While Jeremy is making his way back to the US from India, today’s blog is a guest post by Nathan Parker, Pastor of Worship and Media at FBC Seymour.
As a worship pastor, I’ve come across many parody videos of worship songs and hymns over the years. While some are a bit corny, some are downright hilarious! One in particular that always sticks out in my memory has a man at the piano singing worship songs whose lyrics have been changed so that he is singing, not about God, but about himself.
Initially, the video seemed quite funny to me, if perhaps a bit absurd. After all, no one that I know sits around singing praise songs to himself or herself! However, as I have continued to reflect on that concept, I have come to realize that the attitude displayed in that video is not entirely foreign to many of us. Bob Kauflin gives us some insight into this in his book on worship:
For many, church has become all about me—what I’m learning, what I’m seeking, what I’m desperate for, what I need, how I’ve been affected, what I can do. We see ourselves as isolated individuals all seeking personal encounters with God, wherever we can find them.
Sadly, this reflects our individualistic, me-obsessed culture. Rather than seeing ourselves as part of a worship community, we become worship consumers. We want worship on demand, served up in our own way, at our own time, and with our own music. (Worship Matters, p. 126-27)
The musical worship time on Sunday morning does not exist for any one of us but is a time for us to gather as a worship community to focus on the God who has saved us and redeemed us by the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. It truly is all about Him.
It’s sad that over the centuries, we Christians have managed to find a way to fight over just about every possible element of musical worship.
I have been amazed to find out just how pervasive the so-called “worship wars” have been in the history of the church. It’s sad that over the centuries, we Christians have managed to find a way to fight over just about every possible element of musical worship. There have been wars over whether or not to use instruments in worship or just the human voice. There have been wars over whether to only use the piano and organ or to use drums and guitars as well. There have been wars over whether or not to use written music in worship or just to sing by ear. There have even been wars between using songs composed by human authors and only using biblical psalms set to music.
In fact, such was the case in the days of the great English hymn writer Isaac Watts (who lived from 1674-1748, and whose hymns include “Joy to the World,” “Jesus Shall Reign,” “At the Cross,” and “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” among many others). It was not uncommon in Great Britain even 100 years after Watts died for someone to walk out of a church service because something other than a biblical psalm was being sung. Many of the hymns he wrote are considered classics, songs that many of us grew up with in the church. They cause us to rejoice in the cross and to lift our hearts in worship of our Lord. It’s astonishing that many of these songs that we know and love were at one time despised by the church. And if we are not careful, we can have the exact same attitude toward either the best songs of today (simply because they are new), the classic hymns of the faith (because they are old), or various expressions of each (worship band vs. orchestra vs. organ/piano).
So the question I want to ask all of us is this: are we going to be a collection of individuals all seeking to get what we want from worship? Or are we going to be a worship community centered around Christ and uniting our hearts in passionate praise to Him with songs (and instruments) both old and new? The choice is ours each time we enter the worship center and gather as a body of believers to worship. There will always be things in worship that don’t suit our own personal preferences, but regardless of what we prefer, our goal must always be to lift up and magnify our God who is infinitely amazing and the only One worthy of worship.
