“For: the Institute Of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt“

Our community has recently built a beautiful outdoor venue to further the arts with concerts. I attended one the other evening. The band was incredible! They were a 7-piece horn band with an infectious Motown/funk/James Brown energetic sound with musicianship to match. The audience, all 1000 of us, were really moving with the powerful rhythm. It was great fun. During one of the songs, we were all encouraged to clap along and sing back phrases of the lyrics as the singer shouted them out. The song was about a love relationship gone bad leaving the song to say, “I can’t depend on no one…I’ll have to depend on myself,”(or something to that effect). Anyway, the audience was singing back those words over and over following the lead of the vocalist. The band was great, the energy electric, we were moving in rhythm, and I began to think about creativity, this God birthed thing in us that emerges in so many different ways throughout this world of humankind. The Bible says that whatever is pure and right and true comes from Him,-(the God of Creation. To be honest, I didn’t like to be enjoying this incredible display of His creativity through the talents of  this band while being encouraged to yell back, “I’ll have to depend on myself.” What had contained such a depth of “sound” now had a shallowness to it. Not a shallowness of the heart cry of a broken heart, instead, the broken heart, to protect itself, would trust no longer.The music had life, the message felt static. There seemed to be a conflict of interest.

This is a long intro to what I wanted to say about a DVD I watched this week entitled, What is Worship? hosted by Dan Wilt (released by vineyardworshipresources. One of the sections of teaching was on compassion as worship. Just for a moment, let’s limit this concept of “worship” to a place where we usually worship and to a way in which we usually worship, that being the church (place) and singing songs (way). So, I thought of the songs I sing and play to express worship. I had a pastor say that worship is no substitute for obedience. What I think he meant was if we think we are living for God because we have chosen to sing particular songs to Him, (maybe even louder than the guy next to us!) we are mistaken. The songs must be walked out.

Compassion specifically is remembering the poor, “working for justice for those who are oppressed, and offering compassion to the voiceless.” (What is Worship, Dan Wilt) This is worship. Brian Doerksen paraphrased I John 4:20-21 by saying ” if we say we love God who we can’t see, and not love our brother in need who we can see, then our song is false.”

I don’t want to sing a song that is false. I don’t want to sing songs with conflicts of interest. I want to live in wholeness and I want to sing in wholeness. In the book of Amos, God says, “Away with the noise of your songs, I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream.” This is where life will flourish. This is where worship has integrity!