 Sally
Morgenthaler
Beeson Institute for Advanced Church Leadership Feb. 28, 2002
Worship that is interactive, both vertically
and horizontally, is biblical worship. It is worship that impacts people at
profound levels. Interactive worship not only provides pathways of contact with
a holy and loving God, but avenues of nurturing, uplifting relationships with
those who are called in God's name.
Summary - How We View the World - God, Community & Brokenness:
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There
is a God and we are not it.
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We are
all a mess.
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We
need each other if we're going to get through this mess.
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Sampling
- What Experiential Worship Can Look Like
A special evening service, The “target market”: anyone – churched or unchurched
– who wants to experience more of the mystery, transcendence, and depth of God.
The theme: desert experiences and God’s renewing of the spirit along the journey
of faith. The texts: Psalm 63; A few of the elements:
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A
corporate prayer on the wilderness of faith by Thomas Merton.
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The
Delirious song, “Find Me in the River” and the hymns, “There is a Balm in
Gilead” and “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessings, woven between the responses.
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A
corporate lament entitled, “Obscene Quicksand”, read while a segment of PBS’
video, Sahara, scrolled to music from Slow Music for Fast Times.
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A
meditation on wilderness, with a digital loop of a person walking in sand as
the backdrop.
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A
ritual of refreshment in the dry, cracked places of life: dry sponges, soaked
in water and squeezed out in basins of sand (as people whispered prayers of
thanks to God for their renewal in Christ); the same sponges used to paint
people’s individual images of renewal/refreshment on butcher block paper.
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A
montage of stories: people from both the congregation and the community
telling their stories of dryness and unexpected God-moments.
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Un-flattening Sacred Space
1. Go Vertical -
The return and re-imagining of God's transcendence
Quoting Edward Farley in
his March 1998 Christian Century article, "The Missing Presence"
"If the seraphim assumed (our contemporary Sunday morning) mood, they would be
addressing God not as 'hoyl, holy, holy' but as 'nice, nice, nice.' "
God is here in this place - we are doing
something vastly different when we worship. Move beyond nice and return to a
sense of awe in our worship.
Quoting Tom Sine in Live
it Up (Herald Press, 1993, p. 67)
"Deep within every person is a longing to be connected to a story larger than
ourselves."
2. Go Deep - The
reclaiming of confession.
Quoting 20-something new
convert at Blink (Southland Christian Church's GenX worship service, Lexington,
KY, Holy Week 2001)
"Grace makes beauty out of ugly things."
I never knew dark could be so dark. My husband
was a pastor and when he went to jail, I became human. You have a gift - you
have been carved out by your pain.
3. Go Horizontal - The revival of the word, "small"
Give people an opportunity to talk to one another
Quoting Andy Crouch, Re:generation Quarterly, Spring, 2000
"Can we be who we say we are... Christ communities... groups of people ordered
by love? A people whom God uses to transform useless things - the manure of the
world: sin, anger, division, hostility, even evil - into life. Lovers of God and
lovers of those God loves?
Worship Evangelism:
Inviting Unbelievers into the Presence of God (Zondervan, 1999)
Worship is not just
important for us as individual children of God. It is the ultimate purpose of
the church and has been since its beginning. (p. 38)
Psalm 27:4
The one thing
I ask of the Lord—
the thing I seek most—
is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
delighting in the Lord's perfections
and meditating in his Temple.
John 4:24
For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in
truth."
Acts 2:42-47
They joined with the other believers and devoted themselves to the apostles'
teaching and fellowship, sharing in the Lord's Supper and in prayer.
[43] A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many
miraculous signs and wonders. [44] And all the believers met together constantly
and shared everything they had. [45] They sold their possessions and shared the
proceeds with those in need. [46] They worshiped together at the
Temple
each day, met in homes for the Lord's Supper, and shared their meals with great
joy and generosity— [47] all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of
all the people. And each day the Lord added to their group those who were being
saved.
Romans 12:1
And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to
God. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will accept. When you
think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask?
1
Peter 2:4-5
Come to Christ, who is the living cornerstone of God's temple. He was
rejected by the people, but he is precious to God who chose him.
[5] And now God is building you, as living stones, into his spiritual
temple. What's more, you are God's holy priests, who offer the spiritual
sacrifices that please him because of Jesus Christ.
The
true goal of evangelism is to produce more and better worshipers. (p. 39)
Romans 15:16b
I bring you the Good News and offer you up as a fragrant sacrifice to God so
that you might be pure and pleasing to him by the Holy Spirit.
Quoting Gerrit Gustafson (p. 40):
“…those early Christians evangelized almost by accident. Evangelism sprang out
of throne-room encounters. They were more conscious of God Himself than of
evangelizing, and yet they evangelized.”
Quoting Tommy Walker (composer, musician, worship director) (p. 41):
“I’m not doing hip worship because it’s hip. I’m doing it because that’s how I
worship God. The music I write is just a tool to reach His presence.”
Defining Worship (John
4:24) on p. 47:
…not only offering all that we are to a Holy God (spirit).
It is an intentional response of praise, thanksgiving, and adoration to The
God, the One revealed in the Word, made known and accessible to us in Jesus
Christ and witnessed in our hearts through the Holy Spirit (truth).
Worship is a two-way communication between believers and God,
a dialogue of response
involving both actions and speech. God reveals His presence; our need for
intimacy with God is met, and we respond with thanksgiving and praise. God
speaks through the Word; we are convicted and repent. God extends mercy through
Jesus Christ; we respond with adoration. In other words, real worship provides
opportunities for God and God’s people to express their love for each other. (p.
48)
Traditional
Community
Church
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One or two
perfunctory hymns
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Five to ten minutes of
announcements
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Fifteen second prayer
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Scripture reading (maybe)
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Special music or choir anthem
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Testimony or solo
presentation regarding a church project
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Offering (solo)
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Message (main event –
everything else is preliminary)
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Dismissal
Comfortably
Contemporary
Church
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Borrows TCC’s
format with the Message as the centerpiece
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Usually features a worship
band instead of an organ or piano
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Substitutes a “song-sing” for
the hymns
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May include a mini-drama
(three to five minutes)
Cutting-Edge
Community
Church
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Instrumental
selection performed by worship band
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Two vocal selections
performed by band and worship team
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Corporate song
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Introduction of theme via
multimedia presentation
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Scripture reading and
explanation
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Drama
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Solo
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Message
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Dismissal
These three worship prototypes are worship counterfeits. Why? Interaction
with God is either nonexistent or so low it cannot be measured. (p. 51)
…such service formats are
immune to God’s presence, stripped of all but oblique reference to Jesus Christ,
sanitized from the concept of sin, and consequently excised of anything that
resembles confession, repentance, and commitment. (p. 51)
Quoting Henri Nouwen (p. 53)
…are the leaders of the future truly men and women of God, people with an ardent
desire to dwell in God’s presence, to listen to God’s voice, to look at God’s
beauty, to touch God’s incarnate Word and to taste fully God’s infinite
goodness?”
Psalm 42:1
As the deer pants for streams of water,
so I long for you, O God.
Challenges to “providing
opportunities… for people to encounter and interact with God…”
Challenge 1 - Get out of the way:
“We are responsible to create the worship environment, and beyond that
to give people permission to interact with God according to His work in their
own hearts.” (quoting Churck Smith, Jr.) p. 76
Challenge 2 - Keep a Biblical Worldview:
“The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an
intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that
they may delight in His presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the
very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts.” (quoting A.W. Tozier)
p. 69
Essentials of Worship
Evangelism
Nearness – a sense of God’s presence
– by “infusing our services with the living, indwelling Word, and…
giving God our sincere and heartfelt praise…” (p. 102)
Knowledge – Worship centered on Christ
“Real worship exalts the God made known to us in Jesus Christ. And it
does so consistently and unashamedly.” (p. 109)
Vulnerability – Opening up to God
“…make a place in worship for
people to get real with God and for God to make them whole through the Gospel….”
(p. 117)
Interaction – participating in a relationship with God and with others
“Worship that is
interactive, both vertically and horizontally… not only provides contact with a
holy and loving God, but avenues of nurturing, uplifting relationships with
those who are called in God’s name.” (p. 123)
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