Why is Reformed Worship so Serious? III
The Transcendence of Worship
And in longing for this rest from our labors we recognize that good liturgy is different because its very essence is that of transcendent. I read a survey recently by George Barna, the church growth guru, on the topic of worship. He reported that there is no correlation in most evangelical worshippers’ minds between enjoying worship and experiencing the presence of God. His reason for saying this? Nearly 66% of regular church attendees say that they have never experienced God’s presence at a church service, while 48% of regular church attendees report that they have not experienced God’s presence in the past year. Of course, not knowing what these people meant by “God’s presence” or “experience” or “worship” makes this a little meaningless. Yet it is a window into what churches are doing and the piety of Christians.
I truly believe that we as historic Protestants need to capture the attention and affections of our culture by presenting a worship in which people participate in something larger than themselves in this narcissistic culture. True worship, although in time, at a place, and with people, is not bound to any time, place, or people. Instead, it is the historical outworking of the pattern of heavenly worship. This is why in all historic liturgies we find the sursum corda (Latin, “Lift up your hearts”). We lift up our hearts to the Lord because He dwells in heaven, in eternity; therefore we must worship Him there by going there in our worship. It is while our enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil, surround us during the week, that we cry out, “To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul” (Ps. 25:1). It is when we are downcast by the ways of the world that we come to worship to say, “Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul” (Ps. 86:4). It is when it seems that there is no purpose in this life and that we have no direction that we attend public worship and say, “Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul” (Ps. 143:8). It is when we sin and stray like lost sheep that we pray with the corporate assembly, “Let us lift our hearts and hands to God in heaven” (Lam. 4:41).
Too many of the visitors (whether truly seekers or merely tourists) in our churches have been captured or captivated by “new measures,” that is, innovations in worship (drama, dance, individual expressions of piety such as “special music,” multi-media, etc.). These things are “strange fire” and have never been done in worship until very recently and only in our American culture.
But since biblical religion is theocentric and not anthropocentric, worship is about what God wills for Himself in terms of our glorifying Him with “the glory due his Name” (Ps. 29:2). It is not what we will for God’s reputation (which inevitably ends up being to our own glory), what the Reformers called “will-worship” (Col. 2:22).
And because worship concerns the very heart of Christianity and of our piety, we must be driven to Scripture alone, and not to the culture in matters of worship. But unfortunately, going to culture first has been the wisdom of American Evangelicalism. This is why worship is only as important to evangelicals as much as it makes one feel. “Why do you like your church,” we ask? “Because the worship makes me feel so good,” we are told. As one author puts it
For the modern evangelical, worship is defined exclusively in terms of the individual’s experience. Worship, then, is not about adoring God but about being nourished with religious feelings, so much so that the worshipper has become the object of worship.2
But there must be more than this to the Lord’s house on the Lord’s Day, right? The apostolic Church emphasized worship as an act of obedience, but we see it as an experience. John on Patmos, worshipping all by himself, but the curtain is pulled back and he sees the significance of his worship: he’s joining myriads of heavenly hosts and saints at the throne of the Almighty (cf. Rev. 4-5). Our subjective feelings, whether over the mood of worship or the aesthetic quality of worshipping in a cathedral do not give worship its value. Worship, like faith, is only measured by its object. When our hearts delight in worshipping God, when we focus on His glory, on what He wants, then we will be pleased and be blessed by worship.
So because we are meeting with God, to receive His ministry to us, to break the tyrannical pattern of the world, and to join in the eschatological chorus, let us do so with “reverence and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:28–29).
Notes
1 Michael Horton, “Seekers or Tourists.” Modern Reformation 10:4 (July/August 2001) as found here.
