Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Reality Check - How's Your Worship Going?

Traditional worship or contemporary worship? Which does God prefer? I'd say He prefers GENUINE, BIBLICAL WORSHIP. This video clip was produced by North Point Media, connected with North Point Church in GA, to get people thinking about the nature of true worship. This is not a jab at contemporary worship, but a reminder that regardless of how many people attend a service, or how many videos are played, or how many old, old hymns are sung, or how hip things are, if worship isn't biblical, it doesn't matter how it sounds, or how it makes you feel.



Scripture condemns hypocritical, self-serving worship regardless of how it sounds. The bottom line is this when it comes to your worship:
  • Is it Christ centered?
  • Is it theologically sound?
  • Is it reflective of an obedient lifestyle (i.e when you're not in a church service).
  • Is your life and character GROWING to become more and more like the character of Christ and less and less like that of the world? In short, are you loving God and others visibly (1 Cor. 13), and is the fruit of the Spirit showing up more and more in your life (Gal. 5:22,23)?
  • Do you help the poor? (James 1:27)
  • Do you love your brothers and sisters in Christ regardless of their musical preferences?
  • Do you naturally talk about how important Christ is to you in conversations with other believers and with non-believers?
On the night He was betrayed, and after the resurrection, Christ told his disciples to:
  • Obey what He taught them.
  • To love each other.
  • To depend on the Holy Spirit to make those first two things happen.
  • To share the good news with others.
If we don't care about these things, then it doesn't matter how contemporary or traditional Sunday morning music is! May we all grow more and more to be the kind of worshipers our Father desires, those who worship Him in spirit and in truth, regardless of the kind of music we like!

3 comments:

eslmom3x said...

This is GREAT. Shared w/ our music and youth guys...
Carla

Kelly Doss said...

I love this Andy! Drives the point home effectively!

Anonymous said...

Valid points, but careful not to make the worship about us. Our goal is to bring pleasure to God, not ourselves. If you have ever said, "I didn't get anything out of worship today," you worshiped for the wrong reason. Worship isn't for you. It's for God. We don't worship to please ourselves. Our motive is to bring glory and pleasure to our Creator.
Maybe the question should be, does our corporate worship encourage people to express heart felt adoration for God in their own way, or does it restrict expressions of worship to only those modes that are acceptable to a certain group within the Body.