The Nature of Worship

— gerry gore

Part 1: An experience... or an encounter?

At the risk of sounding redundant or boring by overstating the obvious, this article is meant to serve as “food for thought” for those who lead congregations in worship. Regular self-evaluation is a necessary exercise for our personal growth.

I may be exaggerating when I say that forty years ago you could count on one hand the number of books, besides the Bible, available on the subject of Christian worship.There are a plethora today. It is no secret that the western church has been engaged in “worship wars” for the past fifty years- that is, since the Jesus Movement of the 1960’s. Of course, the church has had its battles over the practice of corporate worship since the first century. The purity of the gospel has always been threatened and continues to be so. Necessity requires serious theological debate because our worship practice flows out of what we believe. However unpleasant or difficult that debate may be truth is what is at stake and is always worth fighting for. Healthy dialogue is good for us. The keyword being healthy. Quite frankly I do not remember ever hearing any discussion nor do I ever remember our church embroiled in a “worship war”, nor do I remember a sermon on the subject of how and why we worship the way we do when I was growing up. I do remember after coming home from summer church camp one year wondering why our church services were so different (uninspiring) from the worship services we experienced at camp. Some of us politely asked. The rebuttal I remember getting was “Well you can’t live on the mountaintop (emotionally) all the time.” We had a vibrant youth ministry and I think our youth group was satisfied because we had a youth choir and were given opportunities to participate in leading worship with music that appealed to us, and we had our own worship music for our gatherings.

As I got older and began to prepare for a life of Christian ministry I had a growing interest on the subject of corporate worship. I realized that I needed theological training on the subject so I pursued a degree in ministry- looking for that foundation I desperately wanted and needed. I am very glad I did. However, I had no idea what I was about to face when I began serving on staff at a church…

One of the first lessons I learned is that nothing will get folks “out of sorts” quicker than doing something different with the Sunday morning service. People will tolerate poor preaching, wrong theology, poor leadership, etc. but they do not like changes in music style or the “order of worship,” and they have no problem telling someone about it. Many do not even care to hear a rational, even biblical explanation. They are not even interested in what the Bible teaches. What matters to them is that someone has interfered with their religious experience. cont.