The last couple of weeks I have had the occasions with hospital visitation to be driving in and through the Dallas area. I started noticing something on church signs. One church said - traditional worship, one said contemporary worship, - one said blended worship - one said southern gospel worship - one said country western worship and one said - Liturgical worship. Now, the fallacy in some of those signs, for instance you can find 50 different definitions of contemporary worship, blended worship, Liturgical worship and even traditional worship. But the thing that really struck me is - all of those signs point to the unfortunate fact that man still tries to make worship about himself rather than our Lord God!
Just two weeks ago I had a man come up to me and rant and rave for five minutes about how he could not attend a church with this contemporary junk he is hearing in churches and that he loves southern gospel music. In that five minute conversation I never heard a word about worship. And I thought to myself, the same God is present no matter what "style" of worship is going on. The mature believer is going to make worship about Him, not "my" preferred style of music. In both the Old and New Testaments we see indication that there was a variety of song, style, and instrumentation used in the worship of God. Why wouldn't there be? Our God is so multi-faceted, as we see in all the different names for God and His Son throughout scripture, that there needs to be a multi-faceted expression of praise and worship to Him.
Some say well we just can't reach the younger people unless we do their music. I don't see anywhere in scripture the call to use the world's music to reach people. I see us being reminded that it is the Spirit of God that draws men, and God's people draw men through their authentic worship and witness. I go back to Psalm 40 where it says that many will come to God when they see the people of God praising Him in all circumstances.
It takes real arrogance to dismiss hundreds of years of hymn writers beginning in the Word of God because they are old. Those expressions have much to teach us about who God is in all of His fullness through their experiences and theology. But, it also takes the same kind of arrogance to say that there are not some new things and expressions of worship worthy to be used in giving us a more intimate , and sometimes more simple, expression of worship to our God in new music.
May we come to understand that our expressions of worship should cover the gamut of everything we can find that is worthy to give praise and glory to His name - and that all worship is about Him. To God be the Glory!!! mjm
