Worship
A Theological Vision for Worship from our Pastor
PREAMBLE
The worship of God is an activity so awe-inspiring that it ought to make us tremble. Think of it: earthbound people, filthy with sin yet wrapped by faith in the white robes of righteousness, actually breaking through into the presence of the King of heaven! Heaven actually breaking through into earth!
Such is an activity that ought to engage our whole persons—heart, emotion, mind, voice, and will. And such is an activity that ought not to be engaged without seriousness of purpose, involving intent, planning, and much preparation.
We at Christ Church do not merely want to worship the King of Heaven and Earth in a way that is comfortable to us. Nor do we want to worship the King of Heaven and Earth in a way that is casual and thoughtless. Rather, we want to worship in a way that honors His glory and preeminence, that celebrates his work on earth, and that shows the deep love we have for Him because of His love and grace to us.
In short, we want to worship in a way that is shaped by the Bible, in a way reflective of its theology. In what follows, we “think out loud” about that theology and its impact on worship. And we offer some conclusions that will shape the way we hope to worship the Lord.
BIBLICALLY, WORSHIP IS GLORIOUS
“After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” (Revelation 7:9-10)
We’re tempted merely to say: “Enough said!” Such a picture of worship gets at the heart of it all: a redeemed and washed people “standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb.” That we do this glorious worship on earth, with limited earthbound vision, must not change the simple truth that we worship Him for who he is and what he has done. He is the audience!
BIBLICALLY, WORSHIP IS OFFERED BY A DIVERSE YET UNIFIED PEOPLE
When the Apostle John gazes into heaven he is struck by the universality of the fame of God. Beyond the vast, sprawling expanse of the heavenly host, the first thing that strikes John is the diversity of the worshippers. The ethnic mix and the cultural array before the throne must have been almost unfathomable to him, who in his younger years saw all of life in black and white (Jew and Gentile). But the scope and splendor of their diversity is wrapped in one single bold and brilliant fabric, the mix of cultures has found one constant, the diverse people one shared identity: they all wear white robes. St. Paul put it this way: “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ.” (Galatians 3:26-28) This is immediate to us: we diverse people share a common identity: we have sinned but have been redeemed; we have rebelled and are forgiven; we stand before the throne of the Holy God blameless in the righteousness of Christ.
BIBLICALLY, WORSHIP IS MISSIONAL
This diverse and yet unified people also have one glorious mission: to worship the God of glory! We like what John Piper said:
“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.”
At Christ Church we view worship as our ultimate and highest calling. And we see corporate worship each Sunday as the time and place where we should most fully experience the reconciliation of the races, the redemption of Jesus, the communion of the saints, and, most importantly the presence of the glory of God. C.S. Lewis called corporate worship is a “thin place” where God’s ultimate reality breaks into our world. Hear John Piper again:
“Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal in missions. It’s the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white-hot enjoyment of God’s glory. The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God…But worship is also the fuel of missions. Passion for God in worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can’t commend what you don’t cherish…Missions begins and ends in worship.”
These stirring words have practical implications. First of all, worship must be God-centered: we hear from Him, and respond back to Him in prayer, song, gifts, and vows. Second, worship involves the heart, and thus reflects our deepest emotions; not merely an academic enterprise, it embraces our whole being. We should not fear the freedom to represent a wide spectrum of responses to God’s grace and love. Third, we acknowledge that although worship is an activity of the redeemed, we pray that our worship will impact non-Christians who will be present at our worship services. We acknowledge that if they are not in Christ, they themselves do not actively worship in Spirit and in truth. But, in love, we must take care that what we say and do is intelligible to all, aware that our faith uses an internal “language” (verbal, liturgical, and musical/cultural) that can become an obstacle to understanding. If our worship is made to be lovingly understandable, “he will be convinced by all that he is a sinner and will be judged by all, and the secrets of his own heart will be laid bare. So he will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, ‘God is really among you’.” (I Cor 14:24-25)
BIBLICALLY, WORSHIP IS CENTRAL TO LIFE
At Christ Church we have a passion for worship. Our corporate worship each Sunday is the heartbeat of our life together. Our liturgy, music, preaching, and voices must blend in ways that reflect the heavenly and biblical, the beautiful and the holy, and should be honest and indigenous to this city and its culture. We have no more compelling or useful or powerful or gentle vision to offer Jacksonville or the world than the same beautiful Glory we love.
But worship does not end with the corporate gathering of the church. We long to see our families worship God together in their homes. We pray to see young lives in the inner city get a glimpse of God’s glory through us. We want to see our small groups sing and pray to the glory of God. We want to sing music—and write music and paint and sculpt—in ways that reflect the beauty of God and his world. In fact, we want all of our worship to rise out of hearts set on fire with a passion for God’s glory and with a delight to be in His beautiful presence. We like the way Eugene Peterson says it:
“In worship God gathers his people to himself as the center: ‘The LORD Reigns!’ ” Worship is meeting God at the center so that our lives are centered in God and not lived eccentrically. We worship so that we live in response to and from this center, the Living God. Failure to worship consigns us to a life of spasms and jerks, at the mercy of every advertisement, every seduction, every siren. Without worship we live manipulated and manipulating lives. We move either in frightened panic or deluded lethargy as we are, in turn, alarmed by specters and soothed by placebos. If there is no center, there is no circumference. People who do not worship are swept into a vast restlessness, epidemic in the world, with no steady direction and no sustaining purpose.”
BIBLICALLY, WORSHIP IS POWERFUL
One of our most basic convictions is that if you believe the announcement of grace, you’ll sing. You’ll also pray and listen to God’s Word and eat at Christ’s sacramental table. In other words, a community of grace is compelled to worship in response to God’s being and works. Some think that political action will change the world; others are sure that social action will transform the city. We believe that worship changes (transforms) people, and changed people transform homes and neighborhoods and offices, and eventually cities and beyond.
We dream of seeing individuals, families and our city being transformed by passionate worship: entering into a personal-intimate relationship with their Father through prayer, meditating on His Word, “getting into His promises”, cherishing the greatness of Jesus Christ, and practicing face-to-face gospel community. Transformed individuals then create families that are learning to repent of the way they have served and worshiped idols and who are now learning to worship and serve the true God through family worship, corporate worship, and the “liturgies” of service and mercy and hospitality. Transformed families change churches by bringing a passion for the glory of God to corporate worship and witness and thus infect the entire congregation with their passion for God. Transformed churches (who have as their chief end the “glory of God” and “enjoying Him forever”) impact the city by injecting into it an “alternative city”—what St. Augustine called the City of God—that shows a different heart motive and seeks a different glory. Christ calls it “the kingdom of God”, his new regime; it is a “taste” of a whole new way of being human.
Core Values for the Worship Leadership Team
Based on these theological principles, the following core values will shape the way our worship leadership team will labor and serve (including pastors, instrumentalists, vocalists, and IT and A-V support staff).
Gospel-Driven
The gospel (the big good news that God is reconciling all things to himself by grace through the death and resurrection of Christ) must always be at the center of all of our work and relationships. We must worship out of the joy of the gospel, work together in the forgiving grace, patience, trust, and truth-telling of the gospel, and build each other up in the truth of the gospel. We don’t bring worship merely out of a sense of duty. We certainly don’t bring worship out of a sense of artistic pride. If we lose the gospel in our relationships—with God, with ourselves, with each other as servant-leaders, and with the congregation—we lose everything.
Ancient/Future
The Lord’s church is old; it has worshipped Him since the very beginning of the world (Gen 4:26). But the Lord’s church is always emerging, raising up new worshippers to love and serve him in the generations to come. It is critical that the worship of God’s people recognize this ancient-future character of God’s redemptive work. God has a history with us, one that is ancient and thus one that tracks his faithfulness through centuries of worshippers. But God speaks a redemptive Word to this world, right now, saying something meaningful and lasting to this and future generations. At Christ Church, we desire to worship God in ways that reflect this dynamic. This will be evidenced in music selection that uses the best from every age. We will love and cherish the God-centered psalms and hymns and the old creeds, but we will also embrace the best of music written in this and recent generations and in a variety of cultures, music that fuses praise with prayers, songs with confessions of sin, chants with creeds. An ancient-future commitment will thus be evident in the structure, liturgy, and atmosphere of our services, as we work to craft an experience of worship that unites all components around the themes of the gospel, not merely work through a pre-planned liturgy.
Creative
It is our desire to worship creatively, so that the worship of this congregation is offered as a gift to God who created us in his image. We desire do so authentically, so that the worship rises up from our people; we want to create the sounds and play (if not write or arrange) music ourselves, using our own instrumental and vocal gifts. This will require that we identify, help train, and unleash such musical gifts for this and future generations of worshippers.
Team-Led
The gospel creates a team of brothers and sisters who work together for the glory of God. We want to build teams of musicians who work together, practice together, and grow together as individuals and as musicians. We want this to be a collaborative effort, with the diversity of gifts and passions coming together to create beautiful and powerful worship. We want this to be an effort of selflessness and humility, where all praise is directed to the God who has given us life and a new song to sing.
Congregational
The gospel builds community; we are a spiritual family called to live out an alternative kingdom. This means that our music and liturgy ought to engage the entire congregation in worship. Sadly, sometimes music divides a congregation into “camps”; we want our music to lead our congregation to unity as we embrace the very presence of the King among us. While we may employ a choir, praise team, solo voices and instruments, and while we may sing music from all generations, we will always focus on leading the whole congregation to worship. A word on leadership is important here. In many churches, the congregation merely “observes” the real action that takes place up front where “worship leaders”—pastors, choirs, musicians—lead the service, “directing” the congregation in its responses. In the approach to worship we wish to cultivate, the congregation is not directed but led humbly into His presence. “Worship leaders” give way to “lead worshippers” whose face, voice, prayers and even tears expose their own hearts and draw the congregation into the worship of God. The servants will diminish before the eyes of the people so that the Living Word himself will be exalted in our presence.
Theologically Articulate
The gospel is the truth of God. Worship must reflect this; it must be theologically articulate. Whether songs are simple or complex, old or new, they must be Biblically true. Many familiar songs and hymns (old and new), sadly, are not. Many are purely sentimental in their text and artistically sloppy; others are purely individualistic, and thus do not reflect the communal nature of covenant life in Christ. Still others embrace inaccurate understandings of God and his ways. Whether we use ancient lyrics or songs written by our own people, we want our worship to reflect the truth of God revealed in the scriptures.
Four Key Elements of a Vision for Worship at Christ Church
Out of Revelation’s glorious vision for worship as a “thin place” where heaven and earth converge, and out of the values just identified that will shape how the worship team will develop our worship ministry, we are now able to affirm the following 4 key elements that will give shape to the worship of Christ Church.
Missional
Christ Church is on a mission, first and foremost, to be a worshipping community—bringing to the Triune God the praise and adoration which is rightfully and joyfully his. We want the worship services of this church to be so rich, welcoming and beautiful that believers will be encouraged to say, “Now this is what I need, and this is what my non-Christian friends need to hear and experience!” Christians who share their faith with friends must be confident when they bring them to church that believer and unbeliever alike will hear the gospel in a challenging, yet welcoming atmosphere. We want our love to be genuine, our language (including our musical language) to be understandable, and our message to be clear. Missional worship is the most critical event in the ministry of the church.
Indigenous
We want to bring God worship that is rooted in the eternal, and yet is culturally indigenous to this time and place. This means several things. While Biblical integrity in the texts we sing is our guiding principle, we will value a unique blend of music that includes sounds and rhythms from acoustic to classical, from the ancient, transcendent and mysterious to the contemporary Christian, from far away cultures to those of 21st century America, because all these sounds and rhythms pulse through the cultures of Jacksonville and Christ Church. The rich psalms and hymns of the historic Christian church will be cherished as the anchors of our praise, but they will be supplemented by other music, and may be creatively arranged to communicate in the musical language of today and for the church of tomorrow.
Reformed
As Christians we are part of a catholic (i.e. universal) church. We aim to represent the ancient-future communion of the saints through the use of ancient and modern liturgies, and songs and creeds that represent a faith that is world-wide and stretches through all generations. Yet we cherish our unique heritage as Reformed believers, a heritage that grounds us in a deep understanding of the redemptive storyline of Scripture, a gospel marked by grace, an understanding of redemption as cosmic and transformational, and of life as a Kingdom/covenant enterprise. Our worship will reflect this confessional framework.
Excellent
Worship demands excellence. This is true for mission-critical reasons, and because our God deserves the best of our gifts. Applied to worship, a commitment to communal excellence reflects genuine love, honest respect, and a spirit of grace shown to one another and those we seek to bring into our fellowship. A commitment to theological excellence puts God as the focus of our worship, and stands on His Word (rather than felt-needs of people) as that which guides and shapes it. A commitment to musical excellence frees us from slavish obeisance to the style du jour (whether purely traditional or driven by the latest CDs). And a commitment to artistic excellence suggests that our music should be authentic and creative, an offering to the Lord from a whole people that makes use of the many gifted musicians in our church to create our own unique sound, the best we can offer. We believe that such excellence is attractive. We pray that Christ Church will lead the way in creative, God-centered, grace-soaked worship in our city, and that the quality and passion of our worship will draw many to know our God.
