my church has a "contemporary" service @ 8:30am in the morning.. seeing that it takes me a 30 minute commute (on a sunday) to get to the church i rarely make it. (it's not that it is all that early, but i have to pack all my equipment, papers, computers, projector, bibles, books, instruments, extra clothes before i head out; i just can't get up early enough to make it regularly.. sorry) anyhow, i made it to enough services to check out the various bands and singing groups who lead worship. some i like, some the jury is still out on.. one band should have been a sure-fire hit.. they play all kinds of top 10 Christian hits, third day, mercyme,.. wait.. just those.. & i'm trading my sorrows.. i have heard that not many people like them, and honestly, i don't care for them either. i wonder why, they seem to be really into it?
answers come when you listen. i stuck my head in on their practice one day (i like to say hi). they got me into a conversation. within this conversation they were talking about how they do a jump up and down thing during "i'm trading my sorrows" a great song by darrell evans. what they said was revealing. "we are going to do it till we get everyone jumping up and down, then we'll stop." so we have traded authentic worship for a physical reaction from the congregation. we have walked down the road of performance over worship..
worship i look at as the community of Christ coming together in prayer. prayer is, as i'll define it, where we turn our hearts to conversation with God. when the prayer becomes a performance of turn your eyes and body up here to us on stage, we throw idols next to the alter in the house. liturgy is commonly defined as, the work of the people, it is the participation of everyone in worship. the participaition of eeevvvveeerrryyyooonnneee in worship. if our older members can't participate in the jump up and down, then it's riding a fine line of performance and worship.. it is a performance if our goal is to, not bring forth the holy spirit for people here to pray, but to jump up and down.
watch the roads we ride down in our prayer (worship if you still don't get my thought process on that)
