Live.Awake

living life with eyes wide open

What is Worship?

| Posted by Ben Cotten on Jun 6, 2007 • (Comments)

There’s a lot of talk these days about worship. Thanks to the creative gifting of people like Matt Redman, Delirious, Hillsongs, and David Ruis in the 90’s the music and songs used for corporate worship took on a whole new life. Not only was the music better, but it connected with culture in a way that inspired a new generation of worshipers. It jumped out of the tradition box and the church saw a revitalization of the worship experience. All good things, in my opinion.

Here’s an example from Hillsongs’ youth band, “United”:

The CCM industry saw a gold mine. Suddenly, EVERYONE was buying worship albums. Even people who decried the ills of Christian Rock, were buying up Vineyard worship CDs. CCM started marketing worship like a commodity and co-opted the term making it a musical genre. Then they flooded the market. Every band, song writer and producer was being pressured to put out a worship album of their own. Eventually the pool got a mile wide, but only an inch deep.

I think the result of this has been that the church has begun to forget what worship really is. Worship is not a music genre. It’s not a style. It’s so much more than music!

Worship is sacrificing yourself to God’s will, serving as a slave to grace. In this way, everything we do can become worship. If we do everything “as unto the Lord”, even something as menial as cutting the grass can become a pure offering of worship to our King.

Worship is what gives our lives meaning because it is what we were created to do. It means that, for the Christian, there is no such thing as a small job. We have to take worship outside the guilded cage of Sunday morning and stop bringing God the scraps from CCM’s table as though that is all we have to offer.

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Categorized as Life/Church Life, Media/Music, Media/Video

Viewing 6 Comments

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    "The heart of worship is surrender."

    "The heart of Worship(tm) is to sell records."

    Is nothing sacred?! Is there *anything* a consumer-driven church won't pimp out?

    BTW, I'm going to trademark that "Consumer-Driven Church" thing, write books on it, sell logo bracelets, caps, t-shirts, devotional books, even make a "Consumer-Driven Pimps-R-Us Devotional Bible." So Hillschlongs, stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
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    <img src="http://www.bencotten.net/images/joelgrimley-sm.jpg" alt="Joel Grimley" align="left" title="Click to Enlarge"></img>I think someone already beat you to it with the book (Click the image to enlarge).

    Maybe you could do seminars for churches. You know, put a crack team of Consumer-Driven consultants together and visit churches for a weekend at a time (for a small "administration" fee, of course).

    You could show them how to be Consumer-Driven by just following the plan in your 12 CD set and workbook!
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    Ben, I totally agree. At times I get so disgusted with everyone jumping on the bandwagon of putting out worship CD's. It seems like some of them are just trying to be like the ones who are popular. And a lack of genuineness really stinks. But, I could be totally wrong. After all, God is the one who looks into our hearts and sees our motives.
    But could it be that God's Kingdom is advancing through these songs? I mean, I also question this whole "worship music industry" thing, but the fact still remains that God's ways are higher and much more mysterious than ours. Who can know the mind of the Lord? Who can give Him counsel? How many people across the earth has He drawn to Himself through a worship song heard on the radio or a "worship concert". I just think it's spectacular how popular worship music has become! I mean, I see a whole generation of people who have discovered God AND discovered the greatness of intimacy with him because of worship songs!
    And about this whole Consumer-Driven Church thing... could it be that churches actually just want to help people and point them to God by writing books and songs and making videos, and WE'RE the ones that have made idols out of them in our hearts? Churches like Hillsong desire to fulfill the Great Commission and for God to be glorified, and we who buy their albums and get blessed by their teachings start worshipping and idolizing them! So we buy more and more of their stuff to feed our addiction, and they start selling more of it because they're running out because WE'RE buying it all! It's not their fault! I think it's just that we are human and our hearts are prone to wander towards idolatry. And we need to repent. And turn from it. And ask God to make Himself number one in our hearts so that we can listen to the music and read the books and get blessed and realize that they are just people like us, and not worthy of our worship. Worth reading and worth listening to maybe, but not worthy of our worship. Only God is.

    Gosh, well, there it be.
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    Jess, thanks for commenting! Heather told me you were lurking...

    I'm not criticizing the artists so much as I'm criticizing the CCM industry and the church in general for letting our understanding of worship get far too narrow. (maybe my placement of the video above was confusing... I actually like that song)

    I don't think the "blame" here can go fully on the record labels or on the folks "worshipping" them. I think it's both. CCM markets their product to appeal to specific people, and those people eat it up. I think that door swings both ways.

    In the process are people being blessed? Of course! Are the artists themselves really to blame? I don't think they are, though perhaps some are in it just for a buck.

    One thing I do know... God can use anything to bless His people. Jimmy Swaggart was used greatly to bless a lot of people while he was simultaneously spending tithe money to pay for hookers. It's grace at work that allows that paradox to happen. That's why even those in CCM that are doing it for the wrong reasons, are still being used by God.
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    Yes, I think what Jessica said could be summed up in the phrase "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater."

    That is a conumdrum that God can bless cheesyness, weirdness, or even Jimmy Swaggart hanging with hookers. I like what Rich Mullins said, "God spoke through an ass in the Bible (Balaam's ass) and he's been speaking through them ever since."

    To me another factor in this is the problem of aesthetics (or lack thereof). We need to collectively examine what the cheesyness and/or consumerism is doing to our souls (as well as out witness)? Whatever happened to EXCELLENCE??? Truth, beauty, goodness??? To me the biggest problem, not just with the CCM but with evangelicals in general, is one of aesthetics. Nietzsche said there would come a day when people would reject God not based on doctrine or religious beliefs but on aesthetics alone.

    Yep...we're there.
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    Am so blessed by your message on Worship,and the praising is wonderful.
    God bless.
 
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