Worship: Action, Place, Attire

I grew up in a Christian home, and my parents have been going to the same church since the 80's; so naturally I grew up surrounded by a certain style of worship. From what I can remember, the worship at our church was very bland and it bored me to death....it might have just been because I was young; anyway, it seemed repetitive. I began attending a private, Christian school in 5th grade, this school tried to make worship cool and fun. Well needless to say that the tactics they used were uninteresting, because what 10 year old boy wants to stay inside and sing when he can go play outside? (Yes, I know there are exceptions - but as a whole) As I grew older and started going on mission trips with my school, the worship changed. Suddenly I saw and heard people speaking in tongues, dancing, and even at times just running around the room. I usually didn't pay any attention to it, in fact I knew that the way that I worshiped was perfectly fine. In college, my first year actually, I was exposed to a denomination that I had never heard of known as the Assemblies of God. In case you don't know, these are the people who do the running, jumping, and speaking in tongues. This group of Christians (whom I will not name) was very emotionally oriented in everything they did and they put a significant weight on speaking in tongues; this weight was so significant that I never really felt like I was a part of the group until I translated what a girl was saying when she was speaking in tongues. Unfortunately, I lied about the entire thing because I knew that there was no way I was going to be able to be accepted by them without some form of 'manifestation of the Spirit'. I deeply regret my decision in doing that, but I was (and still kind of am) young and stupid. With all that said, there are three things that I want to talk about today and all of them have to do with worship. I want to discuss worship in regard to action, place, and attire and to see what is important and what is not and hopefully be as Biblical as possible.

I want to address the 'action' part of it first because I feel that area is where most people get confused. David does several different things when he is worshiping. He has not only screamed at the top of his lungs, but he also does it through written word with the Psalms. In Psalm 138, David says that he worships God with his heart; which it appears as though it doesn't depend on the certain action that we do but rather it depends on where our heart is. I am reminded of Matthew 7 where Jesus describes people who did and did and did but never loved and never followed Him; Jesus says he will tell those people "I never knew you". Or what about Matthew 22 where we are commanded to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength" or Luke 9 where Jesus tells them to take up their crosses and follow him. It appears as though there is no action that God requires of people, except if nothing else to just follow Him. The question is, is there any form of worship that God disapproves of? If worship is not focused on Him, then I think it is quite obvious that selfish or misguided worship is something that God does not approve. The real question is, are you worshiping as a church-goer or as a follower of Christ? I believe that the ACTION of worship can replace true worship which can and will become an idol. A perfect example is that of the charismatic movement, I am referring primarily to the most extreme form of this movement such as being 'drunk on the spirit' or smoking 'Jehovajuana'. Where Jesus is no longer enough, so people take worship a step further because they no longer feel the excitement - it is very similar to drugs, once someone becomes numb to one drug they feel the need to get that initial 'high' again so they experiment with others. Therefore, it shouldn't matter whether or not your hands or raised, or even if you're just sitting quietly. The point is where your heart is; worship God with everything you have, with all of your heart and make sure that your actions are truly for him and not for yourself.

Recently I was at a catholic church for my girlfriend's choir concert (UNT choir) and I walked in wearing cargo shorts, button-up collared shirt, flip flops, and to top it all off, my 'Dallas' hat. I hung out in the narthex (lobby) for a bit but as soon as I stepped into the nave (sanctuary) this older woman comes up to me and tells me that I am being very disrespectful by wearing my hat inside the church and I that I should be ashamed of myself for disgracing the Lord's house. So I took off my hat and as the old lady walked away I chuckled to myself and how silly that was, and then it hit me as to how serious she was on the whole matter. I started wondering why it was that she held the sanctuary in such a high regard, so high that she was angry that I would dare wear a hat while inside. It didn't make any sense to me, at first. In the old testament there were specific places of worship and they were regarded as holy ground. In the new testament, it was primarily the Pharisees and other religious leaders that dwelled in the temple. Jesus spent very little time, we're told, inside the temple; in fact He spent a lot of time outside the city and among the people. Jesus in his most distressing time went to the garden of Gethsemane to pray. In the early Christian church congregations would meet in people's houses, and in Acts 16 Paul and Silas prayed and worshiped God through song. After reviewing all of this, it still didn't make any sense to me as to why this woman would be so adamant about me not wearing a hat inside the church, especially since it wasn't even during a church service. I keep coming back to this idea of it being a matter of the heart. I was not trying to be disrespectful and I certainly didn't think it mattered simply because I was in a church, to watch a secular choir nonetheless. It seemed like this woman had elevated the value of the church as a building and I wonder to this day if she holds the same or greater value to the church as a congregation. I cannot say for sure whether or not this woman's heart was in the right place, but what I can say is that it is ridiculous to think that a specific place has some sort of inherent sanctity just because that happens to be a place of worship. If that is the case, then my car, my bedroom, my living room, my bathroom, and that fountain I go to sometimes to pray, are all somehow sacred because I worship God there.

This brings us to the last topic of worship I want to talk about, attire. The question is, does it matter Biblically what we wear while we are gathered as a church? Again, I want to go back the life of Christ; Jesus was a poor carpenter who did not have wealth or power. So we can safely assume that He didn't wear an Armani suit and shiny leather shoes but he wore something more like boots and coveralls. The Pharisees were like those guys you see on wallstreet, dressed to the nines and basically ignoring everyone around them talking on their state of the art bluetooth headset. On a side note, I think this was part of God's humor: having a poor carpenter make the religious intellectuals look stupid. Also, in 1 Timothy 2 Paul warns the women to not dress themselves with pearls or expensive clothes but rather with 'good deeds'.

To kind of wrap things up, I want to bring it back to what seems to be the resounding conclusion of it being a matter of the heart. Jesus makes it clear in Matthew 15 that our heart is what defiles us, not our actions; but our actions are a result of the state of our heart. This issue is not "What should I do or not do?" but rather, are you pursuing Christ? are you loving Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength? or are you simply performing actions to make yourself look or feel better? Friend, in Galatians 6 Paul states "But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God." - All we can boast in is the cross, therefore we cannot boast in ourselves because the cross is the only thing worth boasting in.

-RW