Doing Worship

Here’s an interesting one. Perhaps it is time we started to look at the Hebraic way of worshipping God. Perhaps we haven’t thought big enough when we think of our BIG God. Knowing that He values every part of us, body, mind and spirit, perhaps we should be worshipping Him, body, mind and spirit. It’s time to think new, to think big. It’s time to explain. Just imagine the following …

Posters adorn shop fronts, leaflets thrust into unsuspecting hands. A new Christian worship centre is opening up in town. Groans give way to piqued interest as the text of the leaflets doesn’t follow the usual script.

Come along to NewTown Church and worship God in new ways. Something for everyone and everything for the glory of God. Music, dance, arts & crafts, drama, discussions, writing and poetry classes, Hebrew lessons. Open all hours.

Is worship all about nice songs, ancient and modern? Worship is about all we can give back to God. Worship is about dance, particularly within the framework of modest dress and behaviour. Worship is about study of God’s word, either individually or in discussion and argument. Worship is about the creative arts, writing and performing drama, poetry, prose, pottery or papier mache. Worship is the exercise of all the gifts and talents that God has given you, given back to Him, to bless Him and others. Do we really need specialists to lead us into God’s presence? Surely there must be room for a model that involves ALL of God’s people, exercising their gifts and talents in a nurturing communal atmosphere, blessing each other and blessing God in the process. Isn’t this worship, too? It’s worth thinking about, isn’t it?

These days most Christian initiatives for worship, prayer and celebrating our faith are big corporate events, the bigger the better. Through radio, TV and the Web, the whole world can watch major events, beamed out from packed stadia and conference centres, but are now multiplied in coverage through cable, wireless and the airwaves. Global Day of Prayer, The Call, world conferences, crusades and rallies for teens, women, men, Pentecostals and whatever. Big, big, BIG! Everything has to be global, world-reaching, mega-this and mega-that and I ask the simple question, Why?

The world creates ever taller buildings, ever faster cars, ever more powerful computers. It’s the Tower of Babel revisited! Every year a whole swathe of world records are broken by athletes, sometimes even without drugs. Does the 21st Century Christian Church need to take on these strivings and ideals? Does it need to have maximum coverage for everything it does? Do we need to be saying our religion is bigger than yours, taller than yours?

We have the truth, we know that. Sometimes we need to shout it from the hilltops, sometimes the Great Commission impels us to think big and act bigger. But is this the best way? Just because the World does it, should the Church? Just because we now have broadcast delivery systems that can beam sound and pictures into your TV from anywhere in the world, does it mean that we have to broadcast everything that is happening in our Christian subculture? Is this God’s way, is this how Jesus did it? If Jesus had a Sony NEX-FS700 camcorder and a portable TV broadcast system would the feeding of the 5,000 have cured world famine? Would the Sermon on the Mount have brought about world peace? Can the “anointing” be digitised and transmitted electronically? Can we truly be healed by touching our TV sets?

Or does God work best as that still, small voice, away from the noise and the clamour, in the privacy of your own space, with fellow Christian sojourners, in your home or in small groups. This is the Hebraic way and I believe this is still the best way for the Church to move forwards. It may take longer, but then look at revivals from the past to see how swiftly and effectively whole nations were turned round just by a small group of people powerfully used by God, using just the power of individual voices, carried from place to place by foot or horseback.

Steve Maltz
April 2013

(This is an abridged extract from Steve’s book How the Church Lost the Way: And How it Can Find it Again)