Thursday, May 05, 2011
The Worship Wars Continue
Ed Stetzer has a guest respond to the guest we looked at yesterday:
Secondly, this is relativism dressed up in church clothes. The objections raised yesterday were not about music choice, they were about life choice and therein lies the problem - the line between the two. It would be longer than a blog post to try to define that line, but there are two points that I think are worth making.
God seeks to stretch us beyond our comfort zone. Worship should be uncomfortable, becasue it is asking us to look into the face of GOD - if that feels comfortable then we are not doing it. Think about that for a minute. If you think you will feel safe and warm and fuzzy walking into the presence of God, then there is something miserably awry with you concept of self and/or God. Knowing God will not condemn you for your sins is a very different thing than feeling safe in God's presence.
Secondly, evangelism is not worship. Let me repeat that - other than in the sense that to obey God is worship, evangelism is not worship. Evangelism is something an unbeliever does with a believer. Worship is something a believer does with God. The instant we make our focus of worship the unbeliever is the minute we transform worship into evangelism. Without the genuine worship of the believer there can be no evangelism for it is only in the maturity bread of genuine worship that we can become strong enough to do genuine evangelism. Should the church be evangelistic - absolutely, but that is not worship.
Worship is autochthonous, by which I mean it is native to the worshiper(s). In other words, people worship in a certain way because of who they are, where they are, what they've experienced, etc... Worship is simply our individual and/or collective response to God's initiating work in our lives. God acts. We respond - always in that order.Firsdt of all, as I said yesterday - worship does not have a style, worship is a style a lifestyle.
Secondly, this is relativism dressed up in church clothes. The objections raised yesterday were not about music choice, they were about life choice and therein lies the problem - the line between the two. It would be longer than a blog post to try to define that line, but there are two points that I think are worth making.
God seeks to stretch us beyond our comfort zone. Worship should be uncomfortable, becasue it is asking us to look into the face of GOD - if that feels comfortable then we are not doing it. Think about that for a minute. If you think you will feel safe and warm and fuzzy walking into the presence of God, then there is something miserably awry with you concept of self and/or God. Knowing God will not condemn you for your sins is a very different thing than feeling safe in God's presence.
Secondly, evangelism is not worship. Let me repeat that - other than in the sense that to obey God is worship, evangelism is not worship. Evangelism is something an unbeliever does with a believer. Worship is something a believer does with God. The instant we make our focus of worship the unbeliever is the minute we transform worship into evangelism. Without the genuine worship of the believer there can be no evangelism for it is only in the maturity bread of genuine worship that we can become strong enough to do genuine evangelism. Should the church be evangelistic - absolutely, but that is not worship.
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