Here at WBC we seek to worship in a way that minimizes the weaknesses and maximizes the strengths found on this chart. There is not space here to talk through all of the strengths and weaknesses in detail so we will limit the rest of this article to highlight some of the strengths that we seek to maximize. We believe that doing this will more fully center our worship on the Bible and the person of Jesus Christ.
First of all, probably the most important strength that is listed on this chart is the fact that most of these traditions see worship as being very important to our spiritual formation. The Bible confirms this idea in 1 Corinthians 14:26 that states, “Let all these things be done for the strengthening (edification) of the church.” Paul is addressing a church that had some wrong worship practices. Much attention has been given to the particular errors they were making, like speaking in tongues, but that is not really the focus of the passage. All churches are in danger of having wrong worship practices. The specific errors that we or any church could make will most likely differ from those found in this passage since we are in a different church context with different traditions, but the main timeless truth that Paul points out here is that in your freedom of worshipping God, don’t forget that everything is done for formation. Not expression or evangelism, but edification in Christ and His story of salvation. So, one of the main things that we pursue here at WBC is to promote the primary purpose for worship to be edification in Christ.
Second, you may have noticed from the chart that each of the traditions highlight one area of the human body in the way they worship. Catholic worship promoted physical worship, Reformed worship promoted intellectual worship, Free Church and Revivalism worship highlighted emotional worship. All of these ideas are also biblical.
Deuteronomy 6:5 says, “You must love the Lord your God with your whole mind (Reformers), your whole heart, your whole soul, (Free Church and Revivalists) and all your strength (Catholics).” While each of the historical traditions fulfill one part of this passage, it is our hope to have more of a balance of the way we worship that leads us to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. This means that, at times, we may use elements of worship that come from all of these traditions of worship instead of just focusing on one of them.
Third, another strength from the chart is worshipping collectively. This means that we are to place an importance on worshipping together with one another. This is found in the scriptures multiple times. Psalm 145 and other Psalms talk about “praising God from one generation to another.” Biblical worship is multigenerational. Here at WBC, we also seek to worship God as a multigenerational family. We do not seek to only target the emerging generation through a niche marketing approach that tends to exclude other age groups. Some have suggested that we need to decide what kind of church we are going to be by picking one group of people and their music preferences to focus on in expense of the other group. It is our belief that we have decided to be a church that focuses on people of all ages coming together to worship God as a family by letting go of our particular preferences of music and worship styles.
In addition to worshipping as a family, we also seek to acknowledge one another in worship. The Bible does not promote for us to get alone with God in worship as a way to reach His throne. Colossians 3:16 tells us that our worship should be about, “teaching and exhorting one another with all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, all with grace in your hearts to God.” Don’t miss the call here to sing to one another and to God with a variety of music.
Fourth, another strength from the chart is a view of art as truth. This truth has been weakened in the church in the last 100 years, but is making a comeback in many churches today. The Bible promotes several styles of music and art forms in worship.(Colossians 3:12-16, Ephesians 5:18-21, Exodus 31, Psalm 20:5, 2 Chronicles 3-5) We seek to use all the arts in worship of God at WBC. This includes music, visual arts, video, drama, and even dance on some occasions.
Fifth, another strength is to empower people to participate and diminish the role of a priest in worship. Hebrews chapters 4-10 develop this idea. Beginning in verse eleven of chapter nine it says, “Christ has come as the high priest of the good things to come. He passed through the greater and more perfect tent not made with hands, that is, not of this creation,” and verse 15 says, “And so he is the mediator of a new covenant,” and finally verses 24 -26 say, “For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with hands—the representation of the true sanctuary—but into heaven itself, and he appears now in God’s presence for us. And he did not enter to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the sanctuary year after year with blood that is not his own, for then he would have had to suffer again and again since the foundation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the consummation of the ages to put away sin by his sacrifice.”
As this passage says, we believe that Jesus Christ is the one and only true worship leader. He is the one who intercedes and leads us. There is no need for a priest or a highly gifted worship person to led us to the throne of God. Jesus Christ has given us access to the throne as our high priest. In light of this truth, we see our singers and musicians as servants in the Body of Christ, who are not so much seeking to spontaneously convey ways of worship between God and the congregation, but they are primarily charged with the important role of pointing our congregation to Jesus Christ in ways that call for all of us to participate and engage in every aspect of the service. There is not a spiritual gift of worship leading found in the Bible. Worship should always be seen as “the work of the people”, and not something to sit back and listen to, or something only a few gifted people can accomplish. One of the ways that we seek to accomplish this is to have the Body of Christ (Team of volunteers) lead the music portion of our services.
Finally, the last strength that we would like to highlight here is a passion to keep the gospel message clear and visible in our worship services. The most recent historical traditions of worship, (Free Church & Revivalism) have made the mistake of limiting the proclamation of the gospel to only the spoken word part of the services and see the rest of the service to be preliminary to that gospel presentation or teaching time. Unfortunately, this has weakened the gospel to a intellectual hearing instead of the deep and rich saturation of having the gospel consume every aspect of the service. This is talked about in the book of Colossians. Verse 16 of chapter 3 tells us to, “let the word of Christ dwell richly in your teaching and singing of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.” As this passage says, we believe worship should be centered on the redemptive story and person of Jesus Christ. We seek to unveil and reflect the gospel message both in the content and in the order in which we worship during each of our services. No matter what order of worship a church has, it forms worshippers in both the content and order of its worship.
Here at WBC, we seek to form and edify our church family with the story of the gospel as we come together to practice the rhythms of adoration, confession, assurance, thanksgiving, petition, instruction, charge, and blessing. Some people have rightly been cautious about these rhythms of worship sense they look “liturgical” in the negative sense of the word. While not every church thinks of itself as “liturgical” or self-consciously puts together an order of worship, every church worships in a particular way. In this sense liturgy, like tradition, is inescapable; it’s not whether a church will have a liturgy but how the liturgy it does have will honor God and bless the worshippers. In light of this we do not want to be “liturgical” in the negative sense of the word. We do not want to dig up old ways of worship to get stuck in and just go through the motions, but we do want to hold fast to the gospel of Jesus Christ in our order of worship so that we are more fully formed worshippers of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
You can find more info about the order of our worship by watching a sermon by WBC Worship Arts Pastor Jay Trull at waxahachiebible.org.
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