Church... and the role of church in our lives has been on my heart lately. One of my friends found an amazing church a couple of years ago and I really think it changed her faith. Another friend went through a life-changing experience and afterward, he got plugged into his church where people surrounded him with love and acceptance.
In a discussion Friday we were talking about moving and church. People move for jobs all the time, but don't often move for church... unless church is your job. I took that as before accepting a job or moving to a random city, it makes sense to do your research and "interview" churches just like you would be interviewed for a job. If you're plugged into a church you love, usually your pastor will have suggestions of other churches across the country based on pastors or mentors who he trusts. With today's internet, often you can watch a service from the comfort of your own home thousands of miles away.
With that being said... a discussion Saturday reminded me how sometimes we replace God with church... or pastor so and so... or book such and such. That church didn't save you... nor did that person or that book. God did. God uses people to do His work... but I think they should be pointing us back to Him. Too often I feel like people can start to worship the pastor or the church instead of God. I don't think that gives us an excuse to not get involved or not to go... but like most things, there is a balance.
The message at church this morning was centered around worship. The new pastor at Snyder talked mentioned a book called Worship Evangelism by Sally Morgenthaler. He read the first paragraph that says, "Worship has always been a controversial subject within the church. Historically, whole movements and denominations have been birthed over what did or did not happen on Sunday mornings. The way we worship is often as much a part of our Christian identity as whom we worship - sometimes even more so. Consequently, worship arouses intense personal feelings, and we tend to get defensive about it. I write this book well aware of the risks. Yet I also write with the deep conviction that it is time for the American evangelical church to face the truth: We are not producing worshipers in this country. Rather, we are producing a generation of spectators, religious onlookers lacking, in many cases, any memory of a true encounter with God, deprived of both the tangible sense of God's presence and the supernatural relationship their inmost spirits crave. A sickening emptiness pervades much of the born-again experience of the 90s, and the hollow rituals played out week after week in so many of our worship centers attest to it."
Morganthaler sparked quite a movement in the late 90s and early 2000s with her book. She spoke at numerous conferences helping churches to transform their worship services to reach the "unchurched." I haven't read her entire book but I agree with her opening. Of course in 2007, Morganthaler published an article in which she "rethinks her own paradigm." Unfortunately she found so many churches took this worship evangelism and were so centered on the inside, they were missing the mark in trying to reach the outside.
"Between 1995 and 2000 I'd traveled to a host of worship-driven churches, some that openly advertised that they were 'a church for the unchurched.' On the good occasions, the worship experience was transporting. (I dug a little deeper when that happened. Invariably, I found another value at work behind the worship production: a strong, consistent presence in the community.) Too many times, I came away with an unnamed, uneasy feeling. Something was not quite right. The worship felt disconnected from real life... Then there were the services when the pathology my friend talked about came right over the platform and hit me in the face. It was unabashed self-absorption, a worship culture that screamed, 'It's all about us' so loudly that I wondered how any visitor could stand to endure the rest of the hour."
Morganthaler truly began to question where worship was headed. She found, "those churches whose emphasis was dual - celebrated worship inside, lived worship outside - were the minority." Sometimes it can be hard to discern the motives of each worship team. We have found some success in all the bells and whistles like colored spotlights and fancy video production but I think it's all for naught if you're focus is not on God and bringing people closer to Him.
Rev. Cook reminded us today at Snyder it says every week in our bulletin/program, "God is our audience and you are the choir! Clap, dance, sing, pray, shout, be silent, bend your knee, listen - Let us bow before the Lord, our Maker, give all that we are and worship Him!" (Yes it does say dance in a baptist church :) I believe we are called to worship together in corporate worship but sometimes it comes with so many distractions. One of my favorite videos on worship is:
