WORK, play, love, and worship these have been named as the four aspects of a well-balanced life. Our secular society places a great deal of emphasis on the first three. The fourth, worship, is sadly neglected and widely misunderstood. One of the principal functions of a minister of the gospel is to educate his people in regard to the meaning of worship, and to lead them in the experience of worship.
The minister must recognize several problems if he is to be an effective leader of worship:
First, he must never forget that the greatest enemy of the worship of God is secularism. The secularist does not necessarily deny the existence of God he ignores God. He lives as if there were no God. He organizes his life in such a way that he leaves nothing for God to do. It follows that in the life of the secularist there will be little place for worship.
Several years ago, I attended a lecture at Notre Dame University by Professor Horton Davies of Princeton, one of the foremost authorities in the field of worship. During the intermission, a small group crowded around the speaker to ask questions. One person asked, "What is the reason for the difficulty in interesting people in public worship?" Professor Davies replied by citing two reasons: one, the lack of popular respect for the Bible; the other, the lack of family worship in the home. Both of these problems are related to secularism. If secular man reads at all, he seldom reads his Bible. If secular families ever get together, it is not to worship God.
"It is as if for our age the receiving set for religion had been tuned way down, or in some cases turned quite off. For multitudes of us ... no experience of God is either expected or felt, no word from God listened for or heard, and no command of God received or obeyed." --GILKEY, How the Church Can Minister to the World Without Losing Itself, pp. 20, 21.
It is a mistake to believe that this wave of secularism exists only outside the church. The limits of this article do not permit a review of the efforts of recent years to promote a "Christianity" without a personal God, without a divine Christ, without a Holy Spirit, without an inspired Bible, without a hope for eternity. These trends have sometimes resulted in the cessation of worship. In other cases, worship has degenerated into "celebration" with only a vague notion of what is being celebrated.
"When faith is on the wane and men do not feel comfortable speaking about God, Christ, upper rooms, crucifixions, and resurrections, they take recourse to vague generalities about 'celebration' and 'mystery.' When one no longer can accept the content of the Christian celebration, he makes 'celebration' the end in itself and relegates the content to the realm of 'mystery.'" --ELLER, In Place of Sacraments, p. 18.
Give God His Proper Place
The first essential of genuine worship is a theology that gives God His proper place; for "worship is what happens when a good man becomes aware of the presence and purpose of God" (Brenner, The Way of Worship, p. 128); "Worship consists of our words and actions, the outward expressions of our homage and adoration, when we are assembled in the presence of God" (Maxwell, Outline of Christian Worship, p. 1); "Worship is a redeemed man's response to his Redeemer" (John Stott excerpt from a sermon preached in Langham Place Church, London, 1965).
Real worship is a combination of awe and love. God as Creator inspires awe God as Companion inspires love. Our minds must acknowledge a great God; our hearts must respond to a loving God; only then can we worship in spirit and in truth. "True reverence for God is inspired by a sense of His infinite greatness and a realization of His presence." --Prophets and Kings, p. 48.
Formalism—An Internal Problem
The second enemy of the worship of God is formalism. This is an internal problem that has plagued the church from Old Testament times. It was Isaiah who quoted God as saying, "Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting" (Isa. 1:13). Liturgies, once meaningful, lose their impact through thoughtless repetition. The relationship between worship and life is lost.
Sensing this danger, the free churches have tended toward informality in their worship. This approach, how ever, may become as rote and sterile as the more liturgical forms. A simple service, done over and over again, may be as bereft of the Spirit of God as a complex service, done over and over again.
In recent years, some churches have introduced innovations---rock masses have supplanted the traditional mass; the guitar has competed with the pipe organ; rap sessions have been held in place of sermons. But this has not been the answer. Innovations are ex citing for a while, but they can easily lose their appeal. Nothing is gained by substituting banal rap sessions for banal sermons.
The real remedy for formalism is much more profound than superficial change. Genuine worship involves an interaction between God's Spirit and man's mind. "Religion is not to be con fined to external forms and ceremonies. The religion that comes from God is the only religion that will lead to God. In order to serve Him aright, we must be born of the divine Spirit. This will purify the heart and renew the mind, giving us a new capacity for knowing and loving God. It will give us a willing obedience to all His requirements. This is true worship. It is the fruit of the working of the Holy Spirit." --The Desire of Ages, p. 189. (Italics supplied.)
Irreverence
The third enemy of the worship of God is irreverence. Lack of reverence may be born of secularism. Irreverence may stem from a formalism that ignores the deeper meanings of worship; or it may be produced by an informality that emphasizes feeling and minimizes understanding. Irreverence may result from an overemphasis on the horizontal aspects of religious experience fellow ship, service, activity all of which are vitally important, but none of which can be substituted for meditation, prayer, and the study of God's Word.
Symbolic of this is the relationship between the fellowship hall and the sanctuary. Both are important facilities. The fellowship hall stands for Christian fellowship, which is a vital part of the Christian's life. But the sanctuary stands for the worship of God, which must be given priority. The church is like an ellipse with two centers one is God, the other is people. The Master's great commandment was twin centered "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God Thou shalt love thy neighbour." Ir reverence occurs when we fail to give God His proper place in the life and worship of the church. On the other hand, coldness can settle upon us like a dense fog if people are not given their proper place in the scheme of things.
Irreverence expresses itself in noise. When our concentration on God is broken, our sense of awe disappears and we respond to whatever stimuli may happen to surround us. "If when the people come into the house of worship, they have genuine reverence for the Lord and bear in mind that they are in His presence, there will be a sweet eloquence in silence." --Testimonies, vol. 5, p. 492.
An ancient city, it is said, was built over a river. But the rushing of the water over the riverbed could be heard only at night when the city was quiet. God speaks in a "still, small voice," and His voice will not be heard during the hour of worship unless there is quietness. Preachers may outshout crying babies, restless youth, and careless adults, but God will not!
Worship and the Church's Mission
We have considered three enemies of worship secularism, formalism, irreverence. Let us now view worship positively in the setting of the mission of the church. If the activities of the church were to be compared to a wheel, the hub would be worship. I recognize that some will disagree with this statement. Some would make evangelism the hub; others, Christian service; others, Christian education. It is my conviction that evangelism, Christian service, Christian education, and all other activities of the church can achieve lasting results only in proportion to the quality of the church's worship.
For example, suppose an evangelist brings a group of people into agreement with the doctrines of the church and into the fellowship of the church. What has he accomplished if these converts have not learned to worship? Suppose the new convert finds the so-called "hour of worship" a poorly planned, slipshod service with reams of announcements, poor music, and a fourth-rate sermon. If he likes that sort of thing, he has not fully grasped the meaning of the Christian faith and life. If he dislikes it, he may drift away from the church. Poor worship services may cause us to lose the most sensitive and perceptive of our converts. This we cannot afford.
Let us think of Christian service. We cannot commend too highly the dedicated people who engage in welfare work, who witness for Christ in their neighborhoods, and who distribute gospel literature. This is practical Christianity of the highest order. Proper worship will lead to this type of activity. "Worship is a gate we're not meant to swing on." But suppose some of the people who have been influenced by this Christian outreach should show up in one of our churches on Sabbath morning. Would they find both a spirit of Christian friendliness and a sense of the presence of God? Would these visitors want to come again? These are sobering questions.
Let us think of Christian education. Nothing is more important than Christian training of children and youth. Does this training include instruction as to the meaning and importance and practice of Christian worship? Are our young people sometimes "turned off" by our church services? Could it be that this is a result of a lack of a concept of worship, and a failure to communicate what worship is all about to our children?
Sense God's Presence
I repeat, worship is the hub of the wheel. When we learn how to worship, we will ensure greater success for all of our other activities. The kind of worship that will produce these results is more than liturgical form simple or complex. It is more than esthetic loveliness. These are important, but they are not enough. Something happens to a worshiper when he senses God's presence. His heart beats faster, his eyes sparkle, his thoughts are concentrated on the things of God.
Such worship is not dependent on beautiful sanctuaries, expensive organs, or stained-glass windows. These facilities may enhance worship, or they may exist in churches that are "architecturally and liturgically correct prisons for the incarceration of the Holy Spirit" (Toombs, Old Testament in Christian Preaching, p. 157). The simplest meetinghouse can become a place where God can meet His people.
High-quality worship leadership is not dependent on degrees or special talents, although it may be enhanced by them. Such leadership is the privilege of any minister who is willing to pay the price. And the price is a personal relationship with God through Christ, plus careful, prayerful, intelligent preparation for the services of the church.
One of the Great Themes
The Bible opens with two people worshiping God in a garden, and closes with a great multitude worshiping Him on a sea of glass before His throne. Worship is one of the great themes of the Word of God. In the Old Testament, we follow the worship patterns of the Hebrews from their beginnings. The tabernacle, the Temple, the priesthood, the Sabbath, the offerings, the feasts all of these helped to weld the link between Israel and God. When these activities of worship were neglected or wrongly used, apostasy was usually both cause and result. The Psalms were the literature of worship. The prophets were the guardians of the purity of worship.
In the New Testament, Jesus introduced "an altogether different worship" (The Desire of Ages, p. 157). A new spiritual dimension, a new spontaneity commensurate with the gospel of Christ came into being. Worship was to be practiced "in spirit and in truth." The early Christians worshiped their Lord at the peril of their lives, drawing strength from God and from one an other to witness in an unfriendly world. They are our pattern.
"When the church assembled, it was not just to listen to a sermon and join in songs of praise the coming together of the baptized believers was for serious business in which all members had both the privilege and responsibility to participate. Such participation was of the essence of worship. Divine guidance was sought and found that the life of the church might be made relevant to the affairs of men." --DOBBINS, The Church at Worship, p. 19.
Perhaps we who live in the twentieth century can learn how better to worship from those who lived in the first century. Preachers, perhaps, can find a new thrill in their work when they learn what is involved in being leaders pf worship. Perhaps the "revival and reformation" we all seek could become more of a reality if we all learned what it means to worship God.
After all, one of the challenges of the angel of Revelation 14 is "worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of water."
