We Call it Worship |
Every generation revisits, reviews, revises, and hence rewrites history. It does this to meet its own private needs and its personal preoccupations, with the result that it often manifests personal pathologies. Although the past remains constant, the prism through which our perceptions are filtered and at times altered and distorted is in a constant state of flux. The personal perspective provides not only cognition but also understanding. The final result which is achieved is the creation of “the power of place.” Place, whether physical or spiritual, is essential for life. It is that piece of rock, provided by land or language, experienced in people or philosophy that engages the mind and empowers the spirit. It is this metaphorical and literal power of place that has been so completely compromised in the church today. No longer does the physical place of church provide a promise of solitude and silence where a person is able to engage in the contemplation of God or the introspection of the self. The secularity of society is ubiquitous and has confused and replaced the sacred, both in the place of worship and the mind of the individual. It has caused the church to traffic with the secular and trifle with the sacred. In fact, the sacred is barely considered. Consecration seems a foreign concept, an alien consideration for the modern Christian. From the dawn of time in the Garden of Eden to the unending future foreseen in the New Jerusalem, God has sought to provide a place of solace and sanctuary where men and women may meditate and be mindful of God Himself. We call it worship. Today, worship has been supplanted by guest artists that play and perform a concert in which the audience is invited to join but is unable, since the offered dialogue is actually a monologue, which explains the applause at its ending. More often than not, worship is reduced to the appearance of the Christian dancing bears and the jugglers for Jesus. However, novelty and creativity, is no replacement for consecration. This is not a complaint about “Form” but a consideration and concern about the corruption of “Function.” There is nothing sacred about the organ, nor anything innately secular about drums. This is a clarion call to the biblical concept of Sacred Worship. Perhaps the inauguration of the therapeutic society inoculated and alienated the church from learning from the Bible and leading people into biblical worship of God. For at its core worship is a theocentric event not an anthropocentric enterprise. Given the myriad of diverse personalities and psychological histories of each person in any local church body, how could you ever make everyone happy? That is why buffet lines were created giving everyone what they want. Not so in the Church of Jesus Christ. The church is not a democratic society or a republican government. It is a theocracy with a king and the king has His way of doing things. We would do well to learn His will and His ways concerning Worship. Serving Him with you until He comes for us, Fred |