Your Faith

Reverence

“Never before in history has there been more worship music, and less worship.”

I lead worship at my church. This statement in a sermon by Lindell Cooley, formerly a worship leader, and now the pastor at a church outside Nashville, grabbed my attention as I was absentmindedly listening. Long afterward, it echoed in my consciousness. It’s a memorable, controversial statement, but deep inside, I know he’s probably right. And I, as a worship leader, bear some responsibility for that.

If that statement has even some truth to it, then how did we in the American church get here? The past twenty years have seen extraordinary change in the way many churches conceptualize worship. There has been a tremendous shift in music and methodology. There are bands, singers, lights, and sound that aren’t a far cry from any rock show. There are hundreds of new worship songs written every year. A whole industry has sprung up around the worship movement, with everything from college majors and vocations to books, albums, DVDs, and even consultants. Has this movement resulted in more worship? Do we still lack enough tools or knowledge, a relevant musical style, or the right songs? Or is it something else? Has it ever been the real issue?

I traveled overseas this past summer to lead worship for a gathering of missionaries from all around Thailand. This was my first immersion in non-western culture, as my past overseas travel has been to Europe. Asian culture is very different from American or European culture – food, architecture, language, religion; wherever you look, it’s different.

One of the distinctive features of Thailand is that it is still a functioning monarchy, with the same king on the throne for 63 years. After a few days there, I became quickly aware that this is very unlike western governments, even those that still have a monarch. The Thai people honor, respect, and even revere the king. A drive through the capital of Bangkok into the countryside reveals dozens of pictures, posters, billboards, and shrines bearing the images of the king and queen. In fact, it remains a criminal offense in Thailand to offend the dignity of the king.

This got me thinking. Whether we like to admit it or not, we are all shaped by our culture. To varying degrees, it informs our choices, our values, and even our faith. Usually when the church speaks about faith and culture, the conversation comes down to either the church’s waning influence, or on culture’s perceived assault on Christian values and practice.

But we rarely talk about how the “American” parts of our culture influence our faith in less positive ways. And one of the most significant but rarely considered areas of this is worship.

The Bible was originally written by people very familiar with the concept of offering service, homage, and reverence to a ruling figure, whether it was the manifest presence and person of God in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the Israelite and Judean kings in the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, the foreign rulers of Babylon or Persia in the Prophets, or the Romans during much of the New Testament. So when the Bible speaks of worship or reverence for a “King,” in this case God, the original audiences knew tangibly what this meant in their daily lives.

The word “worship” appears 102 times in the Bible. 34 of those occurrences are the Greek word Proskoneo, which means “to kiss like a dog licking the master’s hand; to prostrate, reverence, adore.” 58 are the Hebrew word Shachah, defined as “bowing in homage or loyalty.” So the Bible is referring to the idea of reverence or adoration 90 percent of the time.

Few of us in contemporary America have experienced anything resembling those actions elsewhere. Honestly, the only time I ever talk of bowing down, adoring, honoring a King, offering my life, falling prostrate, or surrendering my all is in church while we’re singing. And even then, few of us actually do those things literally. Those concepts simply don’t appear anywhere else in daily life. Rather, our American upbringing influences us to view God similarly to the way we view our government, except in this case, we commit at some nominal level, and God takes care of our needs, desires, and destiny.

So is it any wonder that we in the American church struggle to worship God in a way that resembles the biblical language of Proskoneo and Shachah? Or that all of us in the church are pretty adept at subtly making worship about ourselves rather than about God – whether it’s in the lyrics of our songs about how God makes us feel, the celebrity culture that beckons worship leaders and pastors, or our insistence on the sanctity of some musical styles or the irrelevance of others? In reality, how many of our arguments or discussions around the issue of “worship” – whether styles or practices or whatever – are actually about God?

Lindell Cooley made another observation about bowing down prostrate in the manner of Proskoneo and Shachah. He noted that a person on their knees with their face bowed to the ground in reverence is in the only physical position where their heart is above their head. And perhaps that’s the root of it all. God sent Jesus to save our hearts – the part of us that beats, which gives life, which is life, the part without which we are dead. When we offer our hearts in worship, our lives must go along. If we have hope of truly being worshippers, it will be because we find ourselves in this heart-above-head posture much more frequently.

And only when we are able to place our heads – our wills, preferences, desires, religion, hopes, dreams, and fears – below our hearts, can we see God for who He is, and worship.