Worship. Is it Out-Dated?

Worship is something near and dear to me. Not only because I am a musician who plays for  multiple churches, but because worship is where I can really feel God’s Presence the best. Lately (over the past year or so) I feel like worship has really come under attack not only in my personal life, but in the lives of the people around me. So this got me wondering: is worship something that can be controlled by us? Is it just some mathematical formula we are capable of finding but has eluded us all? Or has it just eluded me?…Something that everyone seems to know about worship is that it is the worship’s team responsibility to make worship good. But is it all really on the worship team? Is it all some combination of the right songs, in the right key (really only for musicians), and a combination of the right musicians up there with the right skills? Most Christians tell me that there needs to be songs that don’t make newcomers feel “awkward”. The way some people suggest we do this is through the lyrics. Some people think that we should not use the words “Jesus” or “God” in the songs. How is it a worship song if we don’t mention our God, the reason we’re all here singing these songs? The last two really have to do strictly musical aspect of what people think the songs need, specifically the tempo and the strength of the songs. All young people like fast songs with a beat you can feel, but is that the only type of songs that people can get into? I can’t believe it’s just that. Some people may think that these principles makes things easier, but I think this is not only making things way too complicated, but it puts limits on God. When we think that these things are necessary for worship, we are putting all these requirements on worship, and if they are not met, not only will worship not be “good” but it’s the worship team’s fault.I don’t think the worship team is always at fault if worship isn’t “good”. A tempting thought is that it is all on God. It is something we cannot control. All we can do is gather, strum some guitars, sing, and hope for the best. Even though I think it’s true that sometimes God’s Presence falls even when there seems like there is no logical reason for His Presence. But that’s something beautiful about God: not only does He show up, but it doesn’t have to make sense to us in our imperfection. Something I will talk about in more detail later, is that God seems to show up his strongest is when a group of believers gatherers in His name (Matthew 18:20). On this note, you can worship anywhere, and it is an individual process. It is something the individual chooses, but more on that later.Now, I want to change the tone of this for a bit and share my personal testimony. My parents are not musicians. What I find funny though, is that the people my parents re-married are both very musical. My first real experience with an instrument is with my stepbrother’s drum set. I mean, who doesn’t like to hit things right? So I kept hitting the darn things until eventually I was able to make a beat. And well, I never stopped hitting them. The next one I learned was bass. I was given a cheap starter bass and told to learn it, because my step-dad plays guitar and my step-brother drums, so they wanted to have a full band in the family. Then I started messing around on some other instruments, asked for a few hints, and one thing led to another and now here I am.Way back in 7th grade, when I went to a private Christian school, I decided to take a worship team class. And that, back in middle school while practicing in the history room, is where I got my start playing on worship teams. I played for middle school in 8th grade also, but then I stopped playing consistently during 9th and 10th grade for school, and would sometimes play for our little informal youth group team whenever we would have it. Come early 11th grade, I was invited to a worship class taught by a member of the Hillsong band, where I met two guys who are on the worship team I play on regularly now, Glen and John. I think it was that weekend that my church, Mountain Vineyard Christian Fellowship, moved into our new building. The only problem was that no team was scheduled to play that week. Glen recommended that the worship leader should give me a shot, and well I was up on the brand new stage playing bass for adult worship! And now a year and half or so later I play nearly every Sunday at one church or another.With me playing so often, I not only want to develop my heart for worship, but also my abilities as a musician. Since I am self-taught, the way I have done this is to listen to music, play new songs I like, and to listen to and watch musicians who are better than me. And this helped me to get better fast. But it came with a price. Now, when I walk into a new church, the first thing I do is to judge and evaluate the skills of the church’s worship team. And that’s a great skill to have and to use when you’re the leader of the team and you want the team to sound the best it possibly can, but not the best skill to use when you’re trying to press in and worship God, your King and Saviour. This last year, about a month before Easter, God told me that if I do not get a right heart towards worship, that I would have to step down from all worship teams refocus on what worship really is. That scared me. I love playing. It’s something I do not want to ever have to give up. But it got me thinking: what exactly is a right heart about Worship?A right heart for Worship is a heart that is not concerned about itself. It is a heart that simply wants to praise God for how good He is, even when it doesn’t necessarily seem like things are all that good. In my experience, when I am truly able to feel God’s Presence and conclude that worship is “good”, it is when I focus on God and do not care what others around me think, which is not always an easy thing to do. And God knows the heart (Samuel 16:7, Acts 15:8, two of my personal favorites on this topic in context). Something else, just because we can’t “feel” God’s Presence during a worship set, does that not mean He’s there? If we choose to be beings that are ruled by feelings, we will never be able to experience God without “feeling” Him.The heart is the start of Worship. We merely use music as a tool. We in no way require music, we use it because we find it useful in order to connect with God. Music helps us to remember lyrics, and lyrics are just ways someone has chosen to express their heart for Worship. And when singing, it we are joining in with the cry of their heart. But the beautiful part is we don’t even need music in order to worship God. Worship is simply giving God the praise and honor He deserves. And God loves us worshipping Him, because He is a jealous God (Exodus 20:4-6). The MOST amazing part about all this is that even though God created us to walk with Him and worship Him, we can in no way give Him all the worship He deserves. And that to me is mind blowing.Now there are two main kinds of Worship in the way we think of the word: worshipping as an individual and worshipping as a community of believers. When we worship God as an individual, it can be locked away in a room playing songs over the stereo while singing and crying our hearts out to God, or it can be something as simple as praying for someone. I believe that Worship is a lifestyle, and everything we do is worship of something. As Christians, we try to live our lives in a way that we worship God, but a lot of the time we end up worshipping ourselves, each other, or even material things we as humans made. With the way we live our lives, we are always worshipping something. We are always making an idol out of something. The choice we have to make everyday, and many times a day, is WHAT we are going to worship. Taking time alone to spend time seeking God and His overwhelming love for us is a necessary part of Worship. If you are unable to Worship God when it is just you and Him, how can you worship Him when others are around?Because we are social beings, it is good for us to fellowship together. When you are worshipping God with your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, there is nothing quite like it. Miracles happen. Chains are broken. People are healed and set free. And people change. God says that where two or more are gathered, there He is also (Matthew 18:20). There is power in the name of Jesus to break every chain, a statement that is true. If you don’t believe me, then go to a Jesus Culture concert. There is something so heart warming and encouraging about singing praises to God with thousands of other believers, many of whom you don’t know and probably never will know until you meet them in heaven. This is why it is important to go to Church. You can learn about God on your own, but God loves to use other people to speak to you. It not only encourages you, but also encourages them. That is why the gift of prophesy is held in high esteem in 1 Corinthians 14:22-25. It is a gift that encourages and strengthens everyone around it, the same way worshipping together with believers does.In order to wrap things up, I feel it is necessary to touch on two things many Christians have taught me and I have experienced in my own life. When God really moves, when He moves mountains in my own life, it is when I have had expectations and willingness. I think this is a major reason why God always moves so powerfully on retreats. Not only are we taking ourselves out of our daily routine and making time for God, but we do this because we have an expectation that He will show and change us, and we are willing to let this change happen. God is a good God, why shouldn’t we expect Him to be good? I don’t mean to say we should expect Him to make our lives perfect in every aspect, but Jesus does promise us He will take care of His children (Matthew 7:9-11). Something God has been challenging me with lately is to not only be willing to Him working in my everyday life, but to EXPECT him to. To expect Him to give me a word for a complete stranger and that He expects me to have the boldness to share that word, to offer myself and my life as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1). Something I encourage everyone to do is to have expectations that God will use you, and to also have the willingness for God to use you. Once you get in a habit of doing this, which is an act of worshipping God on an individual level in your everyday life, come together with some believers to worship with the expectation for God to work, and see Him come through.