When worship won't stop

On the bright side of deconstruction and rebuilding…

I'm jumping ahead a good bit, but to keep hope alive for those who think I’m somewhere in a dark place from months and years back, here are some of the good things that have come in the rebuilding.  

Starting first with worship…

For me now, worship is something we do with and through life. It’s no longer a time, place, or list of things to “go through” in order to “worship” God. 

It’s not to say I don’t enjoy a good song, a good message that’s shared, or other things that I used to think you had to do “just right” to please God, those things are fine things to do.

But they aren’t the sum total or even the main part of what worship is.  

Jesus told a woman by a well that God is looking for people who worship him in spirit and truth. Paul said that offering your life to God is true worship.

Worship was unhooked from a building and made to be something between us and God.  

People can 100% gather together to encourage, strengthen, and learn/teach, but nowhere in the New Testament is what we’d call a “worship service”.

We project onto a few places in scripture the idea of a worship service, but that isn’t why they gathered.

A short read through 1 Corinthians 11-14, the only place the details of a gathering in the New Covenant are listed, shows they were not there for “church” as we’d call it.

All that history and such aside, the point being that our interaction with God directly (and occasionally with others) is worship.

It’s giving him credit, thanksgiving, and even doubts, questions, and concerns.

It's sharing what he's given us with others. It's receiving what he's given others through them.

Somewhere in the blur of history, people mixed up Old and New Covenant theologies and “worship”.

We've tried to make them fit, resulting in an approach to gatherings that is similar to temple or synagogue worship were things had to be done “just so” on pain of suffering God’s wrath or displeasure.

That approach also reinforces the idea of a priesthood of some believers, but not all. 

That approach says there still has to be someone “in charge” whose voice on the mic is the voice to listen to because others don’t know enough for God to speak through them, etc.

That approach also makes songs, singing, certain styles of preaching, and the ability to pray “beautifully” or “authentically” into idols.  

We worship our worship service activities instead of worshipping God.

IF we don’t have a certain emotional/intellectual thing dinged inside us, we feel we haven’t worshipped.

IF we haven’t “been with the church” we feel we haven’t worshipped. And so on.

It's never, "I'm more excited about what God did for us" or "Isn't God amazing?!" or even "Wow! I'm not sure what to think about God after hearing that.".

It’s not unlike when Israel demanded a king, even though God said, “you don’t need one” - they pushed until they got what they wanted, along with the implications of it.

We want to have worship “be” a certain thing that looks like what we were taught and that feels a certain way intellectually, emotionally, and along other variables - usually revolving around being with people and having a group experience with them.  

We want to look in a certain direction and listen to some individual or group with mics. We want them to move us emotionally.  

We invite them to manipulate us, even if it takes us away from having faith in God -- we want a group experience because group experiences confirm for us what is good and right.

That’s a key thing - we often equate a certain kind of group dynamic to having experienced God or worshipped God or been faithful to God.

What’s the problem with that?  

Your “relationship” with God is often dependent on “how church went” or whether or not there were enough people “there” that you like or feel good about.  

You are under the control or influence of people who should not have that kind of control or influence.  

You assume what some people say about God is “law and gospel”.  

If you have an issue with anything having to do with “church” or its leaders, you have an issue with God.

_____________

Don’t get me wrong, Jesus, Paul, Peter, and just about everyone else in the New Covenant side of the timeline, pointed us to different kinds of ways of seeing other people and interacting with them.  

It’s not to say that we don’t have a change in our relationship with people.

It is to say that there are ways of “doing church” that make church the point and God simply a facilitator who might help you out, might give you approval, might show up and do a miracle if you pray enough or give enough or sing that song hard enough.

In other words, church and worship (for me) before deconstruction and rebuilding was about doing to get or doing to keep with God and his people. 

Doing to get, keep, or get back approval, love, forgiveness, mercy, grace, and so on.

But now, none of that works that way anymore.  

Grace, forgiveness, mercy, love, approval, and just about anything that you want or need - deep in your being - is given freely with and from God.

All the time. 

The faucet doesn’t shut off.  

It doesn’t matter if I have been a part of a gathering people who did “the five acts of worship” or some other thing we’ve made up - God still loves, still doesn’t keep a record of wrongs, still gives grace, etc…

…in spite of how I am or what I do.  Or maybe better said, because of how I am and what I do.

I can’t do anything to earn his favor, his love, his anything - either it’s a gift or it’s not happening.

You realize you don’t have to throw yourself under the bus or ooze your way through another K-Love syrup song to know you’re loved and not alone.

You’re not having to “fake it till you make it” so that people will see how hard you’re trying.

Paul said in Romans 12, “In view of God’s mercies, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice…” which means we have spent a lot of time looking at and into his mercies.

Later in 2 Corinthians 5, he said, “the love of Christ compels us” which means we “get” what love God has for us in Christ.

When you see that he has loved you and done the right thing for you, even if it’s not with all the cool, free stuff you’d like to have, it does something to your heart.

We are loved by God into loving him, not ordered or commanded like it was under the Old Law.

It makes a person have love and things like that flow out of their heart to God.

And that, my friends, is a person worshipping.

And you don’t need a leader for that.

You have God himself.

Peace & goodwill.