Over the summer my family and I went to New Wine, and I ended up going to a seminar called ‘The Theology of Charismatic Worship’ led by a guy called Neil Bennetts, who is CEO of The Worship Foundation. He began by pointing out that the prerequisite to having a theology of worship was having an understanding of what worship was. He went on to suggest that one of the areas where the language and style of modern charismatic worship may not be particularly help with that understanding is in relation to the presence of God. We sing songs with lyrics like “Come Lord Jesus, come” and “Waiting here for You”, and prayers are voiced from the stage “inviting” or “welcoming” the Holy Spirit into the meeting. We talk about “coming into His presence”, or you might hear someone say (or even say yourself) “God was really there tonight”.
Does that mean that there are times when God isn’t really there? Does He wait for us to sing the right songs, say the right words or achieve the required level of fervent devotion before turning up slightly begrudgingly if He’s not too busy? Is His presence limited to a certain physical places?
The answer to all these questions is, of course, ‘No’. On some level I think we probably understand that the lyrics and words mentioned above are motivated by our desire to see more of God’s kingdom. But it’s still too easy to mistakenly slip into feeling that worship is at least in part a way of trying persuade God to be there. But if that’s not it, what really is worship? Eugene Peterson offers this definition:
The minute I heard it, I loved this definition. Several weeks on, I still love it. It elevates worship above and beyond just music and prayer, it takes it out of our meetings and our buildings and lets it be part of any and every aspect of our life. And most importantly, it removes from us that false burden of trying to persuade Him to be there. It reminds me that through the work of Jesus the presence of God has come out of the temple and into me. We don’t have to earn it or invoke it. We simply attend to that which is already there. Or as Neil phrased it “Worship 101 – our starting point: God is here and we are loved”.
To see more of Neil’s thoughts on this and related subjects, check out his blog.