Today when you discuss worship you have to address “Worship Warfare.” Albert Mohler does in He is not Silent: “The subject of worship is now one of the most controversial issues in the local congregation” (page 23). The only part of his statement that I disagree with is the one word “now.” Worship warfare has been raging for centuries. Benjamin Keath (1640-1704), was one of the early English hymn writers. In 1668, he became pastor of the Particular Baptist Church in Southwark (an inner borough of London). It took Keath twenty years to persuade his Baptist congregation to sing hymns and not just Psalms. Even after twenty years, some of his members left the church and started another church so they could sing just Psalms. This issue split the Particular Baptists of London. There is a brief description of Benjamin Keath in Credo Magazine (click to open). There is a more extended treatment in a chapter in Baptist Theologians on Benjamin Keath on pages 49-76. Just Google "worship wars" and see how hot this topic is.
Worship wars are contrary to who the church is and what the church practices
1. Pictures of the Church:
The Church is the Body of Christ who worships our Head so that He has preeminence (Col 1:18). The Church is the Temple of the Holy Spirit. Individual believers are the temple of the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians 6:19. The local church is the temple of the Holy Spirit in 3:16. As the Temple, we worship the only true God. The Church is the Bride of Christ who adorns her Bridegroom. We are the Priesthood who exercises our priestly function of the sacrifice of praise (Hebrews 13:15). The Church is the Flock of God who with David worships the Lord our Shepherd (Psalm 23).
2. Practices of the Church (Acts 2:42-47)
Not all would agree that Acts 2:42-47 is the text for the model of church practices. Rick Warren states that the Great Commandment (Matthew 22:37-40) plus the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20) make a Great Church (The Purpose Driven Church, 102-103). The first local church described by Luke for us in Acts 2:42-47 shows us what a church looks like that obeys both the great commandment and the great commission. So there is no real contradiction.
The essence of worship is giving. When we give to God, not just our finances, but our all, we are worshiping God. This is taught in Psalm 29:1-2 (NKJV). In what some call stair-step parallelism, David begins the first three lines of his psalm with “give.” Each line builds on and adds to the previous line just like you are walking up stair steps. At the top of the stairwell, David concludes with “worship” instead of “give.” In the first line we “give” to the Lord. In the second line we “give” him “glory” and our “strength” in service. In the third line we “give” Him “the glory due His name.” In the climactic line, we “worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness .” When we “give” “give” “give” we “worship.” The first church gave God their spiritual gifts, time in ministry to others, verbal praise, and possessions. They worshiped God seven days a week. Worship or giving to the Lord results in the following ministries.
A. Teaching: “They continued steadfastly in the apostle’s doctrine.” Teaching and preaching of God’s Word are first mentioned for emphasis. The first Christian ministry performed after the founding of the Church on the Day of Pentecost was preaching. This was a statement.
B. Fellowship: “They continued steadfastly in … fellowship … all that believed were together and had all things common ... breaking bread.” Fellowship is not simply contact with another believer over a cup of coffee. Fellowship is more like discipleship.
Robert Anderson mentioned a church that disciplined a church member and forbade the other members from having any contact with that member. If a member saw the disciplined member in the grocery store that member was to turn and walk away. This church was confusing contact with fellowship (The Effective Pastor, Chicago: Moody, 1985, 332). Biblical fellowship is deep involvement in another believer’s life in order to help him spiritually as the Philippians did with Paul at Thessalonica (Philippians 4:15-16).
C. Worship: “Fear came upon every soul ... praising God.” John Hammett describes these two aspects of worship as reverent awe and joyful praise (Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches, 249). Traditional churches have to be careful not to go to seed on reverent awe and contemporary churches must “take care that they do not obscure God’s holiness. One of the earliest studies of Willow Creek [pastored by Bill Hybels] found that 70 percent of the sermons emphasized God’s love, while only 7 percent dealt with God’s holiness …. Traditionalists need to guard against the opposite danger, that of joyless worship that does not actively engage worshipers in praise, but leaves them to sit in silence” (Hammett, 249).
D. Service: “and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.” This is the outgrowth of corporate worship. In Heaven, the result of our worshiping God and the Lamb will be that His “servants shall serve him” (Revelation 22:3).
E. Evangelism: “And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.” This is another by-product of worship.
Today there are “Worship Wars.”
Unlike the early church, the modern church has worship wars instead of the worship of God.
1. War between contemporary music and traditional music. This is the battle between those who want reverence and others who want relevance in the worship service.
2. War between seeker-sensitive or evangelism and glorifying God and edification of believers. On this point, I must take sides with glorifying God and edification of believers and use Ephesians 4:11-12 as my basis. Evangelism, as we saw in Acts 2:42-47, will be the fruit. Hammett discusses this at length on pages 238-249. Because there are usually unsaved in our services, we should give the gospel and an invitation to trust Christ. The church of Corinth in 1 Corinthian 14:23-26 provides an example of the unsaved attending and coming to Christ in the early church.
3. War between experience-oriented worship and God-centered worship. David clearly advocated God-centered worship in 1 Chronicles 16:28-29. David repeats Psalm 29:1-2 in 1 Chronicles 16:28-29, but adds to the third line: “Give unto the Lord the glory due his name: bring an offering” and then concludes with “worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.” Again, the essence of worship is giving.
4. War between the regulative principle of worship (include in worship only what Scripture endorses, which was Calvin’s view) and the normative principle (include whatever is not prohibited in Scripture, which was Luther’s view who wanted to retain much of Roman Catholicism's rituals). Most churches use both principles to varying degrees. We must be regulative regarding the pattern seen in Acts 2:42-47. But normative with parts of our worship not directly addressed in Scripture such as announcements, length, and order of service, sound equipment, technology, padded pews, and please don’t forget the nursery.
True Worship
John 4 is the worship chapter. Jesus pursued and converted a non-worshiper into a “true worshiper” (4:23). From this chapter, we learn that true worship
1. Is Directed to God the Father (John 4:21-24). Jesus informs the Samaritan woman that worship is not limited to a time and place. Worship is a lifestyle according to Hebrews 13:15-16 which teaches that worship should take place “continually.” We don’t just worship for one hour from 11:00 to 12:00 Sunday mornings. We worship every waking hour. We either worship God or ourselves and our pleasures and possessions. We either worship God or commit idolatry.
2. Is Directed to the Father through the Son in the Spirit (John 4:24).
3. Is Directed to the Father through the Son (John 4:26). The Samaritan woman went from seeing Jesus as “a Jew” (4:9) to “sir” (4:11) to “a prophet” (4:19) to “Christ” (4:29). Even Jesus said, “No man comes to the Father but by me.”
A. “In Spirit” (The Spirit empowers the human spirit). The Samaritans worshiped in the spirit but not in truth. They associated with pagans and worshiped enthusiastically but shallowly. The Samaritans rejected all of the Old Testament but the Pentateuch. Jesus said to the Samaritan, “You know not what you worship” (4:22).
B. “In Truth” (The Spirit enables us to understand God’s Word). The Jews on the other hand worshiped in truth but not in spirit. The religious Jews believed all the Old Testament was God’s Word but their heart was not into worship. Jesus said to the religious but unsaved Jews, “This people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me” (Matthew 15:8). They were straight as a shotgun barrel and just as empty.
The divine method was demonstrated with Jesus and the Samaritan woman. He gave her the truth in 4:26 and she enthusiastically responded in 4:28. If our worship is Word driven we will both worship in spirit and in truth. We will be like Daniel, after reading the Word of God in Jeremiah 25:11-12, he falls to our knees in prayer (Daniel 9:1-3). We will experience what Ezra enjoyed when he expositionally preached the Word in Nehemiah and the people wept as they heard God’s Word.
God-centered worship is the solution to our "worship wars." Worshiping God and not worshiping how we worship God is the remedy. Neither is a cease-fire in our blended service acceptable in our worship wars. It is not enough to stop fighting the other side but only worship when "our songs" are sung. We need to come to church and worship God not how we worship. Come and pour out your praise to Him "in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs" (that sounds like a variety of styles to me) and not focus on ourselves and our tastes only.
Mark Dever offers wisdom concerning “worship wars.”
Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord” (Eph. 5:19, NIV). The whole Ephesian church was commanded to build one another up and praise God through song. Part of pastoral leadership, then, is to facilitate this kind of edifying worship. But again, Jesus uses His Word to build or edify the church. So it makes sense that we only sing songs that use His Word both accurately and generously. The more accurately applied scriptural theology, phrases, and allusions, the better—because the Word builds the church, and music helps us remember that Word, which we seem so quickly to forget.
This certainly doesn’t mean that you have to use hymns and older songs exclusively. There is actually much wisdom and edification in employing a variety of musical styles so that people’s musical tastes broaden over time with wider exposure to different musical genres and time periods. This wider exposure can help curb the intensity of people’s musical preferences based on personal tradition and experience, which in turn will lessen the likelihood of division or conflict over issues of musical style. Careful planning here can help defuse the most notorious bombs of the “worship wars” (Mark Dever, and Paul Alexander, The Deliberate Church : Building Your Ministry on the Gospel, Crossway, 2005.