"I Will" Worship…
I struggle with many things common to corporate worship gatherings today (as you will see by my other posts). One of them being "worship" songs that spend more time claiming and promising than they do worshipping. Here are a couple of song lines typical of this…
"I will dance, I will sing, to be mad for my king, nothing, Lord, is hindering this passion in my soul. I will become even more undignified than this, some will say its foolishness, I will become even more undignified than this"
"Evermore my heart, my heart will say, Above all, I live for Your glory, Even if my world falls I will say, Above all, I live for Your glory"
This certainly is only a small sampling of the church music that just seems to not get it right. (I include hymns in this too for all you "hymns are better than choruses" people). It just seems that so much of our corporate worship is not God focused, it is, instead focused on us and on promises to do certain things for God. I ran across this passage the other day:
Ecclesiastes 5:1-6 (New English Translation)
Be careful what you do when you go to the temple of God; draw near to listen rather than to offer a sacrifice like fools, for they do not realize that they are doing wrong. Do not be rash with your mouth or hasty in your heart to bring up a matter before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth! Therefore, let your words be few. Just as dreams come when there are many cares, so the rash vow of a fool occurs when there are many words. When you make a vow to God, do not delay in paying it. For God takes no pleasure in fools: Pay what you vow! It is better for you not to vow than to vow and not pay it. Do not let your mouth cause you to sin, and do not tell the priest, “It was a mistake!” Why make God angry at you so that he would destroy the work of your hands?”
After having read that last week, I couldn't bring myself to sing along with many of the songs that we sung today in our corporate worship gathering. There simply are things that hinder my passion for Christ in my soul and I have no idea what I'm going to do or say when my world falls. I find it very unlikely that I will follow Christ will all of my heart every day of my life as other songs promise…
As a Christian, I know that whatever good I am able to do is solely based on the grace God gives me. These songs don't recognize that. They claim and rely on our own strength to do things for God. I believe that God views this as folly and would rather we not make these empty claims (according to Ecclesiasties).
Instead, how about we design our corporate worship around attributes of God and celebration of what God has done for us, instead of attributes of us and things we propose to do for God. I would hope, then, that this celebration would spur us on to actually living some of these ideals instead of saying a bunch of stuff we will never actually live out. I, certainly, don't want to stand in front of Christ on judgement day and beg "It was a mistake. I was just singing along!"
Mike
3 comments:
good conversation on worship mike...i like it...
on the subject of us-centered or God-centered songs...remember that different churches play different roles and even the same service in the same church can play a different role on occasion
a good example is the song i wrote recently for my church/the vine, "hey! open your heart". we are a church plant in a new area around atlanta and we intentionally are drawing in the disenchanted and nonchurchgoers, so part of "worship" in our church is also discipleship... the song says
what he did for me thought it couldn't be done
he took this runaway heart and made me feel like i'm home
what was missing in me i found in his love
now i'm letting it out telling everyone
hey! open your heart to this love
hey! open your heart to this love
can't you see what he's done
open your heart to this love
hey! open your heart to this love
v2
so lift up your voice for the whole world to hear
that jesus has come he is making himself near
chorus
bridge
when its all said and done all we have is your son
he died on the cross for the broken and the lost
and i am one of them
chorus
so this song about what God did and what we should do because of it...and i think it honors God and in singing it we worship Him...but it isn't agnus dei...
we worship God for who He is AND what He has done...as a worship leader i don't want the weight of the worship set to lean toward songs that sing about us, but having on in there to help people verbalize what they will do for God is good...
how often in the midst of any other part of a service do the people there verbalize what they will do for God...most sermons are rhetorical and expect no response...
i've always liked your thoughts mike... hope this makes sense...
ps... check us out at
www.connecttothevine.org
www.gregghampton.blogspot.com
Hey Gregg,
Good to hear from you.
I hear what you are saying and even though I speak in absolutes, I rearely ever actually intend that--it's just easier to speak in those terms.
So, yeah, I do think that different churches (and different gatherings, etc) can have different purposes and thus worship with different foci.
That being said, the song you posted doesn't actually make me to uncomfortable (in the context of this dicussion) it has elements of praise (Jesus did this for us) and also some encouragement to respond to that.
I am more uncomfortable with songs that make promises that I can't keep--as in my example.
So reflection on God's goodness in the context of 'me' isn't bad--as long as those aren't the only songs a church does. Part of the context for our praise and worship is because of what he's done. I also don't mind some teaching and encouragement in times of worship.
Some of those 'I will' songs just seem to be unrealistic and sort of implying that I can do all of these things. Sort of prideful, I guess.
Part of my distaste for this is that I am definitely of the 'undercommit but overdeliver" personality too. Of course, since that is how I'm wired, that is what I think is best--maybe it isn't.
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