What is worship all about? Who is worship all about? We know it should be all about God, don’t we? In recent weeks, I have discussed that worship deals with the idea of ascribing worth to God. And yet how many times does worship become about us?
Do you know what the problem is for many in the church today? Worship has become all about us. We have become connoisseurs of worship. We have made ourselves out to be the audience in church, instead of God. Have you ever walked away from church saying any of the following things: “I didn’t like the worship this morning? I didn’t get anything out of worship this morning? I can’t stand it when they sing that song?”
What many of us have done is that we have turned our worship leaders and choirs and praise teams into the performers and ourselves into the audience. In our minds, we kind of rate the “performance.” We think, “Worship was a 10 today!” or “Worship was only a 7 and a half.”
You and I are not the audience when it comes to worship though. We are participants along with those who lead us. There is only an audience of ONE! God is the audience, not us.
So what if we were to walk away from our times of worship and God were to say, “I didn’t get much out of that. That was really half-hearted. You sing one thing, but do the opposite.”
Does our worship really focus on the Lord and really seek to bless Him? Or have we turned ourselves into the audience?
Several years back, Soul Survivor Church in England went through a unique period. This church was well known for its incredibly gifted and talented worship leaders and its powerful worship ministry. They went through a season, however, when they realized something was not quite right with their worship.
The problem wasn’t with the quality of the music or the musicians. They were in tune and on key. The songs were up to date, and the lyrics were powerful. There seemed to be a point of disconnect though. Though they sang with their lips, their hearts were far from God. They had allowed themselves to become the audience instead of participants. They critiqued each song as if it were a performance. They had forgotten that they were all the performers of worship and that God alone is the audience.
The Bible says we are to bring to God the sacrifice of praise (Heb. 13:15). That church was challenged to think, “What do they bring to God as a contribution to worship when they walk through the doors of the church?” They remembered that worship is not about what they can get out of it, but rather what they could give to the Lord.
So for several weeks, they put the instruments in the closets. They sat in circles together and asked each other what they brought to worship – a praise, a testimony, a song, etc. At first, they sat in silence, but over time they began to open up and learned not to rely just on great music to lead them in worship. They began to bring their prayers, their readings, their thanksgiving, their praises, and their songs. And their worship was more heartfelt than ever before. When all of the trappings were stripped away, they came back to the heart of worship. It was during that season, that songwriter Matt Redman sat down and composed that now famous worship song, “I am coming back to the Heart of Worship.” May all of us do the same – realizing that it is not about us, but it is all about God. And that’s the Word.