Praise and worship! Who needs it!?
Monday, August 7, 2006 at 7:56PM 
G.K. Chesterton once said,
"Trying to glorify God is like lighting a candle to glorify the sun. The candle's nice, but the sun doesn't need it."
Have you ever thought why we praise God? Some Christians treat praise as if God needs a 'weekly ego boost', something akin to saying "Who's da man? You da man!" How condescending!
God loves praise! But, I think the reason why God loves praise is not because God needs an ego boost. Rather, it is because true praise is an encounter with truth!
I have come to discover that praise is much less about God, and much more about me - it is God's gift to me. When we praise God we are simply declaring a truth about who God is - powerful, creative, actively engaged, and of course loving! This proclamation of truth is intended to change you (and me of course)!
When we truly believe the praises we declare, it reminds us who God is, and of course what that truth means for the one who is 'truly' praising.
I am often confused by the kind intellectualal snobbery that becries the shallowness of contemporary worship - as if the eloquencece of liturgy, or the rich imaginative engagement of contemplation, are the only creative ways of being encountered by God. Somehow I think such snobbery misses the point of praise. We don't need to flatter God, we need to find creative ways of actively engaging people with the truth, more expressly with the one true God. This will mean different things for different people.
I love contemporary worship - sometimes the theology is not so hot... But, then I seldom approach worship in the same way that I approach marking a Doctoral Thesis. They are different things, they have different purposes.
Worship, particularly extatic, emotive, engaging worship (in whatever form it takes) is intended to move the truth of who God is from the mind to the heart. Sometimes it won't be entirely sensible, but the emotive experience and discovery of the truth of who God is reminds me just how wonderful God is. I approach God to declare God's goodness, and in return God helps me - not just to know it, but to feel it.
Isn't praise a wonderful gift!? The next time you feel the need to diminish someone else's experience of worship, take a few moments to think what truth they may be encountering, and ask God to give you a glimpse of that. Who knows you may just receive a fresh measure of grace... you may just be challenged to realise that praise may just has something to do with your further discovery of truth!?
Reader Comments (5)
That's such a helpful phrase - 'praise is an encounter with truth'. Thanks for your thoughts. Welcome back to SA!
Wow!!! Thanks Dion. I have been truly blessed by your post. It's good to read some other views on worship and our response and have enjoyed reading it alot.
Hi D.
Thanks for a great post. What strikes me in the difference between "traditional"- and contemporary worship (and praise) is that where in trad worship you find the word "we" repeated many times, while in contemp it is replaced by "I".
This is one struggle I have with the contemp stuff. I may be wrong, but it presupposes a personal experience at the expense of corporate worship. What does it mean to worship "together"?
Is there a sense that community needs to encounter truth and that be reflected in our worship?
Just a few thoughts.
Well, well not bad man. I think that we get so wrapped up in the mechanics that we miss the truth...the truth is that we need the intimacy of a relationship with the Almighty. Keep praising with all your mind, body and soul...and hey why not throw in a little bit of emotion in there, after all God gave it to us.
Blessings
J
Not bad for a Stormers supporter. God may use Macs but ...
Worship, both in traditional and contemporary styles, contain questionable theology. At least in contemporary worship we can sing "Hallelujah" 40 times!
Great to hear someone in an important position in the church saying something about contemporary worship - Hallelujah (see, I told you its helpful)