What's the Best Form of Worship?

This is a follow-up piece to my last essay, which encouraged Christians to give grace to one another in the context of worship. In that essay, I argued that different forms of worship will appeal to different people, and we ought not to judge one another's preferences in that regard. Pretty straightforward, I think, but one of those good reminders that we all need from time to time.

It occurred to me, though, that a skeptic might object, "But what if there's a form of worship that is intrinsically better than others?--a form of worship which, regardless of personal preferences, ought to be held higher on its own merits?"

It's not an unfair question, though I think it's probably still just a way for people to argue for the rightness of their own whims. Those who argue that their form of worship is intrinsically better than others are not unified in a single opinion--rather, those from liturgical traditions argue for liturgical worship, those from evangelical traditions argue for evangelical worship, and those from pentecostal traditions argue for pentecostal worship. Everyone is pretty good at seeing the merits of their own form of worship and the weaknesses of the others.

Given the nature of my last essay, readers might expect me to take a fairly broad and permissive line on this question: just let everyone worship how they want to worship, so long as it finds support in the doctrine and traditions of scripture. My position is actually a little more assertive than that, though: I think churches should be giving their people opportunities to participate in all of the main forms of Christian worship. This isn't just an argument to pick the one you like and let others pick the one they like--this is an argument that we should be immersing ourselves in the whole vast and varied array of Christian worship. 

This is the line taken by the Convergence Movement, a late-twentieth century outgrowth of both the Charismatic renewal and various liturgical movements, as they interacted with one another and the broader evangelical tradition. Much of it relies on the work of Robert Webber (whom I heard in person when I was in college), who wrote about the Christianity of the twenty-first century as the "ancient-future faith." And while the Convergence Movement has inspired a few truly wacky spinoffs--new denominations that seem more like the old heresy of Montanism than anything else--most of its outgrowth has been orthodox, vibrant, and deeply committed to both the riches of church tradition and the freshness of the Spirit's present work. 

The underlying premise of Convergence strikes me as just about right: it identifies three major "streams" that have always been a part of the church's experience, but which certain movements and periods in church history have highlighted over the others. The three streams are (1) liturgical (or sacramental), (2) evangelical, and (3) pentecostal (or charismatic). The first stream focuses on the reverent prayer-life of the ancient Christian church and the richness of the physical symbology of worship; the second focuses on grounding the church in the teaching of the Word of God; and the third focuses on moving in step with the Spirit's work in the church. The argument is that each stream represents an authentic and powerful way that God works in his church, and that instead of insisting on one's merits over the others, we ought to be seeking the interconnected strengths of all of them. A good exposition of this view can be found in Gordon T. Smith's recent book, Evangelical, Sacramental, and Pentecostal: Why the Church Should Be All Three.

I want to add a supporting piece to that argument here, by rooting it in the theological vision of the offices of Christ, who is the head of his church. It strikes me that each of the three streams is aligned toward one of the offices of Christ, as traditionally identified: prophet, priest, and king. 

Liturgical and sacramental worship is ordered toward Christ's office as the Great High Priest, leading the eternal liturgy in the heavenly tabernacle. Liturgical worship envisions itself as joining in the heavenly worship and participating in the eternal self-offering of the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ, who is both the offerer and the offered. Liturgical/sacramental worship is really good at fostering a sense of reverence and awe in worship, and of forging connections to the church through the ages, all the way back to the temple-worship of God's people in the Old Testament.

Evangelical worship, meanwhile, strikes me as being ordered toward Christ's office as king: it gives foremost attention to learning the will of the Lord by studying his commandments and faithfully, obediently applying that will to our lives. Like good citizens of any kingdom, evangelical worship takes seriously both the knowledge and the actions necessary to live out our identity as the King's own men and women. Evangelical worship is really good at promoting robust doctrine and clear-eyed theology, keeping the apostolic witness of the New Testament foremost in the mind of the church, and it produces a calm and concerted passion for seeing God's will done in the world. 

Pentecostal worship is ordered toward Christ's role as prophet, the ultimate fulfillment of the office given by God to his people throughout the biblical period. A prophet was one on whom the Spirit of the Lord came, to speak the word of the Lord directly into the present circumstances of the people of God. One of the great expectations of the Messiah was that he would be the one who would pour out the Spirit not only on a handful of selected prophets, but on all flesh. Part of Jesus's Messianic reign in heaven is the impartation of the Spirit in just this way (see John 16:7-14; Acts 2:16-18). Pentecostal worship is full of vibrancy and laden with emotion, to the point where it pushes people out of their comfort zones--and that's also exactly what the ministry of the prophets did in the Old Testament. Pentecostal worship is good at harnessing the emotions of God's people, giving expression to their joy and their hope, and it continually keeps an attentive ear to what the Spirit is saying to the churches, not just in the biblical past, but in the present moment as well. 

Now, most people are going to feel more at home in one of these three traditions, and not in all of them. Again, that just goes back to how we're wired differently, as I argued in my last piece. But even if we have a dominant preference, I think it may be important for us to keep dipping our toes in the other two streams as well. Each tradition also comes with its own weaknesses, after all--evangelical and pentecostal worship, for example, are just not as good as liturgical worship at fostering an atmosphere of reverence and awe at the holy mystery of the presence of God. Pentecostal worship gives such free rein to the emotions that it can be helpful if the more mind-oriented strengths of the evangelical tradition, rooted in scriptural doctrine, tempers it and ensures it doesn't go astray. Other examples abound. The strengths complement each other, and cover for each other's weaknesses: "A cord of three strands cannot be easily broken" (Eccl. 4:12).

This week, my church--whose dominant form of worship is evangelical--will be participating in a multi-church night of praise, where the free-flowing and emotive elements of the pentecostal stream will be in evidence, and we're also launching an optional liturgical service for any who want to experience it. I'm really excited about all of these: each service represents the strengths of these three great streams of the Christian tradition. (As a final aside, it might be worth mentioning that there's a corollary question in all this, too--is it better to "blend" all three forms of worship into a single service, as some Convergence churches try to do, or to offer separate services that highlight the strengths of each? I'm not sure about this yet, but I think there's merit to keeping them in separate services most of the time, if only to highlight the power of their distinctives, which would likely get watered down if fused.) The bottom line is this: our Messiah is prophet, priest, and king, and the history of the church has given us three grand streams of worship which align with the identities and offices of the Master. Let's make use of them.

Common-Sense Skills for Becoming Uncommon Christians

I'm in a season of my life where I'm reflecting a lot on the nature of worship and the church. In addition to my pastoral ministry in my Baptist church, where God's blessing is everywhere evident, I've also been cultivating personal contacts with other parts of the orthodox, confessing Church, from an Anglican "convergence" communion scattered across the world to an old Benedictine monastery set high in the hills of western Pennsylvania. Beyond the global church, the idea of worship has been on my mind, too--I'm in the final stages of writing a book on the topic--specifically, about the story of a time when God used a new worship movement to help launch a world-changing wave of global mission. I'm also preparing to offer my Baptist congregation something a little startling (at least, startling for a Baptist church)--an optional service at which they can enter the ancient Christian tradition of high-church liturgy. Trying something like that could get a pastor fired in some parts of American evangelicalism, but I have an understanding bunch. 

But as I navigate these issues of worship styles and denominational particularities, I very often come up against something that always startles me a little: the widespread inability, among many otherwise mature believers, to distinguish between matters of their own personal preference and matters of divine appointment. That is to say, when it comes to issues of what constitutes the best or most appropriate form of worship, or to issues of "disputable matters" in denominational distinctives, many people, if not most, have a reflexive tendency to think that their own tastes and experiences amount to a divine fiat. It's not hard to see why--one might say, for instance, "I've experienced God working so powerfully in such-and-such a way in my life, so I know that this is how God works, and I want everyone else to experience it too!" In the cases I'm thinking of, there's nothing selfish or petty in this; it's usually quite thoughtful and well-meaning. But it misses something rather important, something that seems so obvious to me that it doesn't really seem worth stating. But I've run into this a number of times, so I guess I'll say it.

Every disciple of the Lord is different.

And that means that the ways in which the Lord meets and guides and grows each disciple are going to look a little different, too.

Maybe you're a Christian with a deep-rooted love for the Lord, who has found unspeakable peace in a quiet and stately form of worship. Just to breathe the air of an old church, to stand in reverential wonder with the people of God and sing the old hymns, to hear the precious words of Scripture spoken--it draws you deep into God's presence every time. But there's this other Christian a few pews over who can't seem to be quiet or keep their hands from gesticulating wildly in the air, whose manner just seems to suck attention in their direction, rather than cultivating the awesome, peaceful contemplation of God's glory, with attention directed to Him and Him alone. Don't they know, as the Bible says, that God is not a God of disorder, but of order? What's wrong with a person like that? It's a little hard to take, isn't it?

Or maybe you're a Christian whose heart is running over with the joy of the Lord. When you hear the songs of the church, you want to dance and lift your hands, to shout "Hallelujah!" and let the groundswell of delight inside you pour out in thunderous cascades of praise to God. But there's this other Christian a few pews over that seems frozen in place, almost inexpressive throughout the worship service, as if they've constructed a gigantic dam somewhere deep in their heart to hold back any trickle of joy that might threaten to break through. Their silence feels like judgment, as if they're assuming hateful things about you. Don't they know, as the Bible says, that we are called to rejoice in the Lord always? What's wrong with a person like that? It's a little hard to take, isn't it?

I've known both of these people, in many different versions, many times over. They're both good, solid, mature believers. And they both cannot seem to understand what lies behind the absolutely bizarre behavior of the other one. Whenever they look at the other's way of worship, something just feels really off to them, in an unnerving and unsettling way. Never mind the fact that both are devoted to the Lord, holding faithfully to biblical doctrine, and exhibiting the fruits of the Spirit's work in their lives--no, the way they like to worship is just a bridge too far, and there must be something wrong with them.

This is an important matter, because it speaks to the heart of Jesus's commands for his followers. Is it really possible to love one another as he has loved us? Is it really possible to "judge not," when our human nature is so quick to leap to assumptions about others? This is an issue of such importance that it even shows up in one of the last recorded conversations of Jesus. We want to know what to make of that other disciple over there, and Jesus tells us, rather abruptly, "None of your business." The story comes at the end of John, where the resurrected Jesus is walking with Peter along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, having just forgiven and reinstated him with the famous commission of "Feed my sheep." While they walk, Peter looks back and sees another disciple (John) following along the shoreline. "Lord, what about him?" Peter asks. And Jesus answers, "What is that to you? Follow thou me." (In the context, it's treated as a question of how each disciple might one day die, but the nature of Jesus's answer permits a broader application.) Fairly often in the Christian life, we're tempted to look at other Christians and ask, "Lord, what about that guy?" And just as Jesus said to Peter, he says to us: "It's not your concern. Your job is simply to follow me."

Rather than assuming that the person who worships differently than us, or prefers a different style of worship music, or is drawn to a different liturgical tradition must be wrong, we should give them the benefit of the doubt. No, more than that--we should ascribe the very best of motives to them. We should be able to look at the way others worship and think, "Wow, I don't really connect to worship in the same way that person does. I wish I could experience some of the joy / reverence / celebration / quiet peace that comes so naturally to them. I wish I could see the beauty of these songs / hymns / liturgical prayers through their eyes, and taste just a bit of the way they experience Jesus." Instead, many people seem locked into the assumption that the way God has crafted them to appreciate worship is the way that everyone should appreciate worship. In a somewhat alarming moment recently, I (who, remember, am planning to introduce an optional high-church liturgy service) received a comment from a parishioner who declared that they didn't believe that God liked "set prayers." That's not actually an uncommon sentiment for someone from a low-church tradition, but the confidence with which they expressed their full knowledge about God's preferences was truly impressive (especially considering the fact that--to use only one of many possible counterexamples--Jesus himself instructed his disciples to use a set prayer). 

At this point, the reader might be justified to say, "Hold on, Matt--you're calling people out for judging others, but aren't you also judging the people who do this sort of thing?" It's a fair question, but in this case, one of the fundamental realities of my pastoral office is that I must deal with interpersonal misperceptions like the ones described above as part of the weekly course of church life. It's just something that always comes up, and it's worth taking note of.

I should also say that this is very much a case of "There but for the grace of God go I." There's nothing innately better in my makeup that renders me untouched by the human urge to rush to judgment against others. I'm sure I'm so blindly stupid in many other ways that it all probably cancels out in the end. If anything, I'd chalk up my ability to see the breadth of the field on this issue to the grace of God working in my life in two rather unique ways: first, as an introvert, and second, as an Intercultural Studies major in college. To any who know me well, it's no surprise that I'm an introvert. I've learned good interpersonal communication skills, so I can fake it in an extravert's job most of the time, but being an introvert in a highly social context continually drives home the point of just how singularly weird I am. I'm so, so different from just about everybody else. And that's okay. It's not always easy, but it's okay. And this is where the grace comes in: my constant reminders that I am different from the other disciples of Jesus around me has given me long experience in acknowledging the rightfulness of others' differences. 

Does everyone like the same kind of worship I do, or act the same way in worship, or feel comfortable with the same things? No. But that doesn't mean that God likes my way best and not their way, it just means they're different than me. I intentionally give my praise team at church a relatively free rein to choose a broad variety of songs--some of which I love and really connect to on a deep level, and some of which I could easily do without. But you know what the funny thing is? Every now and then, someone will talk to me about a song that really impacted them deeply, through which they experienced the Spirit's grace in their lives...and it's often the song that I didn't care for. Just because something doesn't speak to my heart doesn't mean that it isn't speaking to someone else's heart, and part of my love for my brothers and sisters in Christ is to give them not only what I need, but what they need too. I know I'm different, and not everybody is going to connect with God in the same ways that I do.

My training in Intercultural Studies was also, I think, helpful in this. As a young man, I was initially preparing to go into cross-cultural mission work, which didn't end up being the road of my vocation. But even though I'm not directly using my degree, I wouldn't trade it for a different set of studies. In that field, you're trained in the art of not making assumptions--really, any assumptions at all--about the motivations of values behind others' actions. That's a really hard skill to learn well, and I'm grateful for the training I received in it. Interacting with people from other cultures, you learn to put yourself in their shoes right off the bat, to always give them the benefit of the doubt, and not to assume that they see things the same way you do. This isn't an argument for relativism, by the way; not a concession that we can't know right from wrong. Rather, it notes that there are aspects of our lives that are matters of universal truth, but there are also matters of personal preference. God made us both with minds to know the truth and wills to make free choices for ourselves, and both of those dimensions must be honored. Too often, American Christians make the mistake that an issue of personal preference--that is, one that is tied to God's gift of free will--is instead an issue of universal truth, and so we end up conflating the two and abusing the image of God in our brother or sister. 

The truth is, we all wear lenses that color the way we experience the world, even when it's the same world--the same objective truth--that we're looking at. Culture and personality are impressively strong lenses on our experience of the world, and most people don't even know they're wearing those lenses. They just see things as they've always seen them, experience them the way they've always experienced them, and think that's the way things are. Thanks to my personal journey as an introvert and my cross-cultural training, I generally have a pretty good handle on knowing how my lenses might be distorting my perceptions, and I try hard to make allowances for that. 

God doesn't wear lenses when he looks at us. He sees us as we truly are, knows us better than we know ourselves. Let's remember that when we look at the worship of another believer and see something that we don't understand, we ought not to think that that person has something off in their relationship with God, something that's preventing them from being able to worship the way we ourselves do. No, we ought to think, "That person has a way of walking with God that is so different from my own--maybe there's something I can learn from their experience that will help me deepen my own walk with God, so that I can appreciate worship in that way too." After all, Jesus is at work in the world--not making disciples that all look like me, or disciples that all look like you, but disciples that look like him, shining his radiance in prismatic beauty through all of the thousands of different lenses that make us who we are.