The Worship Network

By Dr. Darrell A. Harris, Dean of the Chapel, Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies

Worship is more than music...although one would be hard-pressed to prove that in our current "worship climate."

"How was the worship this morning?" she asks.

"Amazing," he replies ecstatically, on a particularly sunshiny Sunday. "We sang 'How Great is Our God' and then this really cool new song that took us all right into the very Holy of Holies."

When we ask, "How was worship?" what we really mean is, "How was the song selection?"

There are fifty-eight words in the Hebrew language alone that are translated in scripture as either "praise," "worship," or some other closely-related word depicting some act or facet of worship. More than a few of them are related to music. But the collective concept is both wider and deeper than music.

Music may be used in worship of anything. Check out this quote from U2's Bono: "Music is worship, whether it's worship of women or their designer, the world or its destroyer, whether it comes from the ancient place we call soul or simply the spinal cortex, whether the prayers are on fire with a dumb rage or dovelike desire...the smoke goes upwards..."

Yes, music often expresses worship of something. But music, even music utilized in Christian worship, can itself become an object of worship. Christian worship is so very much more than music. If we just think of music, however incredibly powerful a force it is, than we have very seriously short-changed Christian worship.

Historic Christian worship is Christ-centered. To employ a theological phrase, itis Christo-centric. One of the oldest versions of the ancient "memorial acclamation" is helpful here. "Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again." It may well be the most succint summation ever rendered of the Gospel of Christ. It is both brief and symmetrical, and is easily sung or said by a group of worshippers. Perhaps it should become our universal, trans-denominational motto.

Historic Christian worship is Trinitarian. In the beginning, God said, "Let us make man in our image." Notice the language, both plural and singular. God, as three-in-one, is "radically social." Therefore, we who are created in his image are also radically social and belong in community. It follows then that historic, authentic Christian worship is communal or corporate, rather than individualistic.

I visited a rapidly growing "buzz church" a year or so ago. A hot praise band and some really good singers were leading the latest worship songs. While the volume was not at concert level (which I have always enjoyed, old rocker that I am), it was at such a level that I could hear neither my own voice, nor the ones of worshippers to my immediate right or left. You could pretty much only hear what was being pumped through the P.A. And although technically or aesthetically excellent, it failed to promote any sense of a communal or corporate engagement in worship.

Authentic Christian worship engages the whole person, the physical as well as the spiritual. In the Hebrew scriptures, worship always involved physical elements (blood on the doorposts, water for the baptism of converts, a roasted lamb and unleavened bread at Passover, camping out in huts for the Feast of Tabernacles, etc.). It is the same in the New Covenant (the bread and cup to recall Christ's death and look forward to his return, water for baptism, oil for healing, etc.).

Contemporary Christian worship often tends to be internalized, emotional, or existential and detached from everyday life. An early heresy did this too. Its adherents were known as Gnostics. To them, spirit was good, but anything physical was inherently evil. The invisible god who is spirit created all matter, including we who are both spirit and matter. And he said, "It is good." Who then are we to strip the use of matter from worship of him?

Worship also is story. It re-tells God's story again and again, both in the Service of the Word when we "hear" his story from the scriptures and preaching and teaching; and in the Service of the Table, when we "taste and see" his story in the bread and the cup. There, again and again we are nourished and strengthened by the broken body and shed blood of Christ to be sent out to be broken and poured out for others.

And finally, worship is dialogical. It is interactive. After we "hear" God in the Service of the Word, he "hears" us in our prayers. And as we discuss what we have heard in his Word, we can each hear him speak through our fellow worshippers.