Beware the Worship of Worship

Sometimes I wonder if I have been so focused on the elements of worship that I’ve missed the experience of worship. Perhaps we can focus so intently on the elements of our worship services, refining our expectations and measuring each element regarding style preferences, quality, timeliness, depth, and fluidity that we somehow lose our expectations to experience the marvelous, unmistakable presence of the One whom we seek to worship. Might we establish ourselves within the community more as critics approaching a performance program with the sensibilities of students, statisticians and dissectionists, and less as grateful worshippers proclaiming our unworthiness and our unending gratitude for the unimaginable love and grace of our Savior?   

This is not to suggest that we should cease to offer our best to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, but merely to suggest that our laser-like focus on human efforts as filtered through our own personal preferences, may create its own gravitational pull toward a black hole from which the garden nor the Gardener may be seen.

Years ago, a friend’s teenage daughter was part of a mission trip to eastern Europe with us. Since Delta Airlines was seeking to transport Olympic athletes to the U.S. that summer without dividing the teams, they offered us accommodations in a 4-Star hotel in Vienna for four days if we would postpone our return trip. Of course, we did our best to support Olympic athletes! Vienna has several extraordinary museums with some of the most admired artwork in the world. I was so awestruck by the artwork in those museums that I never have found the words to adequately describe what I saw. Yet, we could not convince our young friend to join us. She sat on the steps of a magnificent museum and critiqued the manners of those walking past while we stood in awe of the works of Michelangelo, DaVinci, Monet, Rembrandt, and others. She was in the presence of greatness, but her focus was not.

I fear that many worshippers have been, likewise, in the presence of greatness, yet focused on something else. Somehow, perhaps generations well before us, the church has accepted human effort as worship. In doing so, we’ve been engaged in a self-perpetuating cycle of transforming our well-intentioned efforts into the object of our worship rather than the means of worship, meaning that we have slipped into defining our worship experience by the subjectively defined qualities of our elements of worship, rather than any real encounter with God.

If the preacher was funny or deep, if it was our preferred music, if the volume and lighting were right, or if others were singing, we had a better worship experience… whether we experienced even a hint of God’s presence or not.

How would we recognize the presence of God if we were so busy focused on the elements of worship that we failed to look for Him? He seldom shouts to share his eternal wisdom. I’ve seen those who grab the attention of others, and focus it on themselves by claiming, in the moment, that the Alpha and Omega has chosen to express himself to others through them, but drawing attention to the messenger does not appear consistent with the approach of the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit as described in Scripture. He seems to more often move quietly among those fully focused on engaging him in the moment.

No doubt, some of us, already unknowingly worshiping without God, will point to emotional highs, timely blessings, or poignant spiritual convictions as evidence of our focus on God. And yet, where is the sudden provocation to act so often demonstrated in Scripture by those personally encountering the living God? I just heard a story about a firefighter who, while fighting a structural fire, dropped the hose and quite literally ran over two other firefighters as she fled the building, reached the back of the firetruck, and frantically removed her gear. Fire always creates heat, and in this case that heat reached her overlooked piercings and was impossible to ignore. She absolutely had to act right then. Isn’t that exactly what Jesus is talking about in Matthew 5 when he says if you’re worshipping, and suddenly remember that you have wronged someone, leave everything, go make it right, and then return to worship? So, have you ever entered a worship service with unfinished business, open conflict, or having hurt someone? Just as fire always creates heat, encountering God’s presence always creates conviction and efforts to reconcile. If you’ve consistently connected with God in worship, have you never been prompted to go seek reconciliation in that moment? Style and timing are of little consequence when the God who spoke the world into existence has your attention and calls you out.

So, do we stop seeking to improve the elements of our worship? I don’t think so. But I fear that to allow human efforts alone to become not only our means of worship, but our object of worship, may be the worst form of idolatry. It’s one thing to worship anything other than the one true God. It’s something else to worship anything else while claiming to worship him. We did not get here intentionally. We got here by settling. Somewhere along the line, we let our focus slip to music and preaching preferences, and we stopped personally experiencing the profound presence of God. We forgot to even expect to do so. Then, as we allowed the rise and fall of our emotions to be dictated by what we deem good and bad music or preaching, we settled for those experiences. So, we find ourselves worshipping without actually experiencing the presence of the God who promises to be among every two or three gathered in his name. Since that’s all many have, the conflict over music and preaching styles has predictably become deeply personal.

Perhaps it’s time to remember who we worship. There’s very little evidence that he prefers one style of worship over another. But he does prefer authenticity. He prefers purpose. He prefers less criticism and more openness. He prefers humility. He prefers unity. He prefers worshipers who put the needs of others before their own. He prefers us to deeply love one another. Perhaps it’s time to raise our hands, drop to our knees, maybe to put our faces on the floor.