Although I couldn't carry a tune even if it had handles with my voice, music has always been very special to me. There's not a moment that I don't have it playing-driving, doing homework, walking around campus, you name it. Whenever there's an empty gap of silence in my life, I fill it anyway I can with music. It's how I understand other people and how other people understand me. Society has taught me that music is for us. However, after reading St. Augustine's take on specifically making music to God, I realize just how much of a snare it is singing in church with an attitude like this. There's a fine line that needs to be drawn when it reaches this point-we aren't singing along for our entertainment, like all the other secular songs we sing during car rides or girls' nights. Rather, we are singing along for God's entertainment. Worshipping in church or anywhere else to God was never about us. This isn't to say that we can't find solace in these songs or go to them to raise our spirits, we just can't make them all about us or come away disappointed to find that worship "didn't have any effect on us." Worship has always been meant for God, because He is the only One perfect enough to warrant praise. The positive changes and feelings it does inside of us just comes along with it as a bonus, but somehow we've got the false imitation that we sit at the altar, cry our lungs out, and expect Him to place something in our hands and that if we don't get that perfect affirmation we need then worship that Sunday just wasn't successful. No, worship is our sacrifice to God. Whether He feels a mile away from you or right next to you, worship Him still. Because in that moment, it's not about how you feel; it's about who He is! Dr. Soong-San Rah states something similar in his book The New Evangelicalism. He writes, "While there are times we should express our personal adoration of God, should the subject of the majority of our songs be the great I rather than the 'great I Am'? Worship, which should be the ascribing of worth to an Almighty God, can become an exercise of attaining self-fulfillment."
I commented on posts by Caroline and Brooke.
I have never thought of worshipping as a sacrifice, but after reading this blog, I have to feel somewhat ashamed for being so naive. Anything that is brought to God from this world is a sacrifice, and we just forget that sacrifices should not be taken lightly.
ReplyDeleteI really liked your point about that worship is not about us. Worship is a relationship between God and ourselves. We should come second to God in our worship and listen to Him.
ReplyDeleteYou made the point that worship music is meant for God, not for our entertainment, which I also discussed in my post. Worship is absolutely to and for God. The purpose is to praise and glorify Him, not ourselves, yet in many worship services selfishness and passiveness have the throne. The worship team make it about themselves, and the church people are checking a task off of their to do list. It seems as though no one truly enters a time of worship, and it is damaging to the Church as a whole.
ReplyDelete