THE RISE AND FALL

Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations:

PASSIONATE WORSHIP

Romans 12:1-2

Excellent churches have great worship.

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A sermon pr= eached by

Dr. William= O. (Bud) Reeves

First Unite= d Methodist Church

Hot Springs, Arkansas

January 25,= 2009

Oxymor= ons are figures of speech that are inherently contradictory, yet we use them all the time. Some are just part of everyday speech, like “same difference,” “clearly confused,” or “pretty ugly.” Some oxymorons are related to voca= tions, like “sanitary landfill,” “legal brief,” “pos= tal service,” or “working vacation.” Many oxymorons are political in na= ture: “united nations,” “government organization,” or “congressional action.” Unfortunately, for some “wedded bliss” is an oxymoron. And some are religious: “holy war” and “minor miracle.”

If you= ask many folks, they might tell you that “passionate worship” is an oxymoron. For some people, wo= rship is anything but passionate. I= t’s a time to relax, daydream, catch a few winks. Worship done badly is deadly dull.= But that’s not the way God w= ants it done, and that’s not the way excellent churches do it. In Bishop Robert Schnase’s b= ook, Five Practices of Fruitful Congregatio= ns, he says, “Vibrant, fruitful, growing churches offer Passionate Worship t= hat connects people to God and to one another.”[1] Sound familiar?

Great = worship is passionate worship. What d= o you think of when you hear the term “passionate worship?” A televangelist with a big show? Africans drumming and dancing? Pentecostals shouting and speaking= in tongues? A high mass in a cathedral? A Taize folk servi= ce with a guitar for accompaniment and everyone seated and singing? Or do you think of First United Methodist Church of Hot Springs? Which of these are passionate worship? All of them can be! Passionate worship has nothing to d= o with the style of worship. There i= s as much variety in passionate worship as there is in the people of God. Passionate worship can be traditio= nal, contemporary, liturgical, high, low, gospel, ethnic, you name it. It’s not about the style. Passionate worship is about the pe= rsonal encounter of a church with the presence of the living God. It doesn’t matter what vehicle takes you there as long as you arrive.

The Ps= alms are the worship book of the Bible, and passion for worship runs all through them. You can hear it in Psal= m 63:

O God, you are my God, I seek you,

my soul thirsts for you;

my flesh faints for you,

as in a dry and weary land where there= is no water.

So I have looked upon you in the sanct= uary,

beholding your power and glory.

Because your steadfast love is better = than life,
my lips will praise you.[2] =

So let= ’s look today at three ways to improve the passion in your worship. If your worship has been unsatisfy= ing, dull, and boring, these strategies will pick it up, no matter who is doing = the preaching or singing. If your worship has already been passionate, get ready to rock!

To dev= elop passionate worship, first SAY YOUR PRAYERS. Great worship is undergirded by prayer. We hav= e to be spiritually prepared to worship. Trying to worship without preparing in prayer is like trying to run a race without stretching your muscles first; you could pull something! Do you pray for the pastors, the m= usic ministry, the Sunday Schools, and your own openness to God before you ever = show up on Sunday morning? If you = pray to have great worship, God will hear those prayers, and you will be filled = with a spiritual expectancy when you enter this place. The result will be better worship.=

I reme= mber a story about one of the great pastors of the Southern Methodist Church back = in the 1920’s (although I can’t recall the pastor’s name). In his years at this church, he had averaged 2 professions of faith, 2 conversions, every Sunday for something = like 20 years. Another pastor visi= ting on Sunday morning asked him one time how he achieved this remarkable rate of conversions. Was it his preac= hing, the music, the beautiful sanctuary, what?&= nbsp; The home pastor asked his visitor to follow him. Underneath the sanctuary, there wa= s a large room. In this room ther= e were about 80 men praying. They we= re praying for the worship service that morning. The pastor explained, “When = these men go up and sit in the sanctuary, they are so warm with the Holy Spirit t= hat they will thaw out any frozen heart that sits close to them.”

When w= e pray before worship and pray during worship that God will enter the place and me= lt the hearts of his people, then the spiritual warmth in the sanctuary will impassion the congregation. A= nd fruit will grow.

Second= ly, to have passionate worship, KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE. I’m not t= alking about marketing surveys here. We have a tendency, in our consumer culture, to view the worship service like religious entertainment. God = is the producer; he is in control of the process.= The pastors, musicians, ushers, and others who move around are the actors, and the congregation is the audience. Some traditions even call their wo= rship space an auditorium.

The on= ly problem with that scenario is that it creates a passive congregation. And it leads to worship reviews, critiques of the performance of worship by the actors on the stage. “Well that was a good sermon= , but the last story was really dumb. T= he choir sounded nice, but that one lady is always a little too loud. And my piece of bread at communion= was too small.”

If we&= #8217;re not careful, we end up with the attitude reflected in the Dennis the Menace cartoon from several years ago. Walking out of church, Dennis says to the pastor, “Pretty good show for a quarter!”

Passio= nate worship, on the other hand, is directed at God. The pastors, musicians and others = are the producers, in that we manage the process—hopefully without contro= lling the Spirit. The people in the congregation are the actors in the worship drama. And the audience of our worship is God. Passionate worship is di= rected toward our heavenly Father. W= e do this for him. We have an “audience of One.” And the only ultimate criterion of good worship is that it please our Audience.=

Years = ago Bill Moyers, now famous as a fixture on PBS, was press secretary to President Ly= ndon Johnson. Moyers is also an or= dained minister, so once at a state dinner, LBJ had Bill Moyers say the invocation. As he was praying= , the President interrupted him and said, “Speak up, Moyers, I can’t = hear you!”

To whi= ch Bill Moyers replied, “With all due respect, Mr. President, I wasn’t talking to you.” In passionate worship, our audience is God.&n= bsp; It’s not about us.

The th= ird key to passionate worship is to ENGAGE= YOUR HEART. Every worship serv= ice needs to address three areas of our lives—our intellect, our emotions, and our action. A good worshi= p service intrigues the mind, inspires the heart, and invites us to do something. Methodists are generally a pretty = sedate group. Over the years we have become sophisticated, and our worship became intellectual. I’m not against thinking abo= ut our faith. But too often we leave= the heart out of our worship, and that’s the passionate part.

It was= not like that in the beginnings of Methodism.&= nbsp; John Wesley constantly had to defend himself against charges of “enthusiasm” or inappropriate emotionalism in religious services. The early Methodists were called “shouting Methodists” because of their exuberance in worship.
I̵= 7;m not saying we should go crazy with emotionalism. But I am saying that passionate wo= rship has to engage the heart as well as the mind. Bishop Schnase writes in his book: “To worship speaks of dev= otion to God, the practices that support honor and love of God. Passionate describes an intense desire, an ardent spirit, strong feelings, and the sense of heightened importance. Passionate speaks of an emotional connection that goes beyond intellectual consent. It connotes eagerness, anticipatio= n, expectancy, deep commitment, and belief.”[3] Does that describe your heart for worship?

Matt R= edman is a contemporary Christian songwriter who has reached people around the world with his worship music. But e= arly in the 1990’s, he was leading worship in his church in England called Soul Survivor.= The band was good, but the worship= was flat and uninspiring. In fact= , the band was very proud of how good they were.= So one day their pastor, Mike Pilavachi, confronted the band and declared a season of no music. They would sing a cappella until the= y got the right spirit back in their church.&nbs= p; His point was that they had lost their way in worship, and the way to get back to the heart would be to strip everything away. He wanted to challenge his church = to be producers of worship, not just consumers.

Insult= ed, all the band members left the church—all except Matt Redman. He looked deep inside himself and = came up with a song which has become one of the best-loved songs in contemporary worship. It’s called “The Heart of Worship,” and some of the lyrics say, “I’m coming back to the heart of worship, and it’s all ab= out you, all about you, Jesus. I’m sorry, Lord, for the thing I’ve made it, and it̵= 7;s all about you, it’s all about you, Jesus.”[4] That season of engaging the heart = and doing some soul-searching changed Matt Redman’s life.

Passio= nate worship will CHANGE YOUR LIFE.= If you say your prayers, direct yo= ur worship to God as your audience, and engage your heart, something’s g= oing to change. Bishop Schnase cal= ls passionate worship the “optimum environment for conversion.”= = [5] Do you know anybody that was ever converted outside of a moment of public or private worship? This is our practical challenge. When we worship God in spirit and = in truth, we will be moved to do something—to repent and confess our sin= s, to accept Jesus Christ, to give of ourselves, to serve other people, to stu= dy more deeply, to engage in ministry. This is what Paul was talking about when he wrote to the Romans: = 220;I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrific= e, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world,= but be transformed…”[6] When we are being transformed by passionate worship, every day and every place becomes a sanctuary—a p= lace of worship—as we live prayerfully, playing out our lives before our divine audience, our hearts engaged in love for Christ.

I don&= #8217;t think we even realize what sort of fire we are playing with here. Annie Dillard, in her book, Teaching a Stone to Talk, says this about worship: “Why do we people in churches seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? …On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Does anyone have the foggiest idea= what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing = on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should = issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake some= day and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.”[7]

I don&= #8217;t mean to worry you or increase your anxiety this morning, but I just want to prepare you, because in walking into this sanctuary on Sunday morning, you = are taking a risk that you might just encounter the presence of your living, lo= ving God. And when you do, you will wonder what took you so long.

Let me close with= an incident that happened to a friend of mine. Dr. Norman Neaves and his wife Kip= p were leading a group from their church on a tour of England a few years ago, and one of the stops was St. Paul’s Cathedral in London= . It is an awesome structure, even m= ore beautiful on the inside that it is impressive on the outside. As Kipp was standing there admiring the beautiful artwork, she found herself standing next to an elder= ly British gentleman. He was loo= king up at the magnificent dome of = St. Paul’s and tears were running down his wrinkled cheeks. After a moment he spoke these poig= nant words: “I live less than twenty miles from here, and yet this is the first time I’ve ever seen this cathedral since I moved here over 50 y= ears ago!” He just could not imagine how beautiful and inspiring it really was, and so for 50 years he had denied himself the exquisite experience, ev= en though he was so close.

Don’t deny yourself the experience of passionate worship. You’re probably not that far away. Say your prayers. Know your audience. Engage your heart. Encounter the presence of God. Change your life. Bear fruit for the Kingdom. Amen.

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