Bored of Lesser Worship

Sunday night, a small group gathered at our home for a non-traditional celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus. We sat around, talking mostly, making s'mores on the firepit, and briefly reading from John about Jesus' Easter evening appearance at the disciples home.

Jeremy and Angie had come to town to visit family, and they dropped in to join us. Jeremy had led worship for the Gate on a prior occasion, and I value his input on worship. So, I was a little surprised by our conversation regarding worship.

He made the comment that he thought modern worship was lacking something. That despite our increasingly skilled worship leaders, the advances were all in music. He wondered what happened to old stuff. Stuff like New Testament Church stuff. Like prayers for certain times of day. Like old, dare I say 'rituals,' that marked the young believers of Paul and Peter's day.

I have often thought about something similar- how if you are a music person, now is an awesome time for you to worship. Boundaries of what worship music is are being pushed creatively, old songs are given new life with roaring guitars and synthesized electronica. We don't do creeds, we don't do poetry, we don't do art. We don't pray during our services, except to open, close, or fill a gap in the music.

I love the current age of worship music, but Jeremy's comments made me realize something: I was growing bored with lesser worship.

The Gate struggles with this as well. We have music and message. We do try different things with the taking of Communion, and we have devoted times occassionally to solely praying. But we often find ourselves subtly aware of a rut forming around us.

I think there are a lot of people who feel the same way. Church is boring, not because it is not entertaining, but because it is not challenging. We fear boring people, so there is no 'dead air.' Art is not for everyone, so it is not used in worship outside the backgrounds on the screen- and artists feel left out. We don't teach people that the 'mundane' things we do are acts of worship, and tithing is a lost act.

We need to re-invigorate worship. One area we have tried to do this is in the area of the tithe, or offering.

"Churches always ask for money." This cliche rings true because no one- church leaders included- seems to understand that giving money is an act of worship. It is an act of saying we trust God to provide for us when we give. It is worship in that we are sacrificing. It is an act of worship in that we are distinguishing that the Lord is our god, not money. It is an act of worship that we are learing to have a giving heart, preparing us to be giving with each other.

We don't pass a plate, by the way. We have a beer mug at the back of the meeting area. We've resisted the urge to label it "Tips for Jesus." This isn't it, but you get the idea:

There is also worship for us in that the mug is a message in itself. Fill the mug with beer repeatedy and you get an ignoble purpose. Fill it with Jaegermeister and, well that goes beyond ignoble. But when this mug, for many an image of something less than holy, is used for collecting the offering, it is redeemed. We too, are often used for things less than holy, yet when filled with the Holy Spirit, we are redeemed- we are made worthy of God.

I'm going to paraphrase Jeremy here (OK put words in his mouth) but I think he would say that part of what is missing in today's worship is that much of it has lost deeper meaning. Time was that everything done in worship was a symbol, it pointed to something deeper. Our church forefathers were reminded by every thing they saw, every action they took part in, of something greater. Things were not done to fill the time alotted, they were done to remember Christ. Because of this, they never grew bored of lesser worship.

They were filled with Worship of the Greater.