The Worship Network

By John Chisum, Integrity Music worship artist, songwriter, and president of Firm Foundation Worship Ministries

Whatever else our worship is, it is essentially a response to God's endless self-giving. Alan P. Ross wrote that worship "refers to the appropriate response to the revelation of the holy God of glory." (1) While we most often think of worship as something that man alone initiates, the perspective of Scripture is clearly that God has placed man in an atmosphere of constant worship, constant response to Himself as the Creator, an entire galaxy of worship that evermore responds to Him in praise.

"The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of His hands," says Psalm 19, and man can do no less--we are literally geared from the Manufacturer to give forth His praises by our very existence on the planet, whether we understand it or not. Even those who despise, reject, or deny God cannot help but show forth His glory as human beings.

Irenaeus, as early as the 2nd Century A.D., said, "The glory of God is the living human being" (2), an echo of John, writing in his ecstasy, "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things, and by Your will they were created and have their being" (Revelation 4:11). God, by His very being and by His choice to reveal Himself through His creation, is the one who has initiated all that is worship in this closed eco-system.

What we commonly call worship these days in our churches is but one aspect of the cultic, or group, response to God as He has revealed His character, nature, and attributes through "the deep biblical memory" (2) of our faith. Ask just about anyone what worship is and you'll probably hear the words "songs" or "singing." For many, this worship means proclamation only, singing of God's glorious love or nature or power. Often it appears that we forget to whom we are proclaiming such wonderful things. Are we reminding God just who He is, in case He's forgotten and we're left down here on earth to fend for ourselves? Actually, the proclamation, the rehearsing again and again of God's person and attributes, is for our sake--we are the ones who are affected by authentic worship--we are the ones who are being transformed "from glory to glory" (3) as we behold Him in His exaltation. We are beneficiaries of worship as our proclamation draws us into adoration, awe, and the sheer delight of God.

Don E. Saliers wrote, "In our concern to do what is expected, and in our routine habits, we settle for our duty. Thus we miss one fo the most essential features of vital worship: sheer delight--delight in God, in one another, and the very means by which common life is graced. Obligation, custom, and' the way we've always done it' obscure the delight. Hence we suffer a diminished liturgy and life together" (4). Worship that is built on proclamation alone leaves no room for response, no opportunity for God to move into the room in His own response to our praises (Psalm 22:2).

In our tendency to use (overuse?) the Sunday service for the preaching of the Gospel and for Christian education, we often minimize the actual response time of believers to God's graces seen and heard in music, arts, and preaching. In doing this we actually defeat our own purposes (and certainly God's) in the short-changing of transformative opportunities of deep repentance, intercession, and regeneration in exchange for a few fluffy praise choruses. In some churches the response event is missing altogether and the entire activity is engulfed in customs (old or new) that skew it towards something that neither resembles nor accomplishes authentic worship response on the part of the people. This is a terrible impoverishment for the believing community, if worship truly is a response first.

The unfortunate equivalence of the words worship and music have further reduced our concept of worship as encompassing all of life, from birth to death, as the living response of man to God, his Creator. If worship is but one hour on Sunday for us, we lose the God-focused lifestyle that leads us to become mature believers who enjoy God in the way that He has intended for us to enjoy Him in relationship with Christ (Romans 8:14). Again, Saliers states, "True prayer and worship, which both remembers and invokes God, is the receiving of God's self-giving." (5)

Anyone married for more than a week or two understands that a successful marriage is built on embracing the cycle of initiation and response. There are seasons when the tides of passion run high and seasons when the waters seem desperately low, yet the commitment and determination to ride out the times and seasons is what brings the sweetest reward. Look at any couple who has been married for decades and you'll see in their eyes the quiet understanding of the principle--they bear in every wrinkle and crease of their faces the give and take, the ebb and flow, of a lifetime of self-giving and receiving, initiation and response, that has made them who they are together.

In being before God in the ebb and flow of community, entire congregations can also gain a quiet understanding of what it means to be united with God in authentic worship. The more individuals in a congregation who come to understand that God is ceaselessly engaged in giving Himself to them, the fewer there will be who depend on the praise band to crank them up on Sunday mornings. The more opportunities a congregation is given to actually respond to God and sense His response to them in unscripted moments within the structure of liturgy, the greater will be that group's understanding that we've entered into a two-sided relationship. All great marriages, the kind that extend deep into the heart of the marriage partners, are built on enjoying, celebrating, and reciprocal giving to each other in every moment possible--lovers truly live for each other, longing for every tender moment stolen from a busy day. Living worship means resisting the temptation to reduce covenantal living with God as the body of Christ to a little praise music and preaching crammed into an hour and fifteen minutes once a week.

Whatever worship is, it is a response first. It is a response to truth, a response to God's self-revelation breaking in upon the soul of man and love's intrusion into human darkness. As in marriage, the light of this love, the flame whose Source dwells in the unseen realities of Spirit, is constantly fueld by the reminders of art, song, and liturgy we employ together as our remembrances of God's ceaseless self-giving. When we rise together to sing, "I'm coming back to the heart of worship/And it's all about You/It's all about You, Jesus...." (6) our faith rises concurrently to the One who is more faithful than any earthly lover, truer than the North Star, and who is exceedingly beyond our ability to know, much less enjoy, without His personal instigation. Thankfully, for us, the Gospel of salvation is a Gospe of worship for, "We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true. And we are in Him who is true--even in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life" (I John 5:20).

(1) Alan P. Ross, Recalling the Hope of Glory, Kregel Publications, 2006

(2) Don E. Saliers, Worship as Theology, Abingdon Press, 1994

(3) 1 Cor 3:18 NIV

(4) Don E. Saliers, Worship Come to Its Senses, Abingdon Press, 1996

(5) Ibid.

(6) Heart of Worship

Words and music by Matt Redman

Copyright 1997 by Kingsway's Thankyou Music. All Rights Reserved.