Worshiptainment
Worship comes from the heart and not from the stage. With the exception of the hearts of the leaders, in a church, what is done on a stage is not worship. The instruments, leading, choirs, words are all mechanisms, triggers, assist and help to cause worship in our hearts. Worship comes from the heart and not from the stage. Have you heard a judgemental church goers criticize worship by saying “This is not true worship but performance?” Too many church goers judge worship by other elements that are not the heart (genre, type of instrument, energy level, etc.). Too many church goers place themselves in God’s spot as they judge the hearts of man. R.C. Sproul stated that, “Worship must not be designed to please the unbeliever or the believer. Worship should be designed to please God.”1
With the phrases "Christian Celebrity" and "Gospel Superstar" is it no wonder the American church are aiming at wrong elements. We have turned Christianity into a genre of entertainment. J.D. Greear stated that he fears that large churches have become places for bored Christians to be entertained (SEND Conference 2015). We live in a time where people worship their preference over their Prince. People seek a stage and not a Savior. Ask them. Ask them why they go to their particular church and most will answer with a preference. To simply attend a church because the Prince mandated is a foreign concept to modern church goers.
In recent YouTube videos, self-proclaimed, non-Christian, Cory Asbury watches Christian music and gives honest, sincere reaction to what he experiences. He is affirmative to mostly all (if not all) of the lyrics, scriptures and other words said during the video. He has a positive emotional reaction to the music and comments regularly to the emotionally driving music. As a non-Christian, is this the Spirit of God drawing him (John 6:44)? I hope that it is the Spirit of God working with Cory. I pray that one day he will connect with God’s love and surrender his life to Jesus.
Cory is a great example of being emotionally moved by music and giving great feedback to the music we find in church. As a non-Christian he may not be worshipping Jesus when listening to the music, but the music still had an impact on his life. Worship is not simply an emotional venture, but surely ocmprehensive worship will include the emotions because it will be total in its impact. We get confused as to music in the church and true worship found in Scripture. Jesus stated in John 4: 23-24, that true believers will worship in spirit and in truth. We see three ingredients in worship: Trinity, spirit and truth.
Here are a few cautions:
(1) When anything is more priority than God then worship has become more about you than Him.
(2) When your worship is for more than an audience of 1 (God) then it is entertainment and not worship.
(3) When your worship is more about what types of instruments, certain musical genres, dress code, styles of preaching than it is about the Holy Spirit and Truth then you seek a place of entitled entertainment and not a house of serving God.
How do we know that we have truly experienced worshipping God? Obviously when (1) Jesus is clearly seen as the Bible teaches, (2) the Holy Spirit is moving in your life to draw you closer to Him through repentance and (3) the truth of the Bible is taught.
Some questions for further reflection:
(1) When was the last time that you wept for people that were running from God, disobedient to God, didn't know God?
(2) When was the last time that you did this during a church service?
(3) Why do we always feel the need to put on "a face" when going to church and act like everything is all right?
(4) Why do we feel the need to muster up new courage to walk in like nothing is wrong?
(5) When was the last time that we walked into church service broken over sin?
Sproul, R.C. “How Should We Then Worship?” Ligonier Ministries: https://learn.ligonier.org/articles/how-should-we-then-worship, November 29, 2021.
