Why Worship: Together

What was your first concert? 

Mine was the Jonas Brothers when I was 10 years old. If you asked me, I could tell you the exact spot in my living room I was standing in when I first saw one of their music videos. From that moment, little Jordan was hooked. To my mom’s displeasure, I blasted their CDs all throughout the house and anytime we were in the car together I begged her to let us listen to their songs. But nothing compared to the moment that I was finally able to sing their songs with thousands of other screaming girls. Fans who attended Taylor Swift’s Eras tour have compared their experience to church and before we write these people off as crazy and overly obsessed fans, the same comparison has also been made by sports fans when they attend a game of their favorite team.

There is a certain rush we experience when we leave a concert or a sporting event. For 3+ hours, we’ve gathered with hundreds to thousands of other individuals who are there for the same purpose and same passion. If you take a moment to look around at a concert, it can actually look very similar to some of our church experiences today. 

Hands are raised, songs people have memorized are sung at the top of their lungs, and we’re all gathered together for one person/group and one purpose. Now I am not equating a concert to church, but I do think our behavior and our love for concerts and sporting events points to something deeply engraved within the human heart. We were made for communal singing and more than that, we were made for communal worship. 

There’s a reason why attending a live concert brings so much more joy than just singing in your car alone. It’s because you were hardwired by God to sing alongside and with others. Research has shown that singing together bonds you with those around you releasing dopamine and oxytocin in your brain. Singing also aids in memorization, that’s why the ABCs is one of the first songs children are taught to learn. If this happens to us even when we sing secular songs, how much more so when we do what we were created to do, which is to worship the one true God. The Bible is filled with commands telling us to sing together, to shout for joy, to lift our hands in worship to God. (Ps. 68:4-6, 100:1-2, Eph. 18-19) From the Old Testament to the New, a marker of God’s people is that they are a singing people who sing together.

John Piper says that, “singing is not just a response to the grace of God, but a means of the grace of God”. John Piper is articulating what science has proven to be true, that God has made us for singing and intends for us to experience His grace when we sing to Him and over one another. The Worship Department at Fellowship clings to Colossians 3:16 which says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” 

Week after week, we gather together as the corporate body of Christ so that we might remind ourselves and sing over one another the truths of who God is and what He has done through Christ. What a privilege it is to look out from stage as we sing “You’ve Already Won” and see a husband and wife lifting their hands after they’ve just had a miscarriage. Or to see someone we know who is struggling deeply with sin, but singing passionately that Jesus has paid it all. This is the joy that you and I have as worship leaders. Week after week we get to lead our congregation in remembering and proclaiming the truths of Scripture through song and allowing our faith to be strengthened and encouraged as these truths are sung by our brothers and sisters in Christ. 

So as you step on stage this weekend or you stand shoulder to shoulder with your fellow believers, take hold of this in faith trusting that God intends to reveal more of His character to you and help you see and treasure Christ more clearly as we sing together. 


Jordan McKenzie (Worship Associate)

Worship is God's gift of grace to us before it's our offering to God. We simply benefit from the perfect offering of the Son to the Father through the power of the Spirit (Ephesians 2:18). Worship is our humble, constant, appropriate, glad response to God's self-revelation and his enabling invitation.

- Bob Kauflin (Worship Matters)

I grew up in the church. I was attending services from before I can even remember. I learned all the routines and norms of being a church kid and to be honest I was very good at them. My dad sang “special songs” on stage to  the applause of all of our friends. I stood with the church as we sang “THERE IS A FOUNTAIN… bum bum bum..” (If you grew up Southern Baptist you know exactly what I’m talking about). I did all the “things” but it always felt a little hollow, a little too normal, and sometimes just downright exhausting.

Fast forward ten or so years and I found myself despising church services, fighting my parents every time they encouraged me to attend youth group, and mocking what I considered to be “church music”. Then something amazing happened. A new youth pastor began to actually disciple me and help me understand the Gospel as good news rather than moral obligation. On a mission trip to Gatlinburg, TN I placed my faith in Jesus for salvation and everything changed! The reason I share my testimony here is because I want to talk about how my new found understanding, trust, and enjoyment of the Gospel completely changed my worship. 

The reason I slowly became exhausted by church gatherings, frustrated by Church norms, and annoyed by Church music was not because I just stopped enjoying those things, it's because my purpose for doing them was wrong! Before I was saved I was doing them out of blind obligation but once I came in contact with the glorious good news of the Gospel I began doing them as a response. Once I understood fully that the wages of my sin was death (Rom. 6:23) and that I needed a perfect sacrifice, Jesus, to bear the weight of my sin on the cross, pay the penalty I deserved, and robe me in his righteousness, the only thing I could do was praise Him! Suddenly when I was standing in church services I was singing loudly, lifting my hands in praise, and meeting with the God of the universe. Church wasn’t just a thing I did on Sundays anymore it was a place where I beheld God in His glory and was actually being changed by Him. 

'And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.'

- 2 Corinthians 3:18

I also found that my studying of God’s word completely changed. I stopped reading and studying the Bible out of obligation and started doing it because I loved God and wanted to know him in deeper ways. The cool thing was that when I studied God’s word because I desired to know him more it actually led me to greater praise of Him rather than just more surface level information about Him. John Piper says, “All theology, rightly grasped, should lead the mind and the heart to doxology (an overflow of praise)”. I couldn’t agree more. When we study the things of God our hearts should be in awe of who He is and respond in great praise and adoration! 

Now, over a decade later, I pray that our church catches this vision. That our services aren’t just where well behaved men and women come to check a box and then go get a table at Cheddars (although Cheddars is great). I pray that our gatherings are a place where we behold God and that we are being changed by Him! That our musical worship isn’t just empty words we sing but rather songs of a redeemed people who have a deep recognition of their own brokenness and Christ’s perfection! I pray that our sermons, life groups, and discipleship groups aren’t just places where our church members find out more facts about God but rather where they begin to know God at deeper levels to where the only natural response is to praise Him for his attributes, characteristics, and actions! 

Response

Take thirty minutes today and self-evaluate your worship. Is your worship a response to who God is and the glorious good news of his Gospel? Or have you slipped into a pattern of monotonous routine and obligation? David is clear in Psalm 16:11 that, “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore”. Are you experiencing the joy of the Lord in His presence? Or has your heart drifted? Maybe you need to take thirty minutes and ask the Lord to remind you that He is your first love, that He loves you, and that He saves you! Maybe you need to take thirty minutes and praise Him because your worship is a response! 


Ryan Ward (Worship & Creative Arts Director)