Worship: Praise and Worship

The room is filled with people and a man with a microphone in his hand is standing in front of the crowd.

Suddenly, one of those sitting in his chair throws his head back and laughs heartily, kicking his leg up in the air. Suddenly he bolts from his seat and does a locomotive-action shuffle in a tight circle. Then he faces the man standing up in front of the room, kicks one leg out in front and does a pratfall, flipping over onto his back. Another man jumps out of his seat, does the same sort of locomotion shuffle, arms flailing wildly, and falls on the floor. Shortly afterward the first man gets up and staggers around with a mock drunken smile on his face, salutes the man at the front of the room and plops down in his seat again. The leader at the front and the rest of those sitting in their seats eat it up, they too are excited and laughing and calling out. [1]

"You can't have Jesus…and hold on to the world." The [speaker] points to the boxes containing the snakes on the floor next to him. "When a man goes in this box and gets bit, they got a good excuse. But no matter how much they ridiculed the apostles…they kept right on preaching."

“Now, the people are beginning to feel the spirit. Some yell. Some stand and wave their arms, then sit down again. The speaker [sits] on the bench at the front of room. …He swipes the handkerchief across his forehead. But just when he seems to be losing momentum, he rushes to the snake box and pulls out a thick, yellow timber rattlesnake three or four feet long. The snake arches and coils in his hand, and the congregation comes to attention. Mothers call their children from the front rows and send them to the back of the room. A few women rush outside with their babies.

"If they don't bite," says the man, "ain't no need to be scared." Holding the snake aloft, he circles behind the pulpit, hurries down the stairs on the left, crosses in front of the pulpit, rushes up the stairs on the right, then skips behind the pulpit again. The microphone is in his right hand, the rattler in the left. As he returns, he swings the serpent high in the air, and the snake swiftly coils back toward the hand that holds it. The man barely flinches. Few notice that he has been bitten. He looks at his hand briefly and continues to preach. "God don't ever change," he says. "It's gonna be all right." [2]

Weird! When I first heard about the Laughing Church of Toronto, and the Appalachian churches of Tennessee, West Virginia and Kentucky that practice snake-handling, I thought to myself, how weird!

What do you find weird about worship? Have you ever been to an Episcopalian or Armenian Orthodox (Loosavorchagan) service where the smell of incense is the strongest among the many powerful sights and odors and sounds that assault your senses.

Have you ever been to a worship service where all people did was listen to a rock band play Christian music and stop only long enough for a young pastor to preach a sermon?

Have you ever been to a worship service dominated by dozens of dancing young people either dressed in leotards and flowing mesh gowns or banging on big tall drums that look like dumbegs?

Have you ever been to a worship service where there was no pastor and all folks did was sing and pray and read scripture, without hearing a sermon?

What is the most natural way for you to praise God, to thank God for God’s goodness and grace in your life?

Service – giving back to others what God has given you; Evangelism – telling people the good news of God’s love; Stewardship – taking care of what God has given, like buildings, money, gifts, talents and abilities; Expressing love; Showing kindness; Forgiving; these are all things that emerge naturally in those who have experienced God’s grace and goodness and want to express what’s happened.

These are all emotions and actions that are focused not on God but on God’s creation, on other people, on the world around us. They are valid expressions of thanks and praise essential and integral to Christian life.

But how do folks express joy and thanksgiving directly to God? Through prayer and by praising. By singing a song, by dancing in God’s house, by blowing a horn, by lighting a candle and offering a prayer…

According to scripture, there are dozens of elements to praising and worshiping God: speaking, chanting, shouting, hearing, listening, remembering, sharing, kneeling, lifting, bowing, embracing, blessing, kissing, glorifying, confessing, exhorting, meditating, declaring and encouraging are only a few.[3]

When it comes to worship, we have dozens and dozens of options. Why do we do what we do? Do you enjoy what we do? Is what we do here in every Sunday morning sufficient to “revere, pay homage to and adore God?”[4] I know that some of us here love the old standards, the old traditional favorites of the church. From others I have heard “the music we sing is so dull that I’ve stopped singing them altogether!” Is what we do reflective of the biblical injunctions to worship and praise God? Does what we do weekly in church help accomplished what I suggested last week might be the most critical by-product of worship, does it “help us ‘take our bearings, see where we are and find out if we are going in the right direction?”

One of the most often asked questions in the church and most profound worries for many people is why others don’t come to church.

An old farmer said to the preacher, “I see at the Ministers’ Seminar, you discussed how to get people to attend church. I’ve been to a lot of meetings of farmers, but I have never heard a single speech on how to get the cattle to eat. We spend our time discussing the right kind of feed.”[5]

No, the primary purpose of worship isn’t to gather people, to make sure they’re having fun, to receive their money so we can pay the church’s bills, and make sure we get a good look at what they’re wearing or what they’re driving, its not to make sure they bring their kids so they can meet good Armenian boys and girls to marry them off to, or even to bring them and teach them a few things so they won’t hang out on street corners when they’re teenagers. Many of these things are terribly important, but they are not the primary reasons for worship. The primary reason for worship is to praise and worship God.

If the Sunday meeting isn’t worshipful, and not worshipful toward God, then its not Christian worship, and it has no place in church.

But what makes good worship? Is it a magnificent organ or a pretty sanctuary? Maybe, but not necessarily.

One scholar of worship describes good worship as being full of silence and reverence, as well as action, life and vibrancy. In a chapter called “Worship is a Verb” He says,

“We need times of silence in worship. In worship, silence is far more than absence of sound. It makes up an important part of the dialogue between God and worshipers. The Old Testament prophet Habbakkuk speaks for God, ‘The Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth be silent before Him’ (Hab. 2:20)

Silence gives people opportunity and encourages them to center on God…there is a richness and a blessing in quietly reflecting and contemplating during worship what God has done for us. Silence in worship slows the frantic pace of life.

“However, the Christian church may have stressed the silence and stillness so much that we are not sure it is appropriate to be loud or to move physically in worship.” The author says, “When I was a little boy, I had trouble sitting still in the assembly. When I would fidget and talk and wiggle, my mother would stare me into motionless silence. If that didn’t get my attention, she would pop me on the leg and say, ‘Be still, we’re in worship.’ For a while I thought God was no fun at all. A God who did not want little boys to move in church was someone I could not understand.

“We know the problem with trying to keep little children still in worship. However, many adults still live with those powerful messages they received when they were children. It is like a tape playing continuously: ‘be still, you’re in church. Don’t talk, you’re in church!’ We may think the only way God will accept our worship is if we are completely still and quiet.”[6]

This author then continues to track five particular actions in worship that are not still and not silent. He opens scripture and targets standing,[7] bowing,[8] kneeling,[9] lifting hands in the air to God[10] and clapping[11] and an ancient practice called the “Holy Kiss.”[12]

After he insists on these methods that are active, not passive, joyful, not somber, energetic and vibrant rather than wilted and worn, he remembers his audience and realizes that despite all his biblical citations and discussion of how it was done in the ancient church, many today would object to such things in church. To them he says:

“Those who raise objections must understand that the important questions are not: what will make me feel comfortable, what fits into my traditions, or what will meet my needs? Rather, the important questions are: What kind of worship does God call for? What kind of worship pleases God? How does God prefer to be worshipped? What does scripture say about what God wants? God wants whole-hearted worship, and it is reasonable to expect that He wants our bodies as well as our minds.”[13]

Can you throw yourself completely into worship? Can you ever imagine yourself getting up off your seat, and throwing yourself completely into a worship of God? Being glad and joyful and thankful and praising God? If you did, I can guarantee you, you would come out of the experience with a new sense of your bearings, where you are you will know if you are going in the right direction. Worship like that completely re-orients you and your life in relationship to God. Like I said, that is why we worship, not just to stroke the ego of some cosmic megalomaniac. God wants us to lose ourselves in our worship until we find Him.

Now let’s play a game. I’m going to give you the definition of a word and you try and guess what the word is. This word is a noun and it means: “A feeling of overpowering joy, rapture, exaltation.”

According to these verses, our mystery word could have something to do with faith and religion and God, couldn’t they? At least according to God’s understanding of worship and where he wants his people to be… But I don’t know how many times I can say that “A feeling of overpowering joy, rapture, exaltation” have been part of my worship.

I do know that for me, that kind of experience in worship has not usually been as a response to a good sermon, or a spectacular sanctuary or building, or even in communion with a few exceptions. But I can say that every time I hear or sing Handel’s Messiah, including but not limited to the Hallelujah chorus, something happens inside me. When I’ve been to Promisekeepers conferences, and 10,000 men are singing a simple praise tune together and the walls of the Worcester Centrum or the Continental Airlines Arena at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, or the 1^st Union Center in Philadelphia, where the 76ers play are resounding and echoing with the simple song of devotion - “A feeling of overpowering joy, rapture, exaltation?” Yeah, I’d say that applies.

The word “ecstasy”[14] means “A feeling of overpowering joy, rapture, exaltation.”

“Ecstacy - The drug we can thank for making "clubbing" (night-clubbing) what it is today...a multi-million pound industry supported by a multi-million pound underground industry of criminal drug producers and distributors.”[15]

Talk about having lost our bearings. Talk about finding out that we are going in the wrong direction.

What was once a common word in the early church, ecstasy, finding joy, exaltation and rapture in God, has lost its place in the church and has but has become the greatest and newest fad in the artificial and destructive world of drugs.

What does all this say for us? Must we radically destroy and rebuild our worship, so that we are all whirling around like whirling dervishes in here? Must we get rid of our organ and our hymnbooks and bring in huge loudspeakers and blow the roof off with loud new music so we can praise God properly?

No. I don’t think all that is necessary. However, we do need to explore new ways of making worship joyful, ecstatic, vibrant, alive and even physical, so that we can truly “love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind.”[16] And that we can truly “Worship the LORD with gladness. We can sincerely Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise.”[17]

The deacons and I are hoping that in the coming months, we can really make this a reality. That we can begin add some special music to our worship. Music that will add joy, motion, life and praise to our worship time. We ask your patience and we as that when such opportunities do arise, that you might lower your inhibitions a bit and let God’s Holy Spirit move.

[1] http://www.nccg.org/042Art-Laughing.html

[2]from Chapter 2 of The Serpent Handlers: Three Families and Their Faith. F. Brown & J. McDonald. John F Blair Publishers:Winston-Salem, NC excerpted at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0895871912/103-3940030-3019832?v=glance&vi=excerpt

[3] B. Petty. “Being a Lead Worshipper.” Rising Sun Christian Church, Salem, NH

[4] “Worship.” Scribner Bantam English Dictionary. 1990. Bantam Books: NY.

[5] “Sermon Feed” 1001 More Humorous Illustrations for Public Speaking. 1998. Zondervan: Grand Rapids, Michigan. 288

[6]D. Dozier. Come Let Us Adore Him: Dealing with the struggle over style of worship in Christian Churches and Churches of Christ. 1994. College Press Publishing Company: Joplin, Mo. 282-283

[7] see Nehemiah8:5-8

[8] see Exodus 34:8; Deuteronomy 33:3; Psalms 5:7, 22:27, 95:6

[9]see Isaiah 45:23; Romans 14:11; Philemon 2:9-11

[10] see Lamentations 2:19, Psalm 88:9, 143:6; 1 Timothy 2:8

[11] Isaiah 55:12; Psalm 47:1-2, 98:7-9

[12] see Romans 16:16; 1 Corinthians 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:12; 1 Thessalonians 5:26

[13] D. Dozier 294

[14] “Ecstasy.” Scribner Bantam English Dictionary. 1990. Bantam Books: NY.

[15] http://www.aromadome.com/ecstacy.html

[16] Matthew 22:37

[17] Psalm 100

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