FOCUS ON WORSHIP

When we finally decided to add yet another church to the greater Grand Rapids community one of the things that was weighing heavily on my heart was the subject of corporate worship. I had a passion to see a body of believers joining together in meaningful, participatory, corporate worship. I need to go back a little…

I grew up in a Conservative Baptist church in Southern California. I learned NOTHING about worship in all my years there. The message that came across at that church was that everything that happened before the sermon was the “warm up act.” It was the same every week. I used to joke that I could tell you exactly what time it was by what was happening on the platform. Yes, the congregation sang hymns but they seemed like time-fillers while we waited for the preaching. The rest of the time we watched. We watched the choir sing. We watched the special music. We watched the scripture reading. We watched! Then when the sermon came it felt like, “Heeeeeeeeere’s Bill!”

I’m not blaming anybody for my lack of understanding of worship. I honestly don’t think anybody knew any better. In fact, I went through my studies at Wheaton, Wheaton Grad School, and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and still knew nothing about worship! That’s nobody’s fault but my own!

All I know is that the church is supposed to gather for worship. Whatever we do when we’re together on Sunday morning or Saturday evening or whenever you gather with your congregation is supposed to be worship. In other words, in every part of the service the people should be able to see a connection between what we’re doing and the praise and adoration of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Which brings me to my major complaint about contemporary “worship.” Singing time is not necessarily worship. The best contemporary Christian music bands can be on the platform and it is possible that no worship whatsoever is going on. Before starting Shiloh we attended a Purpose Driven Model megachurch wannabe. The stated goal of the pastor was to have the best praise band in town. He actually said he wanted it to sound like a concert, much to the chagrin of the worship leader who genuinely wanted to do worship!
The band was great. People stood and clapped and listened and applauded. Hardly anybody sang.

So I wanted to make sure that we were going to worship at Shiloh. We have an odd combination of ancient and contemporary worship. The format is rather ancient, whether the Shilohfolks realize it or not. For example, we have a call to worship (often a responsive reading), we say the Apostles’ Creed, we have a prayer time (usually led by me), we say the Lord’s Prayer, we have scripture reading, we have preaching, and we have a formal benediction. Our music is contemporary in style but we maintain a mixture of great hymns. We try our best to create an atmosphere of worship which is rather difficult in an elementary school cafetorium. We have tables at the front with candles and crosses. The people often come forward to receive the Lord’s Supper.

That should give you a little idea of what goes on at Shiloh on Sunday mornings. I really appreciate the emphasis that the emergent types are putting on worship.