From Chuck Warnock’s “Confessions of a Small-Church Pastor” Blog,
Newspapers need to realize they are in the news business, not the paper business. The high cost of printing, delivery, labor, and organization is bankrupting newspapers. News organizations that embrace new media are on the rise. Where do you read your news — a printed paper or online? And that’s my point.
Churches have a similar problem. We are trying to hold on to the form of church (our version of the “paper”), forgetting that the message (”news”) is most important. Almost all denominations are in decline now, including my own Southern Baptist Convention. In response to that, denominational leaders try to appeal to young people. LifeWay conducts lots of very good research on how Baptists can reach the under-30 crowd. We kid ourselves to think, “If we could only add young people to our churches, everything would be fine.”
What we really should be doing is repackaging the message in ways that would carry it better.
The Unquenchable Worshipper is written by Matt Redman, author of the song “The Heart Of Worship.” By posting about it, I’m not only sharing it with you but it gives me an opportunity to really digest it and think about it.
Chapter Three – “The Undignified Worshipper”
The inspiration for this chapter stems from David’s life where the Ark of the Lord was being brought back to Jerusalem and David says, “I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes.” (2 Samuel 6:21, 22)
Here’s a quote from the beginning of the chapter:
“Here was a man of great stature (David) . . . Yet he led the way, ‘losing’ himself so publicly in his worship of God and so on fire with praise that it burned right through any inhibitions or pride. True worship always forgets itself.”
At the end of the chapter, Redman gives the warning that our undignified worship can not be about putting on a show. It must instead be an overflow of the abundance of love in our heart for God. This is important for me to remember as a worship leader, and the hardest to continue to do – point people to God without taking any of the attention for myself.
This is a chapter that is most foreign to my church upbringing. Worship for me was always done in a set order with little or no show of emotion (good or bad) even during the singing of hymns. Worship was …. serious. And this may not be an altogether bad thing. Worship can certainly go too far the other way and become a show meant for entertainment rather than an encounter with God. But I have always wondered why I can get so excited or emotional over a ballgame, but suppressed those emotions when they were in response to something much more important. And I must say, I have been very undignified during a ballgame many, many times. A little less there, a little more at church – I’m working on it.
One illustration Redman uses is the hymn “O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing” by Charles Wesley. Here’s his quote from the book:
“When I first heard this hymn, I thought to myself, a thousand people singing to God isn’t that impressive. After all, we’ve probably been in meetings bigger than that. But then I discovered what Wesley was really imagining. He was picturing himself having a thousand tongues! He was saying, “I wish I had a thousand tongues, because if I did, I’d praise God with every single one of them.” In one sense utter foolishness, yet a beautiful picture of extreme worship.”
