(Or, worship is not Chris Tomlin and a VOX amp, part two1)

What comes to mind when you think of a worship service?

Perhaps you were raised in a church where the worship service consisted of a leader and a choir, and being directed to "turn to hymn number three-forty-seven in your hymnal" while singing along with the choir. You may think of ancient songs like "A Mighty Fortress is our God" or "It Is Well" being lifted in harmonious exaltation of the Savior. That's not worship.

Maybe the image of a more contemporary church comes to mind, with the congregation being led in songs by a band backed with vocalists and moving lights and video elements. The rockin' sounds of Tomlin's "Awesome is the Lord Most High" or Crowder's "O Praise Him" being played may come to mind. That's not worship, either.

Either way, chances are "worship service" brings to mind some sort of event that takes place on the weekend at a church building with a group of believers. Sing some songs, watch a video element or two, listen to the sermon, closing song, go home. Cut, dried, clean, right?

The modern "worship service" is really kind of an ironic happening. We use this term to mean a time when the servants of God to go church to be served their weekly "helping of God's word". It's almost as though we treat church like a restaurant. We come to have the worship leader serve us by leading us in singing songs. We come to have the pastor serve us by teaching us from the Bible. All so we can feel secure in the knowledge that through mass singing and listening that we "did worship". We have a pastor announce the various things that the church is doing for us. The church serves us by taking out children so they can get their weekly sustenance, too. We are served coffee and donuts in the atrium of our church.

"What this world needs is for us to stop hiding behind our relevance Blending in so well that people can't see the difference" -Casting Crowns

The description of the church in 1st Corinthians 14:26:27 says "What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church." This was less of a restaurant setting and more of everyone coming together to offer their service to God and others in worship. Their coming together wasn't so much about meeting the needs of the worshipers but was instead centered on the worship of God, and the strengthening of the church as a whole. Our modern "worship service" paradigm has been shifted from us offering our service to God to us getting served by the church. Going to a worship service should not be about us - it should be our offering of service and worship to God - our lives, our prayers, our money, our service to one another. The New Testament word "service" is used in the context of giving, not receiving. Paul talked about his "service" to others, meaning Paul was serving them.

Not only this, but most churches spend the vast majority of their time thinking about the weekend services. The lead pastor at my old church once intoned "We have a saying around here: 'It's all about the weekend.'.". The utter lie that this phrase had ever been uttered at this church notwithstanding, the sentiment behind it was true. It was (Still is) all about the weekend services. 99% of the work I did at that church was to support the three weekend services that we did. Programming meetings focused almost exclusively on it. All our support staff - the children's ministry, the youth ministry, the donuts and coffee ministry - were there to help support the weekend service. This is absolutely insane. The average Christian spends two hours - tops - in a church each Sunday, which is less than two percent of their week. When was the last time your life was changed by a sermon? Can you remember what your pastor preached last week? Two weeks ago? People will say "Great sermon!" right afterwards and feel especially spiritual for a day or two. People might be inspired, learn new insights, be emotionally moved, or in the case of POG, learn a new time management strategy. (Making Room for Life, week 3, 2007.) But most people cannot remember what was preached a month, or even two weeks ago. And I'm NOT downplaying the importance of the Bible. Teaching from the Bible, and indeed, spiritual teaching in general is important and necessary to the Christian's spiritual health. But what produces the most spiritual growth doesn't take place inside of a designated church building between the hours of 9 and 11 AM on Sunday mornings. The weekend worship gathering is not the most important thing in a Christian's week, not by far. People remember meeting in small groups, discussing the Bible with other Christians and learning how others applied Biblical concepts in their lives. They remember when people help them through difficult times. They remember quiet times of meditation with God and the scriptures. It's time for churches to re-think where they spend the majority of their efforts and time and money. The weekend should not be the focal point.

What we have done is to create consumer Christianity. We go to church, get our chocolate frosted sprinkle donut and sit in the service, maybe participating, maybe not (I know at Point of Grace, whenever I would turn around and watch the congregation, maybe 25% were singing at any given time.) and then watching the videos, listening to the sermon, then getting their children and going home. We've taught people that worship is something you do on Sunday, in an auditorium or sanctuary, and that once you leave the church building, worship is over and now you go back to your daily life until next week. We even teach this to kids at a young age. Remember the old rhyme where you folded your hands into the shape of a church and recited "This is the church, this is the steeple, open the doors and see God's people."? This is wrong. The church is not a place you go to, it's who you are, every day. We've taught people the wrong definition of church and given them a false experience of what "church" is. Is it any wonder that people are missing from the church? It feels shallow! There is no depth to the cut-and-dried singing / teaching model of "church". It feels like nothing more than a performance - a tradition - a meaningless and trite repetition which must be performed on a weekly basis. Do people say "That was cool." or "Good job today!" or do they say "I felt the presence of God here today." or "People prayed for me - I felt loved."? We've done a great job training people to view going to church as a spectator event. That's why people, and especially younger people, are disappearing from church. They disappear because they don't care anymore.

But the Church (Big C) is not a building. The building is just a gathering point for Christians. The Church is all followers of Christ, everywhere, living their lives in worship to God. Worship is a lifestyle. We worship on Tuesday, when we drive our cars to work. We worship in our marriages, in our relationships with our children, our friends, our coworkers. We worship when we offer our service to God and to other Christians through our acts and the things we say. You can worship God through art, through music, through singing, through running sound, through sharing your faith with the kid behind your local Starbucks counter, through living your life with integrity. Again, I'm not arguing against big worship services or using cool technology - the record will show that I love such things. Yet I think one they're one of the primary reasons there are so many consumer Christians. There must be balance between smaller gatherings where community is emphasized and larger worship gatherings where many meet to praise the Lord. I think it's also important to re-evaluate the emphasis of these gatherings, and shift from a simple "Sing, rinse, repeat, listen, leave" model of doing things. And it's not just about making superficial changes to the weekend worship service - it's about rethinking how you to do church. How to accomplish this in any given church is beyond the scope of this post - I can refer you to an excellent work on the subject "Emerging Worship", by Dan Kimball.

From people I've talked to, and by watching the reactions of people at churches I've been to, I get the feeling that many Christians are disillusioned with current megachurch philosophy with its emphasis on the big weekend service being the primary focus. And if the current generational trends in churches are any indication, these people aren't the only ones. A rethinking is necessary, lest we become the people that Jesus spoke of in Matthew 15:9: "They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men."

In conclusion, I shall attempt to organize my thoughts into something resembling a coherent summary. I'm not trying to pick on any particular style of music or church, nor am I saying that the preaching portion of a weekend gathering is unimportant. I'm also not saying any particular style of worship is wrong. Ultimately, one must find a church that works for you, and stick with it. What I am saying is that for what appears to be a large number of younger people, the current megachurch philosophy is not conducive to growing closer to God because church leaders treat it like a spectator event. What's needed is a philosophy of church that encompasses our entire lives, not just two hours on a Sunday - and sometimes, this change means moving away from the "performance style" of church, wherein the congregants are simply led in worship, then listen to a sermon, and then go home and forget what they heard a week later.

"So here I am in the place of worship, eyes open, drinking in your strength and glory." -Psalm 63:2

1 I'm not picking on Tomlin because I dislike his music. I pick on him because the music from his CD Arriving has been so ridiculously overused that it served as the perfect example of atypical worship music. Just so it's said.

Exit, stage left. Sparks