Principles of Worship

Christian worship declared Karl Bath, “is the most momentous, the most urgent, the most glorious action that can take place in life”. Worship is the occasion when we become truly alive and begin to fulfil the purpose of our existence by relating to the God who made us. It is the moment when we are caught up into heaven itself and join with the multitude around the throne, singing the praises of God and the Lamb.

Worship is the business of heaven. It is in worship that God invades our world and we discover ourselves in the presence of God. There is no experience which can compare to Christian worship. As Ben Witherington wrote:

If it is true that worship is what every human being created in the image of God was intended to do, and if it is true that in the End what will happen is that there will be a giant worship-fest in the Kingdom, and if it is true that the last great battle on earth will be about the hearts and minds of humankind and the nature of true worship, then it follows that worship is the most important act that anyone can do on earth.

Sadly not all Christian worship services are glorious, instead they can be downright disappointing. There are three reasons for this.

1. In many churches worship has become centred on ourselves: the emphasis is upon our feelings. There is a tendency to feel that worship should always make us feel good. But that is not always true. As Isaiah discovered an encounter with God can prove painful (see Isaiah 6.5). As Ralph Martin, a former New Testament scholar, wrote: “The call is not so much ‘Smile, God loves you’ as ‘Repent’, ‘Weep, ‘Tremble’.
2. Much contemporary worship has become entertainment and consumer-oriented. The focus is on the performers. The worship band and the singers dominate the stage: the singers sway in time to the beat of the drum and encourage the congregation to do the same.
3. In many non-liturgical churches worship often lacks form and therefore lacks direction. It does not help that many ministers have abdicated their traditional role and handed it over to the band, without realising that there is a difference between leading songs and leading worship.

In spite of my criticisms of some worship bands, in principle there is no reason why churches should not have worship bands. For instance, in my first church, along with the organ we also had a worship band, of which the leader had worked with Cliff Richard. In my second church, along with the organ we also had a worship band, which consisted of many gifted musicians, including a music teacher who often wrote words to music which he had composed.

Worship involves a turning away from self and a gazing upon God in such a manner that praise and adoration, confession and penitence, dedication and commitment are our response. To quote again Ben Witherington:

If you end up with a nice ‘buzz’ because of it, that’s a bonus and a by-product. It’s not what worship is striving for… The function of music in worship is not to set the mood or even to rev up the troops, but rather to engage them at the affective level so that their whole beings – body, mind, emotions, will, spirit – are caught up in wonder, love and praise.

The high point for Christian worship is the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, which in Anglican churches is termed the ‘Eucharist’ (this is derived form a Greek word which means thanksgiving, and in Roman Catholic churches is termed ‘Mass’ (which is derived from a Latin word for being ‘sent out’ to serve Christ in the world). It is significant that Paul’s teaching on the Lord’s Supper is given in a context where he is speaking of what takes place when the Corinthians “come together as a church” (1 Corinthians 11.18). Likewise at Troas, the Lord’s Supper was celebrated once a week: “on the first day of the week”, wrote Luke, “we come together to break bread” (Acts 20:7).

Unfortunately the Lord’s Supper is yet to become truly central in many non-liturgical churches. Baptists, for instance, for all their desire to honour the Scriptures and follow its teaching, tend to celebrate the Lord’s Supper once a month. Maybe they need to take note of John Calvin, who regarded infrequent communion as “an invention of the devil”. Furthermore, most Baptists are Zwinglian (Ulrich Zwingli was the great Swiss reformer based in Zurich), in the sense they regard the Lord’s Supper as a mere memorial, as distinct from a ‘sacrament’ in which they encounter God. As the couple on the Emmaus Road discovered, Jesus can be truly present among us as we break bread and drink wine (Luke 24.30-31).

For all the emphasis on celebration, we need to recognise that Christian worship involves more than celebrating the faith. In the words of the Church of England liturgy for morning and evening prayer,

We have come together in the name of Christ
To offer our praise and thanksgiving,
o hear and receive God’s holy word,
To pray for the needs of the world,
And to seek the forgiveness of our sins,
That by the power of the Holy Spirit,
We may give ourselves to the service of God.