blog.

Last Wednesday's chapel speaker repeated this quote, and I have to say that it's done some work on me. He further went on to state that he has really only seen like 2 people lift their hands and spin around during the bridge of "Marvelous Light". He gave an example of another song as well but it escapes my mind at the moment.

Warning: Anecdote Approaching!

I was watching Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith the other day, and began to look at it in the allegorical sense. Where the Jedi were to represent Christianity and the Sith as sin. So where Anakin falls to the dark side of the force I began to see Anakin falling into sin. The movie perfectly shows how falling into sin can greatly affect you and those around you. This view on the movie got me a little choked up, and eventually it led me to a time of worship with God, or rather what I thought would be worship. At some point I began to play "Undignified", keep in mind that I was sitting down. I wasn't really singing, I was definitely not dancing, and I was not going mad for the sake of the King. So why was I singing/playing this song? Was I even truly worshiping?

Once I realized how much this song has become a lie I stopped playing the song. I then flipped a few pages over in my plethora of worship music to "Your Grace Is Enough", about half way through the song I began to wonder if I really believed this. This one I finished since if even I may struggle with it at time I know that it is true. I eventually ended on a song by one of my new favorite bands The Glorious Unseen called "Tonight The Stars Speak." Amazingly simple, but an extremely beautiful worship song. The lyrics of the song might have been the first time tonight that I realized and meant all of what I was singing.

This kind of scares me. I was volunteering for a worship band all throughout high school and for a little while after, and I am just beginning to wonder how sincere my worship was. Why do we sing these songs if they mean nothing to us? God isn't pleased with meaningless words. This same idea is addressed when Jesus talks about prayer in Matthew 6:5-9 He states not to ramble or use big words as if you are going to impress, nor to make an effort to draw attention to yourself in order for people to see you. God knows your prayers before you even speak. Same thing with worship. At that God wants all of us.

"The feeling or expression of reverence and adoration for a deity." Definition from Oxford American Dictionaries. I don't see music anywhere in that definition. I am not saying that the church's regular set of music is not worship. I think that music can be an amazing form of worship, but as soon as we limit worship to one thing we're ina great deal of trouble. The Psalms are some of the best examples of worship and a great deal of them are music.

CBU's Dean of Spiritual Life John Montgomery once asked these two questions "Where do you spend your time? Where do you spend your money?" He later stated that he would say that the answer to those questions is what you worship.

I am brought back to the Matt Redman song "The Heart of Worship", which straight up states that worship is not just music. It is so much more than that. 20th century Christianity has made worship = music. I'm curious to know how many Christian musicians spend time playing worship music at home? Or even how many Christians spend any time in worship outside of out sunday service. I think the best examples of worship are seen throughout the Old Testament of the Bible, the Torah gives amazing examples of what worship is. Specifically, I think Psalm 46 gives an amazing example. Verse 10 I think might just capture what worship is, it is God speaking to the author and he tells him to "be still and to know that [He] is God." To be still and know that he is sovereign over all things.