40 Days of Praying - Day 31

Worship Community: Pray for God to grow our worship community when we assemble together. Ask Him to lead us in better ways of connecting with each other in worship.

Psalm 47:1-2 Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy. How awesome is the LORD Most High, the great King over all the earth!

Psalm 81:1 Sing for joy to God our strength; shout aloud to the God of Jacob!

2 Samuel 6:14-15 David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the LORD with all his might, while he and the entire house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouts and the sound of trumpets.

Ephesians 5:19-20 Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 11:17 In the following directives I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good.

Not every gathering for worship accomplishes good.

I know the principle that worship is an everyday all the time thing. I don't want to get caught up in the trap of limiting worship to what happens in the big room on Sunday morning. I also know that our worship gatherings don't resemble much of what happened in the New Testament era. They met in homes, we meet in an auditorium. (Except for our LifeGroup worship. I wish we were better here. I get the sense that we don't often experience the presence of God together in worship in our small groups. I know we do experience him powerfully in each other, but I'm referring to our "worship" time. In fact, I think some of our focus on big room worship makes it hard for us to experience God intimately and transparently in a small group experience of worship. Remind me to post about that later. When it does happen it's wonderful!) The Jewish church experienced temple worship with its bloody high drama and orchestrated celebrations, we haven't ever cut a lambs throat or had a choir of 150 priests with trumpets perform.

For some what I have just written is near heresy. We are supposed to be the nearest replica of New Testament worship available. I think it's just plainly obvious that there are significant cultural differences. Does that mean what we do in the big room doesn't matter? I may be biased by my tradition (tradition being the main factor in why we choose to do what we do when we come together) but I think it is very important and extremely powerful.

Here's the knock on what we do. It can be so anonymous and impersonal. This weekend I am going to a concert with a bunch of friends (My LifeGroup.) We are getting on a bus and traveling to Lubbock to hear Stephen Curtis Chapman, Casting Crowns and Chris Tomlin. Kids, Adults, neighbor friends--it's going to be fun. When we get there the music will be loud. I will probably sing really loud(I know few songs, my kids know them all). But I don't have a relationship with any of the performers. They don't know me and don't really plan to. I don't particularly care to interact with the strangers who sit around me. I won't be rude and neither will they, but the accepted behavior at something like that is to come watch what happens on stage and personally determine my level of engagement. We don't really want to notice the people around us. I don't plan to jump and shout or move into the standing crowd next to the stage. I may even sit a lot. I get to choose and for that experience I tend to choose anonymity and to keep to my personal space. Don't get me wrong, I expect to encounter God in some way. I expect to have an experience of worship--it has happened many times before. But I don't expect an experience of community. I don't expect to pursue a deeper relationship with anybody there. In fact it would be weird to think of a "relationship" with any of the strangers there. (You might be thinking about what will be happening with my LifeGroup. That will be completely different won't it? Our worship together and the time we share going and coming will further deepen our relationships. Think about what that means to our larger worship gatherings.)

My point is that if we are not careful, worship gatherings in the big room can get to be the same kind of anonymous impersonal experience. (That's what Paul was so critical of in I Corinthians 11. It wasn't what they did, but that they did it without any sense of the other people in the room.)But it doesn't have to be that way. Our worship gatherings can be--should be--passionate powerful worship of our magnificent matchless God with a deep sense and awareness of each other. We are asking God to help us have meetings that do more good than harm. We need times together when we all become more aware that we are a part of the dynamic body of Christ, lifting up our God together. We want God to teach us more how to do that--whether it's how we design the space to gather in or plan what happens when we are together or teach that attitudes that are required for true community worship.

O God teach us how to worship you with passionate reckless abandon. You deserve all that we have and more. May nothing ever stir in us as much passion as you do. But teach us how to do it together, aware of each other, encouraging each other, engaging each other. We know that ultimately, true worship must come from a community of people. We want that. Make it true of us. For Jesus sake, amen.

Grace.