Have we replaced God?

The complaint came again today..."what happened to the pulpit?" Along with it came others related to the worship space, like the addition of a baby grand piano, or the absence of choir risers, or the position of the altar. Sometimes I think we have replaced God with those material things, and have made those things the object of worship - if not God themselves.

I've often wondered that about the Bible, too. The above mentioned items are all material objects. The Bible is God's word for us - we affirm that every Sunday when the reader says "This is the word of God for the people of God," and the congregation responds, "Thanks be to God!" Yes, it is God's word for us, and it is important as a way to form and shape our lives to be faithful followers of Jesus Christ...but the Bible is not God. At times, we become so intent on proving our point or become so bent on following God's word that we forget to follow God. The Bible, in and of itself, is a good thing for us, but reading and following the Bible does not replace a living relationship with God. At best, it can point us to God.

The same is with those material objects...a pulpit, a baptismal font, an altar, a cross, a stained glass window, a piano, banners, or any other object used in the worship space should point us to God, but they should never become our God. What is your God?

Turning the Tables

My sermon text for Sunday is Matthew 21:12-17. I figure it must be an important text, because it shows up in all four of the Gospels. In it, Jesus comes into the temple, and seeing that it is not being used for its intended purpose, turns the tables. He calls the people back to their original intended purpose of prayer and ministry.

Have the church gotten away from its intended purpose? N.T. Wright says that Jesus turned the tables because he's been healing the sick in the Temple - that's not what the Pharisees wanted. In turning over the tables, Jesus is making room for everyone to experience God's grace. Has the church become a stumbling block for God's grace to work? Are we so fixated on maintaining the current body or membership that we cannot die to ourselves? Are we so intent on having a certain style of worship that we forget that worship isn't about us? Is the church really reaching the lost and the least? What would Jesus say if he walked in to our church today? Would he turn the tables on us, or say "Well done, good and faithful servants?"

Who do we really worship?

Recently, I've been thinking about the context of worship. In a previous blog, I talked about wants and needs related to worship. It's a topic that needs more discussion, so I thought I might relay that today.

When we come together as the body of Christ for worship, it's not a bad thing expecting to bring our needs to God. God expects to meet us in worship, and our encounters with God are meant to meet us at the point of our need and transform us into the people of God. Having our deepest needs met by God brings us into a deeper relationship with God and our neighbors. When we come to worship with our needs, we are actually focusing on God, because we expect to meet God there. That's a good thing!

Wants, however, are a different story. Many people come to worship expecting their wants to be met. Worship should cater to their desires - the music they like, having the pastors wear a robe/dress a certain way, a particular style of preaching, entertainment and/or engagement, etc. I often hear comments (crossing generational and ethnic boundaries) like "I didn't get anything out of the sermon," or "Why can't we have more lively music?" or "My children are bored," or "We want a choir." Comments like these are very inward focused, trying to meet the desires of the people. Do we have our wants and needs confused? When we make comments like that, are we truly focused on God?

I want to challenge people to think about who they really worship. God meeting our basic needs (love, healing, growth) allows us to focus not on ourselves, but on the God who meets us where we are and transforms us. Needs allow us to focus on and worship God. Wants, on the other hand, place the focus on ourselves, and we become the objects of worship. Wants make us closed off to an encounter with God, and we end up idolizing ourselves. Perhaps we would do well to remember the words of Micah, calling the people back to the basics of worship: "But what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God." Who do we really worship?

Worship Space: a new approach

One of the things that fascinates me the most about churches is worship space - the way things are set up and arranged, the choice of paint, plaster, bricks, pews, and everything else that's involved in creating a space to worship God.

Today, a church member sent me this site, which shows a different interpretation of space, and I thought I'd share it for everyone!

www.amyhughes.org/lego/church/

Check it out, and maybe it will help spark some discussion about worship space!

An age-old problem: wants vs. needs

As I continue to reflect on the struggle of worship in the 21st century, it seems to me that a major dilemma is the age-old problem of wants vs. needs. Such a subject is tough when it is considered in relationship with worship, because congregations don't want to acknowledge the difference between wants and needs. And, if they do recognize the difference, they rarely apply it to faithful living.

Each of us has basic needs: food, shelter, clothing, a desire to love and be loved, among others. The same is true for our faith - we have basic faith needs. We have a need to be in relationship with God, and relationship with other brothers and sisters in Christ, as well as a relationship with those beyond the boundaries of the congregation. Faithful worship seeks to meet those needs.

A struggle the church finds itself in is this: people place limits on how they will meet God. Our wants encourage us to only meet God in a certain way - through incense, processions, and robes; through multisensory worship with a band, uplifting music, movie clips and PowerPoint presentations; through the order of worship and music familiar in the 1920's and 30's. We each have ways that we want to meet God that allow us to maintain familiar patterns and comfort. We want a choir, or we want a praise team. We want the hymns that our parents sang, or we want the latest praise choruses. We want the church to offer things that inspire us and give us a feeling of uplift, all while keeping us safe and comfortable.

In my experience, we meet God when we are outside of our comfort zones. God can and does speak through the familiar, but God also speaks to us and inspires us through the stretching of our minds and experiences. For example, I like ancient worship, with incense, chanting Psalms & prayers, grand processions, fiery organ music, and the grand sense of tradition that style of worship embraces. At the same time, I like worship of the monastic, Taize, and contemporary traditions. The church I serve offers none of these types of worship styles during the principal worship times. What I've listed are my preferences for worship; yet, somehow, I manage to meet God in both of my church's Sunday morning worship services.

The reason I encounter God in Sunday worship is that I prepare myself to meet God. God is present wherever two or three are gathered, and if I prepare my heart and mind to find always-present God, I will find myself changed. In worship, my innermost needs are met - to encounter God and be in relationship with others. When that happens, my wants don't matter so much after all.

Perhaps, if we all prepared our hearts and minds to meet God in worship, we wouldn't have a need for this conversation about wants and needs. Maybe there wouldn't be so much church shopping and hopping. Maybe, just maybe, if everyone prepared themselves to meet God in worship, we would see the church be the church on a consistent basis, and God's kingdom would come on earth.

Worship for the future

I'm blogging for the first time...so you'll have to bear with me!

I have been thinking about worship and the church for a long time. This is my 11th year in worship ministry, and I've been involved in many aspects. I was a church musician for the first nine years of ministry, and I led and experienced many types of worship - in a traveling praise band, the very formal worship of Duke University Chapel, and everywhere in between. Since then, I've been involved in leading and planning worship experiences in pastoral ministry.

The church I currently serve is a microcosm (I think) of what churches around the world are experiencing today in terms of diversity in worship. Everyone has an opinion about what they want in worship - a style that speaks to them. I've heard people describe it as generational, but I don't think that's the case. There are people in older generations that desire the worship style of the 1920's and 30's only; others want more formal worship with processions and incense; still others are open to the multitude of music and worship that comes out every day. I believe the same is true for almost every generation.

I don't know that there is a perfect solution. I've heard and experienced many different styles of worship that seek to address this diversity - blended worship, emergent worship, and multigenerational worship, to name a few. In my experience, these trends are attempting to address the desires of people in congregations throughout the world - and sometimes they are successful, and sometimes not.

I wish I had the perfect solution, but I don't. Instead, I want to use this space to offer some insights I've discovered throughout my journey in ministry. Keep taking a look to see what I post, and let me know of your thoughts so that we can grow in ministry together.