Biblical Worship

Wayne Grudem, research professor of Bible and theology at Phoenix Seminary makes an excellent point on the topic of worship in his book on Systematic Theology (2000, Zondervan, ISBN 0-310-28670-0).  He asks the question, “How can we enter into genuine worship?”  Grudem states:

“An attitude of worship comes upon us when we begin to see God as he is and then respond to his presence.  Even in heaven the seraphim who behold God’s glory cry out, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory” (Is. 6:3).  When the disciples saw Jesus walking on the water, and then saw the wind cease when he got into the boat, “those in the boat worshiped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God’” (Matt. 14:33).  The author of Hebrews knows that when we come into the presence of God (Heb. 12:18-24), the proper response is to “offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:28-29).  Therefore genuine worship is not something that is self-generated or that can be worked up within ourselves.  It must rather be the outpouring of our hearts in response to a realization of who God is.

It is appropriate to ask whether there is much genuine, deep, heartfelt worship in our churches.  In many evangelical churches people do no truly worship God in their hearts until the last hymn, after the sermon has focused their attention on who God is so that they begin to rejoice in God with a heart full of praise.  But then, just when heartfelt worship has begun, the service abruptly ends.  It should be just beginning!  If genuine worship is lacking in our churches, we should ask how we can bring ourselves to experience much more of the depth and riches of worship, which is the natural response of the believing heart to a clear awareness of God’s presence and character.”  (Grudem, p. 1010-1011)

I think Grudem makes an excellent point and that the task of the worship leader is to help the people realize the great God that we worship.  We can help them do this by filling our services with Scripture.  Let the Scripture speak of this great God that we worship. We must also make sure our songs rightly portray the God of the Bible and not some lesser god.  We can not make people have genuine worship but as worship leaders we can certainly help them to see the Great God that we do worship!

Where did we get this idea that a worship service should last only one hour?  Historically, worship services were longer in duration than many of our worship services today.  Perhaps the media influence on the church has impacted the length of our worship times.  Churches who broadcast live on radio or TV usually have to fit in a one-hour segment.  The few times that I have traveled internationally, I observed that the one-hour worship service is more often an American practice.   My frustration with this time crunch as a worship planner is that often in a service when we sense God leading in a strong way (sometimes after the sermon), we have to stop the service because our one hour time span is over.  We are so scheduled today in many of our cultures that we can only allow God one hour for our corporate worship time.

If we were to look back to Boston in the early seventeenth century, we would see a much different picture of time spent at church on Sundays.  In the writings of two Puritan pastors (Cotton and Lechford) we can see that in Boston, Christians would spend around 6 hours in church on Sunday.  The usual practice was to have a morning service at 9AM and an afternoon service at 2PM.  These were not identical services and church goers were expected to attend both of the services. 

The morning service would include prayers, some that were 15 minutes in length (these were the short prayers) and longer prayers after the sermon that could be as long as one hour in length.  The service would also include psalm singing, exposition of a Scripture reading (this was not the sermon) and then a sermon.  They would also include the Lord’s Supper once or twice a month.  The afternoon service would consist of extended prayer times, occasional baptism and admitting new members.

A visitor in a Boston church in 1680 (Jasper Danckaerts) reported that “a minister made a prayer in the pulpit of full two hours in length” and that in the afternoon service “three or four hours were consumed with nothing except prayers, three ministers relieving each other alternatively.”  Obviously, for Christians in the Boston area in the seventeenth century, Sunday was a day for going to church.

These Christians make modern day Christians look like “wimps” when it comes to attending long worship services on Sunday.  Today our lives are so segmented that we alot one hour for God on Sunday and then we must move on to our next appointment (lunch, sports, shopping).  I’m not advocating services as long as these Puritan services, but I do think we are much too focused on the 60 minute worship service time.  Granted many of our churches have multiple worship times on Sunday morning and without a definite schedule they would experience chaos.  We should, however, teach our people that all time is God’s time and if the pastor runs over 5 minutes – this is no big deal.

If you would like to read more about these Puritan worship services, look at a good resource on this topic:  The Worship of the American Puritans, 1629-1730 by Horton Davies, New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1990.  Quotes and other information in the above paragraphs were taken from this book page 16-18.

In his book, Whatever Happened to Worship?, A.W. Tozer, longtime pastor in Chicago and Toronto and author touches on church members who do not show up for worship or prayer meeting.  Even though Tozer died in 1963 his words still get to the truth of what matters in today’s church:  Worship of Almighty God.  Tozer states -

“We have a lot of men willing to sit on our church boards who have no desire for spiritual joy and radiance and who never show up for the church prayer meeting.  These are the men who often make the decisions about the church budget and the church expenses…. They are the fellows who run the church, but you cannot get them to the prayer meeting because they are not worshipers . . . .  It seems to me that it has always been a frightful incongruity that men who do not pray and do not worship are nevertheless actually running many of the churches and ultimately determining the direction they will take.

It hits very close to our own situations, perhaps, but we should confess that in many “good” churches, we let the women do the praying and let the men do the voting. . . .

I would rather worship God than to do anything else.  You may reply, “If you worship God you do nothing else.”  But that only reveals that you have not done your homework.  The beautiful part of worship is that it prepares you and enables you to zero in on the important things that must be done for God.

Listen to me! Practically every great deed done in the church of Christ all the way back to the Apostle Paul was done by people blazing with the radiant worship of their God.  A survey of church history will prove that it was those who were the yearning worshipers who also became the great workers.  Those great saints whose hymns we so tenderly sing were active in their faith to the point that we must wonder how they ever did it all.

The great hospitals have grown out of the hearts of worshiping men.  The mental institutions grew of out of the hearts of worshiping and compassionate men and women.  We should say, too, that wherever the church has come out of her lethargy, rising from her sleep and into the tides of revival and spiritual renewal, always the worshipers were back of it.

We will be making a mistake if we just stand back and say, “But if we give ourselves to worship, no one will do anything.”  On the contrary, if we give ourselves to God’s call to worship, everyone will do more than he or she is doing now. Only, what he or she does will have significance and meaning to it.  It will have the quality of eternity in it – it will be gold, silver, and precious stones, not wood, hay and stubble.”  (A.W. Tozer, Whatever Happened to Worship? Christian Publications, 1985, ISBN 0-87509-367-1, p. 17-19)

The musical accompaniment to our congregational worship can often be too loud.  This can be true in contemporary and traditional settings.  I have heard praise bands who seem to think a louder volume is more spiritual and I have heard organs and orchestras who can compete on the same volume level.  How does one determine the proper volume level of accompaniment for congregational singing?  My basic belief is that if the accompaniment is so loud that the singer in the congregation can not hear himself sing or those around him sing – then the accompaniment is too loud.  I recently read a book by Rick Muchow, worship pastor at Saddleback Community Church, that had a chapter titled: “How loud is too loud.”  I thought he made a number of excellent points on this topic. 

1.  The music is too loud when the volume distracts from worship.   Muchow relates about a service where the congregational singing was wonderful until the organist got to the last verse.  At this verse the organist did a showy demonstration and greatly increased the volume of the organ.  Muchow said everyone began to take notice of the organist and the attention was no longer on the text of the song.  He says “the volume of the music is just right when it is not noticed.  Our bodies should feel the music, not notice the volume.”

2.  The music is too loud when it is no longer musical.  Muchow says that “high volume is not a synonym for excellence.  Beginning musicians often try to use loud volume to make up for a lack of accuracy and practice – as if the louder they play, the better their musicianship will sound.”  Muchow also shares about the plight of other musicians on stage when one instrument is too loud – they also turn up their volume to hear themselves.  Muchow suggests that musicians should seek to have varying dynamics in their music.  “When the music is only one volume, whether too loud or soft, it becomes less musical and has less impact.  Using dynamics is a great way to improve communication.”

3.  The music is too loud when it causes hearing loss.  Muchow states that “repeated exposure to loud noise can cause permanent damage and hearing loss.  If people need to shout to be heard above the music, then the volume is too loud.”  Muchow uses a decibel meter at his sound board to monitor the level of the volume in rehearsals and services.  He believes the volume limit should be at 96 decibels  (similar to a hand drill or spray painter or bulldozer).  A typical conversation is at 60 decibels while rock concerts are normally at 130-140 decibels.  Muchow says that “it would take continuous exposure to sounds at 100 decibels – such as a very loud worship band and an energetic teacher with a microphone – for about one to two hours, the average length of a church service, to cause permanent hearing loss. Church musicians are at more risk than the rest of the congregation because they are closer to the sound and are exposed to the volume longer. (p. 170-173)

I think Muchow makes some great points about sound levels for worship music.  I am quite aware of this since I work with a worship band a couple times a week and participate in worship services.  I want to protect my musicians’ ears and encourage my congregation to sing.  Loud music volumes can cause a congregation to quit singing and just listen.  At this point the worship service turns into a performance.

The Rick Muchow’s The Worship Answer Book, (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2006, ISBN 4041-0355-4) is a quick read for any worship leader wanting to refresh his knowledge of the philosophy and practice of biblical worship.