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| Tiger swallowtail, in Yellow Springs, Ohio |
This is a guest post by my sister-in-law Lora Hauser.
This is Lora's response to my post The Impossibility of Worship Without Presence.
Where I struggle is trying to worship corporately with
people who do not seem engaged in worship. I guess the obvious question
is . . . how do I know they're not engaged in worship? Well, I really
don't, except that usually a person "engaged" in something shows some
physical signs of being affected by the task. I think this is true for
any kind of corporate experience where the participants have a shared goal
(i.e. - a Cubs game with the goal of spurring your team on to winning.)
I'll try to answer these two questions:
What does "engaged worship" look like?
Why is it
important for me and my own personal worship?
1. What
does engaged worship look like?
The first tell-tale sign of someone who is engaged in
worship is anticipation. At our church, I would estimate that about
50% of worshippers come strolling in late. (I will readily admit now that
all the reasons I'm going to give are going to sound highly judgmental but
let's put that emotion on the back burner for a minute.)
To be casual
entering a worship environment could speak to the lack of expectation from the
Holy Spirit not to mention the curse of sameness or predictability. When
people walk into a great restaurant or pizza place, you can almost see the
excited expectation of that first longed-for bite. Sometimes, our mouths
can start watering just thinking about it.
This is what I would hope for
myself when I enter worship -- a longed-for experience to "taste and
see" what the Lord has for me. At the risk of "making this
all about me" I believe it pleases God when we anticipate His presence
and begin to rid ourselves, by the moment, of all the "all about
me" stuff that prevents pure worship. It doesn't happen quickly but
it will happen because we're promised that when we praise Him, He shows his
glory and meets us no matter where we are when we come -- with great
anticipation.
Another sign that engaged worship is taking place is
some kind of physical manifestation. It's hard for me to think that
I could sit in a Cubs game and Ben Zobrist (my favorite player) hits a
grand slam and I wouldn't respond in some way with a clear, measurable physical
response. This is what I desire for my own worship experience; that
at some point as I concentrate on the great "I Am" during
worship, I would be so overwhelmed by a truth revealed or just the majesty
of the name of Jesus, that I would have an involuntary
physical response.
To me, this is the purist form of worship ---
when the body responds automatically without forethought, just like
at that moment in a Cubs game -- everyone stands as if given a command.
It's impossible to resist because the joy or electric jolt requires an
immediate response. So it should be for us as worshippers. Our God
is showing us grand slams every few minutes in engaged worship. It should
be impossible not to notice and our bodies not to respond.
Another sign of engaged worship and engaged worshippers is
an unquenchable desire for the truths in The Word. When my twin, two-year-old
grandchildren are hungry and sitting in their high chairs but the food isn't
quite ready, they will generally start to make loud noises or banging or even
frustrated crying. You can feel and hear their longing to be fed.
It's easily measured. When my cousin Jami was an infant, she
would wave her hands frantically between bites encouraging her feeder to
go faster. Isn't this how we should act as the Word is opened and we
release the Holy Spirit to speak into our lives? Shouldn't we wave our
hands and say, "more, more" because we know that what we are
receiving has been determined since the beginning of time to be our only
sustenance?
In our church, many, if not most, don't bring Bibles.
Again, maybe a slight judgment, but really it doesn't even make sense?
It's like coming to a great banquet and being okay not to have any food
present, let alone bring your own food. We cannot live, think, feel,
and worship without a complete and utter reliance on The Word. Our
worship should be centered around it and our leaders should goad, encourage and
require us to hold onto it for our very lives, lest we starve.
2. Why is
it important for me to be with engaged worshippers and what happens to me when
I'm not?
The first emotion that I feel when I am around those who
seem less than engaged or not anticipating worship is loneliness. This
should never happen when being around Jesus Followers. Since we attend a
mega-church, the chance of feeling lonely just by being a small
soul in the large crowd, is always a possibility. But a feeling a
loneliness should dissipate quickly when the focus of our worship and the great
"meal" begins.
To share something wonderful is unity-producing
at the very least and miracle-producing at the very best. The strangers
around me are not strangers anymore in the same way the Cubs fans in the seats
are unified by a common goal. But let's say that after that grand
slam by Ben Zobrist, I am the only one who has that marvelous, involuntary
response of standing, joyful shouting, jumping and clapping. It's
not only lonely but can produce a sense of isolation almost immediately.
When we, as Jesus Followers, feel that we cannot express appropriately
our response to a God who is present in worship, we grieve the
Holy Spirit who is shouting to us during worship that we belong!, we are the
forgiven!, we win! I don't want to be lonely in worship. I want to
see the ways God is revealing Himself to the others around me. I want to
hear and see it because it draws me into even deeper worship.
The second emotion I feel when those around me seem less
than engaged is that I am distracted. It's like our enemy is using
these people as a huge distraction -- upstaging what the Holy Spirit is trying
to do. It's as if there is a big screen behind the pulpit with a game
show going on or a silly cat video. I want to be with people that are
hungering and thirsting after righteousness and who are concentrating on the
awesomeness of the moment. If I sense that people are bored or a service
is planned so that there is no spontaneity or Body-life reports of mind-blowing
activity of the Holy Spirit, then I find myself being pulled in to the boredom
and sameness. The upstaging is working. I don't want to fight this
and I don't think I should have to. Sometimes it even leads to questions
like "What am I doing here? I'm sitting at a White Sox game,
expecting the Cubs to come on the field. I need to go find the Cubs
game." Something is really off, or even ridiculous.
The third emotion I experience is sadness and
grief. I know exactly where this comes from and could very well be a
direct hit from the enemy. Sadness and grief (unless it's over
unrepentant sin or for those who are suffering) should have no place in
worship. My grief comes from my childhood experience of worship and the
extreme boredom I felt as well as the misrepresentation of what a Jesus
Follower really looked like. It seems as if I had a front row seat to the
opposite of engaged worship. What is even more grief-producing, is that
once in awhile, the Holy Spirit would
break through in some person and then they would be mocked.
I'm so
thankful that God pulled me out of that dark pit and set my feet and
expectations of worship on higher ground. I still grieve for all those
children who sit in worship, who will never taste and see what is really meant
by Presence-Driven worship.
