Is That Worship Or Entertainment?

Today I got into a discussion with a brother on one of my pet topics. It was about the place of emotions in worship and my contention was and has always been that a lot of what we call “worship” in many of our churches these days (especially among Charismatics) is nothing of the sort but rather just plain emotional manipulation at worse or entertainment at best!

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not denying the involvement of our emotions in worship and quite frankly, it’s impossible to worship God without any form of emotional expressions. Christianity certainly isn’t an offshoot of ascetic Stoicism. Indeed, worship is properly an emotional response to the radiant beauty and splendid majesty of the perfections of God, yet it is not sentimental!

There is a proper place of emotions in our worship but it needs not be romanticised. It is true that the scriptures do exhort Christians to “love the Lord with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength” but it doesn’t end there. It also enjoins us to love the Lord with all our minds and when one considers these qualities that we are to engage in our worship, one finds that they are not in isolation but do share some form of a cause-effect relationship. Just think about it.

One can only properly love what one knows and admires and this knowledge should incite one to do acts of love and service all borne out of the affections for one’s object of worship which affections is engendered by the knowledge of said object! Vincent Cheung aptly stated that “Worship does not first consist of our songs and postures, but of our thoughts regarding things of God.” Therefore, it is our conception of God’s attributes and perfections that inform the depth of our expressive devotions to him.

Unfortunately, a lot of what we call “worship service” these days is nothing more than a concert with a Christian theme where the singer’s aim is to satisfy the audience by giving their best performance while claiming all along that the whole gathering is about Jesus. If only that were true but it’s not! The songs sang at such gatherings may contain exclusively Christian lyrics yet these only serve as a façade to conceal the real purpose which is to entertain the audience.

It is not uncommon to find that at such shows, the venues are usually dimly lit with some having smoke on stage like a typical rock concert with the aim of giving the audience a kick akin to the emotional highs experienced by drug addicts. Is it any wonder then that the ads to such shows often contain such catchphrases like an “experience of a lifetime”? Like some sort of emotional therapy.

How can anyone truthfully call such an event “worship” when it is clear that the aim is for the audience (I wouldn’t even call them congregation) to enjoy themselves and not to venerate their Maker? It should be called “concerts” or “shows” as some are doing nowadays, and rightly so. It is a misnomer to call these shows “worship.”

Sometimes the organizers of these shows fail to live up to their hype often due to unexpected power outages (dumsor dumsor) or some other equipment malfunction or just very bad performance by the singer, the aftermath of which is endless complaints ( about not getting their money’s worth of satisfaction) from the audience saying, often in pidgin, “worship no be” or “I no feel am.” Such complaints betray their selfish motives and is nothing short of idolatry.

Understanding the beautiful gospel of a majestic God who sought a rebellious people at the cost of his beloved Son ought to give rise to a feeling of profound love and admiration, leading to an implicit devotion of this God which expresses itself in overwhelming gratitude through heartfelt singing and prayer and other joyous services all to his glory!

Now that is worship!!!