I haven't posted anything in a while, so I thought I would post this little nugget for all two of you who read this blog. It's a long one, but easy to read:
The Loving Church With the question of relevance looming in the church, the question that stands is this: Is the worship service for reaching the seeker or feeding the believer? Worship is centered on Christians seeking their God with loving hearts, but Worship Evangelism can show the irreligious Christ’s love through the religious congregations actions, helping them understand and grow to know this God that they are seeing worshipped. Does the church have to cater their worship service solely to reach out with love to the seeker? Maybe instead they try to “keep it real” for the believers and not water down their traditions with a quick fix, or even try not to limit the service to the church building and extend worship outside the walls of the service. Looking at these three thoughts, enables a deeper exploration into the actions behind worship evangelism and who it is accommodating in the act of praising God.
“I can do all things through Christ who gives strength.” Here is an example of a Christian crutch of scripture which has helped Christians throughout history when dealing with the hard subjects of life. Christians believe this scripture to their Christian cores and give it away freely to each other as advice and an easy answer, but when it comes to the chance that they may offend the seeker by the way they are worshipping, they suddenly forget this verse. Christians have come to believe that God can speak to people through a donkey and a burning bush but cannot speak through their worship practices, and instead opt to show God’s love with consideration toward the seeker by not making them uncomfortable. In doing so, the church has set limitations on God and the way He can move in people’s lives and have forgotten that the measure of a true worshiper is not the length of historical tradition or the height of his hands above his head, but instead the depths of the love in his heart for the father.
If Christians truly believe that God can do anything, including move mountains, then it is time for them to take God out of the box. Christians have limited God in worship and thus returned to the thought of worshipping catering to them rather than God. Sally Morganthal reminds the church, in her book Worship Evangelism, that Christians should worship to witness because worship is witness, and that seekers can be changed through authentic corporate worship; therefore, the church does not have to water down the service in order to help seekers meet God. Instead, Christians need to extend God’s grace, because God does not want seekers to just see worship but He longs for them to become worshippers. When Christians come to worship, they acknowledge God’s presence, but must remember they do not come from “outside” where they live to “inside” where God lives, for God’s presence reaches beyond the walls of the church building.
The goal of Worship Evangelism isn’t exclusive worship services for believers only; it is a cry against attracting people with weakened worship, and instead building faith in the attendants through worship - it is a call for the church to be a church for the world’s sake; not entertaining or superficial but proclaiming the splendor of God, not the church’s feelings about Him. This is the chance to introduce the seeker to Christendom by teaching the language, habits and grammar of the church’s worship which requires faithfulness and reliance on God, rather than a dependence on the spectacle of the service. Worship is the work of believers; it is intriguing, even magnetic, to those who do not yet claim Jesus as Lord.
Christians need to remember that worship is an act for God done by the people and this is what they should focus on. There was the idea earlier about the thought of a God without limits but a common misnomer of the church is that they have limited their worship within the walls of the church. What about what Paul spoke about in the beginning of this paper in Romans 12:1 - offering ourselves as living sacrifices? Evangelism should be the work of all the people of the church, not the worship service; therefore, how will people know the Christian God if the church confines itself to the building without becoming proactive in society and sharing the love that Christ has for all his children?
Worship is thought to be for the spiritually hungry – people who are starving for truth. If the seeker has come to the church building seeking truth, then what right does the church have to deny them what they are looking for? Worshiping God without limitations places the congregation of worshippers on the same level – they are all at the foot of the cross together and none can boast of anything. By being on the same level, the seeker is able to learn from the example of the mature worshipper, and what God looks like in a Christian light.
The mega church has embraced this idea of worshipping on the same level, believer and non believer side by side, but in the process they have traded their theology for ideology. While attempting to be relevant to popular culture, the mega church has dropped the idea they still need to be counter cultural or as Marva Dawn had labeled it – alternative yet parallel to contemporary culture. Worship that entertains an audience instead of praising God is certainly contrary to this substantive purpose. Christians are called to be a body of people sent on a mission to speak into the culture, but in the process the contemporary church has adapted to it. With this loss of identity within the church through seeker services, not only is the church theology and doctrine weakened, but also the participant. By gaining identity, the Christian believer is able to share their faith more lovingly and boldly.
Most Christians do not share their faith because they feel that they are not skilled enough, they don’t have Christian friends, and they have been given a bad name by the sleazy preachers on TV. With these common excuses, among many, not to share our faith it is a wonder that Christians are called evangelists in the first place. Marva Dawn suggests that these excuses bring up the thought that “maybe we are religious consumers ourselves” – maybe Christians do not understand worship evangelism themselves. If a selfish, consumer filled church is all that the world sees, how will true Worship Evangelism ever happen? A better question to Worship Evangelism is this: If the “loving church” closed its doors and became a mini mall instead, would the world that once surrounded this church ever notice?
