Worship and the Presence of God [2]

In the first article on this series I asked the question whether we should stop describing the worship leader’s role as “leading people into the presence of God”, suggesting an alternative:

The worship leader’s role becomes about helping our congregations become ever more aware of His already-there-nearness, ever more aware of the already-completed-work of Jesus, and to encourage an ever deeper sense of surrender to the Spirit’s moving.

In this post, I want to walk around this subject again, offer a few more thoughts, and ask a whole lot more questions.

My first question is this: why is there so little in the New Testament that specifically links together worship practice (liturgy, or gatherings or the like) and the Spirit?

As NT Wright says,

There are obvious exceptions, such as 1 Corinthians 14. But when we look at the great references to worship, or the great examples of worship, such as the hymns in Revelation 4 and 5 or the poems in Philippians 2 or Colossians 1, the Spirit seems conspicuously absent. (Worship and the Spirit in the NT)

This is challenging. Especially for those of us who would describe ourselves as ‘charismatic’, where the worship culture emphasises ‘encounter’ with the Spirit as the prime motivation, or purpose, or destination of worship gatherings. (For example, Bethel say that they judge the success of their worship services by “whether God is there or not”).

Of course, in the OT, a journey towards the Temple was literally a journey towards a place of encounter. Yet in the New Testament the believer is the New Temple (1 Cor 3:16). As Glen Packiam said recently, “The Holy Spirit is not a destination, but a companion.”

In the New Testament, this particular destination is here already.

So in many ways the New Testament is best understood as a commentary on life ‘with the Spirit’, or even ‘in the Spirit’ whereby every activity of the people of God in the New Testament is presented as an activity born and empowered by the Spirit, evidenced by the Spirit’s presence, a response to the Spirit’s leading, an engagement with the Spirit’s movement. Including ‘worship’.

So to say to a New Testament believer that you are going to church (in a house, temple, room…wherever) to encounter God in worship is not in itself wrong, but gives the impression that ‘encounter’ is a ‘gathered worship’ thing, or even more narrowly a ‘singing thing’ rather than an ‘every-day life’ thing. So maybe we shouldn’t say that we are going to church for an encounter with God in worship. Maybe we should be saying that we are going with the Spirit to church to sing.

Maybe this is part of the challenge we face in the contemporary charismatic church. It is not that the language of encounter in worship is particularly wrong, but that it is expressed, anticipated, and profiled in a way that encounter with God in the everyday things of life — caring for the poor or the widow — is not.

Is there anyone else out there who has had the most amazing awareness of the presence of Jesus in some of the most broken places, amongst some of the poorest people in the world, with people who may never have even heard of His name let alone sung a worship song?

When I went to Uganda a couple of years ago, we drove on a road that had one of the largest slum communities on the left hand side. On the right had side we passed a tent that had been set up as a ‘church’ that was blasting out loud worship music as the (sparse) worshippers sang their songs. I was told that the slum dwellers were not allowed in the church because they smelt too bad.

As we turned left and started to wander amongst some of the poorest people in the world, Jesus met me. It was shocking and surprising. I am so wanting to not be judgmental about that ‘tent’ church, especially as I write this in my warm kitchen with dinner in the oven. But this did make me think afresh about what we mean to say we ‘encounter’ God in sung worship.

Is gathered worship REALLY the main, almost exclusive place of encounter that much of our worship culture seems to point towards?

Have we over-sacramentalised our gathered worship to the point it is in danger of becoming idolised?

And is this even somehow contributing to a culture of consumerism in worship gatherings?

I now wonder whether its better to think about the ‘thing’ that happens in our gatherings — that we all love and want more of — not so much the time when the Spirit gets caught up in our ‘worship’, but the time when in ‘worship’ we get caught up in and with the Spirit. We put up the sails and catch the Spirit’s breath.

So it is less ‘Waiting here for you with our hands lifted high in praise’, and it is more ‘Open the eyes of our heart, we want to see you high and lifted up’.

This Sunday someone came up to us after ‘worship’ and said something like “I know God is meant to be with us all the time, but sometimes in ‘worship’ we are all the more aware that He is”.

*Punches the air with delight*

Yet of course, to be aware of the Spirit is only part of the story. It seems perfectly possible to be aware of the Spirit, and yet not surrendered to the Spirit.

It’s a gift to be able to gather to worship; a gift to have our sensitivity to the presence of Jesus heightened in a way that helps us be aware of his presence in every moment of every day. Yet that awareness has to lead to surrender.

Just as the rich man met Jesus, and was challenged to follow him, yet turned in the opposite direction, so to us, the challenge is to be ever more aware of the Spirit, and then surrendered to the Spirit’s activity in our lives every moment. It’s not enough to be aware, or even see and know. We have to surrender and follow.

And to be surrendered to the Spirit in our lives is to engage in the ministry of that same Spirit. But that’s for another time.