Embracing Our Differences in Worship

You might not worship God the same way I do, and that's okay.

The amount of judgment and criticism that has infiltrated the church in regards to worship breaks my heart. All too often, people take a personal preference, or a style issue, and present it as a right or wrong way to worship. They engage in worship one way, and so they think everyone else should, too. And sometimes they assume a person who isn’t worshiping the same way they do must not be truly worshiping at all.

There is an article that has begun circulating around the Internet about worship. At first I wasn’t going to write about this or address it, but worship is so important to me, and I wanted to share this. I wanted to respond to this article because I think it’s important for all of us to understand, this is not a right or wrong thing. It’s a style choice. A personal preference. It does not mean someone who doesn’t share his opinions is worshiping incorrectly, or not truly worshiping at all.

The way a believer worships is as unique as his or her God-given personality, gifts, and life experiences. I am a hand raiser. My husband is not. That doesn’t mean one of us worships more authentically or better than the other. We’re just different. And my own life experiences have changed the way I worship, too. I do not worship God the same way I did before I lost my dad. Why? Because I know Him on a much deeper level than I did before. I understand my utter dependence on Him on a much greater level. That doesn’t mean I didn’t truly worship Him before. It’s just different now.

The debate about hymns vs. contemporary worship songs has been going on for several years. The author of this article makes the case for using hymns in worship services. I want to acknowledge that, if that is how he can best express his heart to God and engage in authentic worship, I applaud him. However, I want to explain why I don’t feel the same way about hymns. And that doesn’t make me wrong, or less of a true worshiper.

Here’s his first claim:

First, hymns have been sung by the giants of the faith who have gone on before us over the last two millennia. When we sing A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, we join with Martin Luther who wrote it, and with Calvin and Spurgeon and Edwards who invariably sang and cherished it. When we sing It Is Well With My Soul we are encouraged by the faith of Horatio Spafford who wrote the hymn in the wake of the tragic death of his four daughters. And while many contemporary songs have certainly been written by wonderful brothers and sisters in Christ who have surely endured trials, the fact that we can join with generations past and be reminded that the Church is vastly larger than our local congregation, farther reaching than our town or state or country, and much, much older than the oldest saint living today is something we should not take lightly.

I understand the idea of respecting and appreciating our heritage. However, I believe God can and does use people today just as much as he did in days gone by. And I do believe I can respect and appreciate my Christian heritage while still singing contemporary songs, in the same way that I do when I use the English Standard Version of my Bible instead of the King James Version.

I do not base my worship on who wrote the song I’m singing or how many people have sung it before. I do not base my worship on other people at all. My worship is 100% an act of expressing my heart to God. For me, that means complete transparency and authenticity with God. If I wouldn’t use a certain type of language in my prayer life, why would I use it to worship through song? In most cases, the language used in hymns that were written centuries ago creates a feeling of disconnect for me. It doesn’t reflect who I am or how I naturally express my heart to God. For that reason, it makes it difficult for me to fully engage in worship when I’m singing a hymn. There are some exceptions to this, but on the whole, that is the reality for me.

Here’s his second claim:  

Second, the content of hymns is almost always vastly more theologically rich. When I say rich, I don’t necessarily mean every hymn recounts the Gospel in its entirety, or that all hymns clearly teach the Five Points of Calvinism. Rather, the theology in the hymns is typically more sound or healthy than much of contemporary worship music. As I said earlier, contemporary songs engage our emotions more often, where the hymns engage our hearts by way of the mind.

First of all, what authorizes him to make the claim that hymns are more theologically rich at all, let alone with the adjective “vastly” thrown in there? Where is his evidence to support that claim?

He uses one comparison as an example. Here’s what he says:

By way of example, one of the top ten contemporary songs being sung in American evangelical churches right now is called One Thing Remains. While there is nothing in the song particularly bad (in fact, much of it is pretty good), it seems to me that the purpose of the song is to work the listeners into an emotional state. The chorus is:

“Your love never fails / It never gives up / Never runs out on me / Your love never fails / It never gives up / Never runs out on me / Your love never fails / It never gives up / Never runs out on me / Your love / Your love / Your love.”

With the repetition of a simple lyric like that, it isn’t a stretch to say that the composers’ goal was not to engage the listeners mind.

Whereas Augustus Toplady’s hymn Rock of Ages is doctrinally sound, it also is a very moving song of our dependance upon Christ our Rock:

“Rock of Ages cleft for me / Let me hide myself in Thee / Let the water and the blood / From Thy wounded side which flowed / Be of sin the double cure / Save from wrath and make me pure.”

Actually, the chorus of “One Thing Remains” is pretty incredible, in my opinion. And it absolutely engages my mind. No matter how many times I have failed God, questioned Him, or doubted His goodness, His love has never failed me. He has never given up on me, thrown up His hands and said, “That’s it, I’m out of here. You’re on your own.” His love is a persistent love, patient through all my human struggles and failures, welcoming me back time and time again. Simple lyric, yes, but powerful truth! And repeating it only makes me think about it more, and allows its truth to penetrate my heart and mind. You better believe that’s a truth worth singing about!

And there are so many songs written in the past few decades that have wonderful, inspiring, and even theologically deep lyrics! “In Christ Alone.” “10,000 Reasons.” “Indescribable.” “Everlasting God.” “Our God.” “Praise the Father, Praise the Son.” “Reign in Us.” “Glory to God Forever.” “Son of God.” I could go on, but you get my point. If you’re not familiar with these songs, I encourage you to look up the lyrics. They contain great Biblical truths.

I won’t discredit the merit of the hymn he references, other than to reiterate the disconnectedness its language creates for me. I just want to acknowledge that there is merit in the contemporary song as well. And I personally feel the author of this article has no right to judge the composer’s motive in writing this lyric, or a worship leader’s motive when he or she chooses this song as part of the worship set.

And while we’re on the subject of comparison, let’s look at these two songs.

Here is a line from the old hymn, “His Eye is on the Sparrow,” a hymn I often sang with our congregation as a youngster: “I sing because I’m happy / I sing because I’m free / for His eye is on the sparrow / and I know He watches me.” I can’t sing this song anymore, because I completely disagree with the line, “I sing because I’m happy.” Let me tell you why.

After my dad died, I went through a period of time when I wrestled with God. I had doubts and questions and fears I had never had before. And I let Satan take my song away. I had sung in church from the moment I could talk. I had led worship for years. And suddenly I didn’t want to sing anymore.

Then, one day, standing in my kitchen, God put this song in my heart: “The sun comes up, it’s a new day dawning / It’s time to sing Your song again / Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me / Let me be singing when the evening comes.” And I realized that does not mean, “Lord, please let only good things happen to me today so at the end of the day I’ll still feel like singing.” It means that, no matter what happens to me today, I will choose to sing and worship my Savior. I don’t sing because I’m  happy. I sing because He is worthy and He is good. He did not expect me to be happy when I had just lost my dad. But He did want me to choose to worship Him. And He used a contemporary song, not a hymn, to teach me that truth.

I suppose what bothers me the most about this article is this plea at the end:  “So I make this plea to my fellow ministers, do not neglect these milestones from ages past. In fact, I would make the case for the abandonment of most contemporary songs. If you choose a song for congregational worship based on its content (say you have chosen a contemporary song because of its focus on the Cross), do the hard work of finding a hymn that more than likely addresses the same topic or doctrine in a much deeper way.”

I fully agree that we should not abandon hymns, because they do help some people to engage in worship on a real and deep level. Some people. And that’s why I want to cry out in protest against the rest of his plea. Just as we should not abandon hymns of the past, please, do not abandon most contemporary songs. That would be such a devastating loss to me and others like me in the church, who do find contemporary songs help us fully engage in worship, and who struggle to express our hearts to God through the words of hymns that simply don’t resonate with us.

I feel a little bit like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., when he gave his “I Have a Dream” speech. Diversity in worship is a wonderful thing. God created us all so uniquely and beautifully different. That pleases Him. Rather than telling other people they should worship the same way we do, let’s embrace our differences. Let’s incorporate and learn to appreciate different worship styles. And let’s acknowledge that personal preferences are simply that: personal preferences, not right or wrong.

If I Really Loved Them

I had a conversation with my 14-year-old the other day about the reality that sometimes things don't go the way we think they should in this life. Sometimes God closes doors we desperately wanted Him to open for us, because He knows there's another door just down the hall that leads to something far more wonderful, and that's the door He wants to open for us. "When that happens," I said, "ask yourself what God is trying to teach you."

The thing is, when you say something like that to your kid, you have to do it yourself. Because your children are shaped more by the way they see you live your life than by your words. Oh, the words are good, for sure, but only if they're backed up by action.

Over the past few weeks I have felt like I am under attack. Like Satan is coming at me with arrow after arrow. My Shield of Faith is seeing a lot of action on the battle lines right now. In my previous post, I shared about mom's recent diagnosis of Frontotemporal Dementia with ALS. It's difficult to watch her struggle, not only physically, but emotionally as the disease progresses. At the same time, my husband had to deal with a large kidney stone that took a two-day hospital stay, a surgical procedure, and two separate occasions of shock-wave lithotripsy to break the stone up into small enough pieces that he could pass them. I came down with a cold and fever that kept me from going with him to the second procedure. And then our son got the stomach flu. Not a big deal to some people, but stomach bugs freak me out. And in light of everything else that's been going on, it was an arrow that almost got through my shield.

Almost.

I have begun the practice of speaking out loud, "Satan does not win" when these things happen. I do this because of the example of Christ in Matthew 16:23, where he said, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns." The power of the Holy Spirit in me gives me the authority to rebuke Satan when he attacks. And it's a good reminder to me that Satan only wins if I let him. What's more, he does not know the heart and mind of God. He would love nothing more than to distract me from the concerns of God by getting me to focus solely on human concerns. How awesome to not only extinguish the arrows of the enemy with my shield of faith, but also to allow God to use those very arrows in my life to accomplish His purpose and bring glory to Him!

So as I prayed, "Lord, it's so hard to watch the people I love suffer," I had to be open to what He wants to teach me through all of this. And He responded with this question: "Why just them?"

Why does it grieve me to watch my mom suffer the effects of dementia and ALS, but I am relatively unconcerned for the people in Africa who are losing their loved ones to Ebola every day? Why does seeing my husband in physical distress make me so distraught, but I have become almost numb to the distress I see on the Nightly News? Why would I do anything in my power to make my son well, but I drive right past the homeless man on the corner begging for a little bit of food? More importantly, why am I not more burdened for souls that are lost, bound to spend eternity separated from God?

Oh, sure, I feel sorry for those people. But that's not the same thing. It's not enough.

If I really loved them, the way Christ wants me to love them, my heart would be broken by their suffering. I would grieve over their lost souls.

I'm sure this isn't the only lesson God has for me through all of this, but it's a big one. I want my heart to be broken over the things that break His heart. I want to love the people around me enough to care, truly and deeply, when they hurt. I want to care not just about human concerns, but about the concerns of God. And I want it to motivate me to do something - anything - to help.