Worship that makes you cringe

As someone whose life is spent designing, imagining, leading, and living out worship, there are few things that I take more seriously. Worship is not just an hour at church, it is a state of being. Worship is living in a constant state of thanksgiving and praise to God. That certainly doesn’t need to take place in a certain building or at a certain time of the week. We can worship, anywhere, and anytime, but giving thanks to God and seeking to praise and honor God with our lives.

That being said, I also take worship services, times when the body of Christ gathers specifically to praise God, to read the Word, and to be strengthened for service in Christ’s name, very seriously. These times of service don’t have to be perfect to please God. They don’t have to have extraordinary creativity to enable the Spirit to work. They don’t even have to be led by clergy for God to show up. But, they should be done in the right way to try and honor God. Offering to God the best that we have honors our creator.

Yet, many worship gatherings make me cringe. They seem to hold no expectation of God’s presence, no consideration of planning, and no use of our God given abilities and creativity to engage the congregation. When I sit through worship like this, sometimes I get physically ill. I was thinking about the different things that make me cringe in worship. Here is a list of somethings I thought of.

1) Preachers who get worked up into a frenzy and say nothing. A lot of preachers will scream, shout, dance around, wipe the sweat off their foreheads and for all their efforts they communicate very little about the truth of God. Preaching is not a show, it is not a performance, and it is never about the preacher. So if you are going to shout, it better be for a reason.

2) People in worship who look like they are in pain. Why is worship such a painful experience for some people. No matter how good the music, how moving the sermon, or how warm the community, some people will sit there like a bump on a log, a corpse in a morgue, or a mannequin in a window and not respond whatsoever. If it is so awful don’t come. You are effecting everyone else, really.

3) People who ignore 2000 years of church history. I attended a church for a while in college, a non-denominational Bible Church, that didn’t mention on Palm Sunday that IT WAS PALM SUNDAY! How can you worship, live as the church, and totally and completely ignore 2000 years of church tradition? How can you act as if it doesn’t matter if 99% of the church that has ever lived considered Palm Sunday to be the beginning of the HOLIEST week of the year. I never stepped foot in that church again.

4) Worship without creativity The people of God have always faced the same problems when it comes to worship. We love to systematize our worship, order it, and regulate it. And always, everywhere, in doing so, many of us have turned it into rote and uninspiring tradition rather than an opportunity to experience and worship the living God. Liturgy and traditions are beautiful. But, in using them to worship God you must use them as a guide, a tool, for seeking God. Even in churches without a stitch of liturgy, worship can fall into predictable, uninspired patterns that remove any sense of anticipation from the experience. Don’t settle for uninspired worship, seek to offer God a new thought every once and a while.

5) Poor use of technology Technology can be a great tool for worship. After all, instruments, lights, electricity, better architecture, sound systems, and the printing press were all technological advances that have greatly impacted worship. Each piece of technology, however, comes with a cost. And each piece of technology must be used well, and appropriately, to facilitate worship. Take for instance lights. It is important to use light in a way that helps people worship instead of distracting them. If there are things to read during a service, people need to be able to see. If there is a preacher, that person needs to be seen. Candles have long been used not just for light, but for effectual techniques of praying and ambiance in a sanctuary. But lights can also be used poorly. I was once on staff at a church that because of concerts and productions in the sanctuary had spinning professional theater lights. Once, for an effect during a song they turned the lights on spin, and they flashed and spun throughout the crowd, as if at a rock concert. It was the most distracting thing I have ever experienced in worship. It was awful. So if you are going to use fancy lighting, computer projectors, videos, or even the written word, make sure you do so in an appropriate and God honoring way.

6) Emotional pleas worthy of a con artist I sat in the service and I couldn’t believe the words the preacher was saying. Having offered an altar call to our students the preacher, disappointed with the response of the students, said “Sometimes you want to come down to find God but Satan is sitting on your lap keeping you from coming. Kick Satan off your lap and come on down.” After that every kid in the church, in an effort to show Satan wasn’t lounging on their lap, got up and went down to stand near and altar and look interested. It was ridiculous. Preachers think that getting people to respond is their job too much of the time. Preachers are called to offer God’s Word the best that they can, and then get out of the way and let the Holy Spirit do its work. Don’t try and force people into a response, it does far more harm than good.

7) Performance in the place of worshipThere is a danger for pastors, song leaders, musicians, artists, lay readers, ushers, and anyone else involved in worship to perform for their glory, instead of serving to praise God. It doesn’t matter if it is a liturgical service, traditional service, contemporary, post-modern, or seeker sensitive. If you are in front of people and it is for your glory instead of God’s, you are living a lie. You are dishonoring God in your very act of worship. Time and time again in the Bible we find those who come to worship God being rejected because the worship has become about them, instead of about God. From God’s rejection of Cane’s offering toAninias and Sapphira being struck down for their deceit, God has demonstrated that worship is very important to him. Be wary of seeking leadership in worship without first checking your ego at the door. If it is ever about you, it ceases to be about God.

Those are some of my thoughts. Are there any things in worship that make you cringe?