More Than Music

Few topics within church circles stir as much debate and discussion as the topic of worship. In fact, there is an old adage that when Satan fell, he landed in the choir loft! Of course, most of the controversy involves musical style. Musical preferences run deep! When a thousand people gather to worship corporately, there are probably close to a thousand different preferences at play! However, worship style is not the primary topic of this article. I will touch on the topic of style, but the purpose of this article is to broaden our understanding of worship as so much more than music.

First, let’s define worship. According to Franklin Segler in his book Understanding, Preparing For and Practicing Christian Worship, worship is primarily the offering of our total selves to God–our intellects, our feelings, our attitudes, and our possessions. We can see from this definition that worship is so much more than music! When we offer ourselves to God, it means that we join him in his mission. 2 Corinthians 5 is one of my favorite New Testament passages. Verse 20 tells us that we are ambassadors for Christ and that God is making his appeal through us. Worship in its broadest sense means that we are living for God’s mission and not our own.

When we offer ourselves to God fully, it affects the local church body when it gathers corporately for worship.

In my nearly 30 years of local church worship ministry, I have noticed that people who have joined God’s mission are really easy to lead in worship. They are less prone to distraction during worship, less reliant on what is taking place in the worship service, and tend to be less opinionated about their preferred worship style. In fact, my master’s thesis entitled “Worship Renewal Through Discipleship: How Discipleship and Mission Affects Our Worship,” explored this very topic. When we offer ourselves to God fully, it affects the local church body when it gathers corporately for worship.

Psalm 145 is one of my favorite Psalms. Numerous times in this passage, the Psalmist David instructs us to declare God’s mighty acts, his wondrous works, and his awesome deeds. And Verse 4 instructs us to tell the next generation about them. Where do we experience these mighty acts, wondrous works, and awesome deeds? Do we experience these things inside the church building? Maybe. We’ve been blessed to hear incredible testimonies of God’s activity and life transformation as people go public with their faith by being baptized. However, we are more likely to experience God’s mighty acts, wondrous works, and awesome deeds for ourselves when we fully offer ourselves to God and join him in his mission of reconciliation as his ambassadors. When we are having a spiritual conversation with someone and we sense God using us to draw this person closer to himself, that is an awesome experience! It should cause our hearts to burst with worship the next time we gather with our local body for corporate worship.

I promised to touch on worship style, so I’ll close this article with a few thoughts on that topic. Revelation 7 contains the description of a great multitude from every nation worshiping around the throne. I don’t know exactly how many people “a great multitude” is, but that’s an awful lot of musical preferences gathered in one place! If you haven’t noticed, people from other nations worship God differently! From this passage, we can see that God loves people from every nation, ethnicity, and culture, and he loves the diverse expressions of worship from this great multitude! I love this quote from Harold Best from his book “Music Through Eyes of Faith”:

We should cherish diversity because God does. God not only imagines and creates with endless variety; God calls good everything in the creation. Everything has its uniqueness, its place, its meaning, usefulness, and its interdependence. Thus unity and diversity are aspect of each other… God is not Western; God is not Eastern; God is not exclusively the God of classical culture or of primitive culture; God is the Lord of the plethora, the God of the diverse, the redeemer of the plural. Likewise, God calls for response in different languages, dialects, and idioms, accepting them through the Son… There is no single chosen language or artistic musical style that, better than all the others, can capture and repeat back the fullness of the glory of God. One culture has capabilities, nuances, and creative ways that others simply do not possess. This truism cannot be avoided. Cultures are not infinite. No single one can hold the wholeness of praise and worship or the fullness of the counsel of God. Thus God does not want to hear only Beethoven and Ken Medema or see just Renoirs, Vermeers, and Wyeths. God does not want to be limited to Christian rap or Pakistani chant. God wants to hear the whole world in its countless tongues and amazingly diverse music making praise after praise. God accepts not only the offerings of a highly trained choir, but also the song of the arrow maker in Brazil. Furthermore, with more patience than we can imagine, God awaits entirely new songs sung for the first time from a tribe in Cambodia, a Mexican barrio, and a Scottish hamlet.

May we all offer ourselves–our intellects, our feelings, our attitudes, and our possessions–to God and join him in his mission of reconciliation as his ambassadors.

I close with this challenge: there is nothing wrong with having musical preferences. However, we cross into dangerous territory if we develop an attitude that the only way God can and should be worshiped is the way we prefer. God delights in the expressions of worship from diverse cultures and musical styles!

May we all offer ourselves–our intellects, our feelings, our attitudes, and our possessions–to God and join him in his mission of reconciliation as his ambassadors. And when we gather corporately for worship, may we do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than ourselves (Philippians 2:3).