Comments on Still Learning: A Working Philosophy of Worship, August 12, 2005

"I do not hold it as a prescription for every...

2011-01-17T00:59:52.657-06:00

"I do not hold it as a prescription for everyone, but for myself, and perhaps, for my own church (should I ever have the privileged responsibility some day)."

=) and now you have been privileged with the responsibility of NSCC. =) I thoroughly smiled at this line! To see what you hoped for come true, is pretty spectacular.

I'm just reading this and it's interesting...

2011-01-17T00:49:53.636-06:00

I'm just reading this and it's interesting that to this day you still follow what you believe about worship. I can see what you say here in our church and in our service and I love that you do very much remain consistent and true to your word. It's a unique trait, one not very often seen in pastors, or people in general. So thank you Jeremy, for one that is a man of his word.

Thanks to Jeremy and the others who have contribut...

2005-08-26T14:46:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Jeremy and the others who have contributed. Great thoughts on worship, the purpose of worship gatherings (by the way, why do we call them services), and the condition of our hearts in the experience of worship. I've learned some things. And while I don't have anything new to add to the discussion, I'll comment on the one part of Jeremy's original BLOG that most resonated with me. "The necessity comes not in specifics, but the intent. The intent is where God looks for true worship." Don't get me wrong, let's work hard at focus, intamacy, community, and lifestyle worship. But after the work is done, regardless of the setting, let's worship authentically. Thanks.

Thanks for your response.

You said:
I...

2005-08-23T13:50:00.000-05:00
Thanks for your response.

You said:
It sounds to me that, while you concede that worship is a corporate event, you place a great deal of importance on the individual.
I wish it didn't come out that way. One of my biggest intentions was to demonstrate that worship is about God. But I was quite specific about how the individual should present him/herself in worship. Since I believe in the individual act of choosing to believe in God, there has to be an initial decision by the individual to be a part of the worshipping community.

You even said that “friendship time” shouldn’t be in a worship service. I want to contend that we CAN NOT worship God alone. He made us for community and, I think, community is what the American church is lacking. We would worship better if we better understood the biblical idea of community.
I mostly agree. No one preaches community in the Church more than me. But what I was writing about was the worship of the community. Friendship Time does not belong in a worship gathering ("service") because it focuses on one another, which isn't in and of itself a bad thing - in fact, it's an essence of what the Church should be. But it easily detracts from our worship gathering. (see below about "the rest of the week")

I think part of the distinction between what you and I are thinking is that what you've written is an ecclesiology (theology of church). I agreed with 95% of what you said in regards to what the Church should be. But I was writing about the gathering of worship.

Part of the problem is that today, we have an idea of what "church" should be and we try to cram those ideas into the one time that we gather - on Sunday mornings. We have "fellowship" (friendship) time because we know that the Church should be a community of love. My contention is that this most certainly belongs in the Church, but not in the time in which we gather to intentionally worship God.

If people only want to give 1-1.5 hours each week for all aspects of church, that's their problem, and a huge one at that.

Learning about God, originally, was made for community. We put so much emphasis on our personal time with God (and I’m not saying that this is a bad thing) however, the printing press wasn’t invented until the 1400’s…that’s 1400 years of people meeting together to read God’s word and bond and grow together because they didn’t have a bible. There was, maybe, one bible in the whole village…so people HAD to get together as and work things out. Let’s go even before Jesus. That’s why the Jews memorized the Bible. Their whole education system was build around learning the Torah. They would have the Torah memorized by around age 10. After that, the torah just brought all kinds of questions. Let’s take doing no work on the Sabbath. What is work what isn’t work? There’s also a law that says you should preserve all life. What if your donkey fell into a hole on the Sabbath? No matter what you do, you are breaking some law. That’s why they couldn’t just get together and read the Bible, they needed Rabbis who would interpret the law. The Rabbis set of “dos” and don’ts” was called his yoke. One rabbi even said, “my yoke is easy”. Hmmm… Anyway, they needed to get together and hear the word of God together and figure it out together through relationships…or they were lost. The Rabbis would not allow some things and those things were “bound”. Other things, the rabbi would allow and those things were “loosed”. Now, Jesus comes along. Jesus said to the disciples, “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth with be loosed in heaven”. He’s giving us the authority to figure it out together….in community.
Absolutely. I can't agree with you more. In fact, when and if I do in fact start a church, I will place a huge emphasis on gathering to discuss, depict, question, etc. scripture. It's how we grow. Fellowship will also be huge, but not in the way it's usually defined and "lived out" today. BUT "to gather for worship" is another part of who we are. This gathering is what I was writing about - not the activities of the Church as a whole.

Also, Friendship time is what it’s all about. You can’t just have “love the Lord Your God” as your only commandment. You need “Love your neighbor as yourself”. People will know we are His by our love. Not by our worship…by our love. Not by our scripture reading or liturgy…but our love. Not by the songs we sing or the sacraments we take…by our love.
Yes, that's why I said evangelism does not intentionally belong in the worship gathering (service).

Furthermore, I don’t really believe in a worship service.
Yes, I'm much beginning to prefer the word "gathering."

Okay, here's where I begin to disagree a bit:
Our lives are our worship to God. He doesn’t need an hour out of the week for us to be “seriously worshipping Him”. He needs our lives to be worshipping Him. That hour on Sunday, or whenever it is, is a time for the community or tribe to come together and figure things out. To love each other and hold each other up. To confess and heal and nurture. To bind and loose. To…LOVE. I would contend that our worship services should be more focused on love and less on worship. I think it should be a love service. This makes worship far more than a service.
I agree that all of these things should happen...but not in a worship service. Again, if we submit to the American "fast food" concept that we need to fit everything that we do into the ONE time we meet on Sundays, then this is what we must do - fit everything you listed into that time. But I think these things need to happen

This is the problem I have with how the evangelical Christian seeker sensitive movement has led churches to work. I love the concept of seeker sensitive worship, but we take it too far these days to assume that Sunday morning is the only time we have to bring people into church. What a closed-minded, boxed in way to think that is. The worship gathering is for GOD, not for people. The rest of the week must have all of the other aspects of what the Church should look like. This is why I'm attracted to much of the way the Catholic Church (leadership) works and the Mennonites, etc. The faith community is something that exists 24-7, not once a week on Sunday.

Worship isn’t even a lifestyle, it’s THE lifestyle. It’s how we were made, our lives offered up as living sacrifices is our spiritual act of worship. Not our hour on Sunday with songs, preaching and prayer.
Yes, that's why we need to distinguish between the corporate gathering for worship and the rest of the week.

In summary, I think you saw that my philosophy was missing key aspects of what the faith community is supposed to be. But it is a philosophy of worship, not of Church (the Christian faith community). In fact, I'm with you, the corporate worship gathering is just a small part of what the Church should be. If we have to make a priority order, there are many other things I'd place before it (compassion, evangelism, and others).

Friend, you know how huge I am on a theology of love - it's what makes me believe in God.

Thanks for helping me think.

F&TC,
- J

This is Jeremy writing...somebody (whose name I...

2005-08-23T09:34:00.000-05:00
This is Jeremy writing...somebody (whose name I know, but will leave anonymous for now since I didn't ask his/her permission to copy this here) e-mailed me and I have pasted the e-mail:

Hmmm…I think I disagree with your philosophy of worship a little. I don’t write to simply disagree or to even sound like I have it figured out (I’m confident I don’t). I write because I think it’s smart to sharpen our ideas of worship as iron sharpens iron. I know you are forming your Idea and I am forming mine. So, thank you so much for the discussion.

It sounds to me that, while you concede that worship is a corporate event, you place a great deal of importance on the individual. You even said that “friendship time” shouldn’t be in a worship service. I want to contend that we CAN NOT worship God alone. He made us for community and, I think, community is what the American church is lacking. We would worship better if we better understood the biblical idea of community.

Learning about God, originally, was made for community. We put so much emphasis on our personal time with God (and I’m not saying that this is a bad thing) however, the printing press wasn’t invented until the 1400’s…that’s 1400 years of people meeting together to read God’s word and bond and grow together because they didn’t have a bible. There was, maybe, one bible in the whole village…so people HAD to get together as and work things out. Let’s go even before Jesus. That’s why the Jews memorized the Bible. Their whole education system was build around learning the Torah. They would have the Torah memorized by around age 10. After that, the torah just brought all kinds of questions. Let’s take doing no work on the Sabbath. What is work what isn’t work? There’s also a law that says you should preserve all life. What if your donkey fell into a hole on the Sabbath? No matter what you do, you are breaking some law. That’s why they couldn’t just get together and read the Bible, they needed Rabbis who would interpret the law. The Rabbis set of “dos” and don’ts” was called his yoke. One rabbi even said, “my yoke is easy”. Hmmm… Anyway, they needed to get together and hear the word of God together and figure it out together through relationships…or they were lost. The Rabbis would not allow some things and those things were “bound”. Other things, the rabbi would allow and those things were “loosed”. Now, Jesus comes along. Jesus said to the disciples, “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth with be loosed in heaven”. He’s giving us the authority to figure it out together….in community.

Also, Friendship time is what it’s all about. You can’t just have “love the Lord Your God” as your only commandment. You need “Love your neighbor as yourself”. People will know we are His by our love. Not by our worship…by our love. Not by our scripture reading or liturgy…but our love. Not by the songs we sing or the sacraments we take…by our love.

Furthermore, I don’t really believe in a worship service. Our lives are our worship to God. He doesn’t need an hour out of the week for us to be “seriously worshipping Him”. He needs our lives to be worshipping Him. That hour on Sunday, or whenever it is, is a time for the community or tribe to come together and figure things out. To love each other and hold each other up. To confess and heal and nurture. To bind and loose. To…LOVE. I would contend that our worship services should be more focused on love and less on worship. I think it should be a love service. This makes worship far more than a service.

Worship isn’t even a lifestyle, it’s THE lifestyle. It’s how we were made, our lives offered up as living sacrifices is our spiritual act of worship. Not our hour on Sunday with songs, preaching and prayer.

I’m sure I don’t have it figured out…but that’s my take on it right now. I’m wrong more than I’m right, though. So, let me know what you think.

Okay, I should respond in pieces.

First off...

2005-08-15T10:44:00.000-05:00
Okay, I should respond in pieces.

First off, on intimacy: Yes, our lives should be intimate with God. But the connotations with the word imply things that they shouldn't. If the "intimate" in being intimate with God refers to making him the very primacy of what we want, the all-in-all of our desires, the greatest pleasure in our life, then it's a good description. But when we use the word almost in a shock-and-awe manner (perhaps such as the skit performed before a group of teens - the performers have to know what the word means to teens or in other ways I've seen), we're headed down the wrong track. Intimacy with God is good if it implies a very deep connection between he and us, but I have to think that there are much better words and descriptions to use for the relationship in our present day, especially with younger followers.

As to IDS's response above (I'm sorry, I'm not sure who you are). Thanks for commenting! You gave some great points.

As for the anagram, I usually do not like them. Usually, I find that we stretch our meanings into an anagram that aren't really there or are weak. But yours is an exception. I like it a lot.

Most of your comments I relate to the whole life of the follower, rather than just to worship. For instance, A christian who lives a reality that shows His intended purpose will be noticed. Perhaps not by most (like the wildflowers) but always by GOD. Occasionally their beauty will touch the heart of a wandering child. I think this is a great statement for the life of a follower - the person (s)he is. But I'm one of those who think that worship is primarily directed to God and not an act done to show God to others. Worship is not intentionally evangelistic (in the evangelical definition of the word). It can be evangelistic and often good worship will be. (That's why I mentioned Jesus drawing all the earth to himself.) But that's not why we worship.

Worship is a way of life not an act. I hear this statement a lot (Matt Redman, I think popularly says, "Worship is a lifestyle" - see The Unquenchable Worshipper), but again, this is a statement for the whole of the life of a follower. You can plug many words into the statement:
EVANGELISM is a way of life.
PREACHING is a way of life.
WITNESSING is a way of life.
TEACHING is a way of life.
DISCIPLESHIP is a way of life.
etc.

Surrendering to GOD should be like surrendering to a spouse. A completely joyful surrender of "other options".
Definitely. BUT, the spousal relationship is cheapened in our American society. Paul's use of the analogy is great if our understanding of the purest marital relationship is our model. And I'm not talking about the prevalence of divorce, abuse, etc. I'm talking about marriage overall having been cheapened by our society. Even a "happy marriage" is not exactly a biblical marriage (yet another post for another time).

There is too much passion and not enough intimacy in what many call worship. Intimacy continues to worship long after passion has walked away.
I'm not completely sure what you're saying here. Tell me if I'm wrong, but I think you see passion as "fervent, but empty." But I don't think it is empty. I yearn for passion in our worship. Passion speaks about the intent (indeed, intesity) of the heart. That's what I think God wants.

Perhaps you see passion as short-lived and intimacy as enduring. I only briefly touched on this in the paper, but there is a tendency today to try and compare heavenly worship with worship on earth. Certainly we should strive for heavenly worship, but we cannot expect to be 100% happy-go-lucky worshippers while on earth. David demonstrates this well in the Psalms. Our devotion, passion, intimacy, desire, surrender, or whatever other word we want to use should be 100%, but the "happiness factor" will not be there yet.

The more I know the less I know.
The less I know the more I know.
Amen, brother!!! (sister?)

F&TC,
- J

On intimacy...

Wow. An entire series of po...

2005-08-15T08:52:00.000-05:00
On intimacy...

Wow. An entire series of posts could be written about intimacy.

At our Global Youth Convention this summer, there was a special worship experience on the first night. A group called "One Time Blind" did a series of great skits.

I remember one skit in with just Jesus and another character. Jesus asked her to be intimate with Him, and she responded with a degree of disgust--for she thought that intimacy was "dirty."

At the conclusion of that skit, she ended up having an extended intimate moment with the Savior, each looking deeply into each other's eyes.

What was most telling was the reaction of the audience/congregation. They were clearly uncomfortable with the length of this intimate moment, several times applauding to signal to the actors that they could end the skit.

Are we failing to teach and model intimacy? Do our teens understand that intimacy is more than sexuality? Are we so uncomfortable with silence that we miss out on our own intimate moment with the Savior?

Sorry...rambling over!

Grace and Peace,

PastorJon

W hen
O ur
R eality
S hows
H is
I...

2005-08-13T10:21:00.000-05:00
W hen
O ur
R eality
S hows
H is
I ntended
P urpose

There is little doubt about where a muslim extremist stands as his words and life shows the purpose of his life. When someone chooses the Goth lifestyle they conform to the non-conformist culture. They are hard to miss.

A christian who lives a reality that shows His intended purpose will be noticed. Perhaps not by most (like the wildflowers) but always by GOD. Occasionally their beauty will touch the heart of a wandering child.

Worship is a way of life not an act.

Surrendering to GOD should be like surrendering to a spouse. A completely joyful surrender of "other options".

I have heard it said that good marriages are not 50-50 but 100-100. So too is worship.

There is too much passion and not enough intimacy in what many call worship. Intimacy continues to worship long after passion has walked away.

The more I know the less I know.
The less I know the more I know.

.....peace.....

Where things get blurry:

I have not thought...

2005-08-12T22:28:00.000-05:00
Where things get blurry:

I have not thought this all the way through, but I suspect that we load up our worship service (as the main event...the face of the church) with alot of extra stuff: marketing to potential customers, making sure we're taking care of the existing customers, appeasing those volatile artists and their hyperfragile egos...etc.

As a result, worship services can be more concerned with what people think, while leaving 'what God thinks' as an uncomfortable afterthought.

I guess it would go back to our understanding of w...

2005-08-12T18:59:00.000-05:00
I guess it would go back to our understanding of what Baptism is. If Baptism is about the individual and their choice...then perhaps a worship service is not the place for it.

BUT, if baptism is (as I believe) about God's grace at work in the life of the candidate and their response to that grace, then it fits very nicely in your definition of worship: "our affirming response to God’s love."

Those are my thoughts...worth exactly what you paid! :)

Grace and Peace,

Jon

Hey there-

Someone else asked me this quest...

2005-08-12T17:41:00.000-05:00
Hey there-

Someone else asked me this question on Naznet. I'm trying to think back a few months ago when I wrote this...

Baptism is an incredible thing for the Church community. It is a time of celebration, as worship services most often should be. I would not exclude it from the worship service.

However, I would (will?) be wary of how it is carried out in a worship service. In an effort to make everything about a worship service directed to and for God, I think that my thinking was probably that baptism is more for the individual than for the corporate community. That isn't quite right though. Baptism isn't baptism without the community (especially with baptism being, in part, a public declaration). And it is certainly a declaration to God.

So, to answer the question, baptism can be a beautiful aspect of a worship service.

Perhaps the way in which we do baptism seems to make it misplaced in what I see as a worship service.

(As you know, "A Philosophy/Theology of Baptism" could be a whole other post...one which I'm not prepared to write. I need to learn a lot more about baptism.)

Thanks for the input,
F&TC,
- J

Jeremy,

Thanks for such a thoughtful post! ...

2005-08-12T17:17:00.000-05:00
Jeremy,

Thanks for such a thoughtful post! I hope it will generate a lot of discussion. I agree with a lot of what you wrote (especially about patriotism and "special" music). There's really too much for me to digest and respond to at once, so I'll just throw one question out for you:

Why have you excluded baptism from the corporate worship experience?

I'll be back with some more thoughts when I have more time.

Grace and Peace,

Jon

Comments on Still Learning: A Working Philosophy of Worship, August 12, 2005

"I do not hold it as a prescription for every...

I'm just reading this and it's interesting...

Thanks to Jeremy and the others who have contribut...

Thanks for your response.You said:I...

This is Jeremy writing...somebody (whose name I...

Okay, I should respond in pieces.First off...

On intimacy...Wow. An entire series of po...

W hen O ur R ealityS howsH isI...

Where things get blurry:I have not thought...

I guess it would go back to our understanding of w...

Hey there-Someone else asked me this quest...

Jeremy,Thanks for such a thoughtful post! ...

Thanks for your response.

You said:
I...

Okay, I should respond in pieces.

First off...

On intimacy...

Wow. An entire series of po...

W hen
O ur
R eality
S hows
H is
I...

Where things get blurry:

I have not thought...

Hey there-

Someone else asked me this quest...

Jeremy,

Thanks for such a thoughtful post! ...