Naomi's Notes - 06/24/07
[Several of my recent columns have explored differences in planning evangelistic services vs. worship services. Here's more:]
Worship planners who incorporate an evangelistic model for services generally view the sermon as the only time of serious worship; everything else is only a warm-up or a follow-up. Worship planners who incorporate a more biblical worship model tend to view every moment of the service as serious worship, not just the sermon. (Note: Serious does not mean solemn. Worship is all a celebration, but we are to take it seriously.) The goal is to include a wide variety of ways for people to connect with God, including varied choices of music.
Every worship service includes two types of music: with words and without words. Sometimes the pianist or organist plays an arrangement of a familiar hymn tune or chorus as a prelude or offertory. More often they play selections (sometimes classical) that have no text associated with them. These instrumental offerings are unstructured times for worshipers to meditate, inviting the Holy Spirit to speak to our hearts. They are opportunities to have an intimate conversation with God rather than with each other.
All the remaining worship music--congregational hymns and choruses, solos, anthems - involves singing. And singing involves words. When choosing worship music, it is far more important to have enriched, quality texts free of theological landmines than it is to have familiar songs (which we sometimes forget were initially unfamiliar to us) or music in preferred styles.
Whether spoken or sung, the words we use to worship God are extremely important. If we sing glibly, without thinking about what the words mean, it is not really worship at all. It is just a mindless moment filled with shallow emotion. Matthew 22 says, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." Worship takes effort. Planning worship opportunities is important, but worship won't happen unless we as individuals offer our entire beings--including our minds--as a "sacrifice of praise" to God.
Don Hustad, well-known organist for many Billy Graham (evangelistic) Crusades, pretty well sums it up: "Many American churchgoers seem to expect to use the mind in worship, but only during the sermon. It's at that point that typical pew-occupiers open their textbook (the Bible)...and put their brains in gear. You can almost sense...‘Now the action really begins!' Church music, too, should be heard with the mind. A hymn, a solo, an anthem, or a cantata is first of all a theological concept expressed in words. Consequently, musical worship should involve and transform the mind, as well as the body and the emotions." (Jubilate! Church Music in Worship and Renewal)
See you in worship this Sunday -
Naomi