The Personality of Worship

The Personality of Worship
Romans 12:1-5

As a reminder to readers, this blog is exclusively about Christian corporate worship and I make certain assumptions with each post.  I write this blog because I believe many Christians struggle with the collective or corporate experience of worship. There are obstacles to gathered worship that are both outward and inward and our societal emphasis on personal tastes has contributed to these difficulties. My hope is that my posts will help us all to recognize these challenges and overcome them.

When discussing worship, often the dialogue includes what I call the “personality” of worship.  The personality of worship pertains to the “how” of worship rather than the “who” and “why.”  When statements, such as: “I like it when we sing…”, I don’t like the band”, “I like when we all clap together…,” or “I am moved when…,” etc. dominate the conversation, we are focusing on personal preferences. Christians will generally agree on the particular acts of worship such as singing praises and hymns, reading Scripture or praying, but we demonstrate these acts in different ways. For instance, formal or traditional worship with pipe organ accompaniment will sound and appear differently than what is commonly referred to as contemporary worship.

Analyzing the personality of our worship sometimes becomes self-serving and leads to accessorizing our worship to an unrecognizable performance. Consider the analogy in how we clothe ourselves. In an effort to stay “in style” and relevant, we keep buying new outfits and throwing out the worn out styles of yesterday. In worship, our pursuit of relevance sometimes keeps us looking around more than looking upward. The greater need is not to re-outfit our worship but to rediscover how to worship as a community.

For as long as I can recall, people who know me and my father remark how much we are alike. Despite the fact that he was raised in Iowa in the 1930s and I was raised in Florida in the 1960s, my personality is very much like his (which is what one might expect). Within the Christian community it works much the same way. The personality of our worship should develop more out of our experience with God, rather than our experience with our environment. Being born of God means there is a genetic transfer that causes us to resemble our heavenly Father. As His influence grows, our preferences begin to be overshadowed and sacrificially given up as we become new creatures in Christ.

A congregation that is unified within the body of Christ will not find itself focused upon the wardrobe and trappings of worship, but will approach worship sacrificially, putting personal preferences aside. Examine your gathered worship and its focus. What does the personality of your worship reveal about God? Make sure the “how” of your worship is not obscuring the “who” and “why.”

the friar