The Hypocritical Worship Scheme

Worship seems to be the topic of the moment, inside are issues on music, program styles, dress codes, and even the worshipers themselves.

Who are we? PHD, high school grad or whatever, we need define worship to what it should be.  The Bible states, that God’s ways are not our ways and that we can never fathom His thinking or creativity, yet we love to put ourselves in God's shoes. One of the theological pundits of my generation, Rick Warren, shared an idea I can never forget. Helabels the present generation surfers, as surfers we ride waves.  The greatest surfers are always looking for the perfect wave and they put all their skill and energy into maximizing the experience.  Rick points out that we sometimes think we can create our own wave, which isn't possible, as if we could do God's job.

I enjoy worship, and in my ministry, we do worship. Its not a pride thing, its a life thing. Its not a church thing, or a group thing, its a personal thing. Being and doing youth ministry since i was kid, the one thing that i can say out of experience is we can not make a wave, and expect to to enjoy it let alone sustain it enough for others to ride it. Programs are programs unless you've got the timing and direction right.

Forcing worship, using currently local terminology, is like creating your own perfect wave. I've only surfed once in my life, but in the brief span of time i had to test the sport my focus was not on controlling the wave, but on disciplining myself regarding balance, timing, and direction.  It saddens me to see and hear how some churches put a lot of energy into creating worship robots instead of genuinely free, creatively-worshipping creatures that is the whole point of human existence.  It seems more time and resources are put into making a wave, translation: membership growth, when that task is primarily God's job (Isaiah 51:15 and 1 Cor  3:6)!  The construction of denominational walls and religiously boxed standards in both conservative and liberal worlds, has developed a religious mindset that thinks we live to be saved.

The question that needs to be asked is do we worship to be saved, or because we are saved? I hope we can understand that we live today because we are already saved, and we worship because we know it!