Worship
Worship.
Written by
Ngwenya B Lamulani
Ngwenya B Lamulani
The Pastor is the leader in the church. The church is
the place were people have to meet to share and establish a common
bond. It provides a sense of unity. The members of the church become
particpants in the worship services. Their styles are a reflection of
the pastorial leadership. In the worship service the Pastor therefore
becomes the one to direct how the members conduct themselves. Worship
is the vein which supplies the church with the blood for spiritual
nutrition.
The
term ministers from the Greek term leitourgoi
which means “servants,” “public
servants,” where we derive the source of our English word
“liturgy”1.
The minister is the one who leads the lirtugical services and directs
its progress. Hence having
a minister present is not a prerequisite to having a meaningful
worship service2.
When the Pastor teachers the church how to worship God in truth and
in Spirit the church will have a meaningful spiritual worship
services.
Let the praise of God be upon your lips when you meet
together in little companies to worship God. Let not one man do much
of the talking. Let several take part3.
Reverence is the foundation of real worship experience. Order makes
worship enjoyable. Paul in his first epistle to the Corinthians wrote
that let all things be done in order. Habbakuk stresses the Holiness
of God, silence being the adjective to summarise the reverential
nature of worshiping the true God4.
Another precious grace that should be carefully cherished is
reverence. True reverence for God is inspired by a sense of His
infinite greatness and a realization of His presence. Reverence is
manifested in attitude and demeanor, the feeling that inspires it
will be deepened5.
There should be an intelligent knowledge of how to come
to God in reverence and godly fear with devotional love. There is a
growing lack of reverence for our Maker, a growing disregard of His
greatness and His majesty. God is speaking to us in these last days6.
Respecting God in worship is the message of the first angel. God is
to be revered and He will in turn show us all the love and shower HIs
faithful followers with the heavenly blessings of love. Man has the
tendence to jest and show indecent attitudes with regard to worship.
The Pastor is mandated to show reverence thus leading by example.
Hence the church will also live up to the standard.
When the Pastor leads in worship, the service that he
is attending and participating in must be seasoned with love. The
Pastor is show care for the congragates and a sense of love should be
manifested in verity. Ellen White wrote a letter to her son Edson
and his wife Emma with regard to church leadership, she said “...I
am sure if there were fewer forms and ceremonies in our churches, and
a greater manifestation of that genuine simplicity, that true love
and sympathy that reaches out for souls, and bears others' burdens,
much more would be accomplished. All who have the work of Christ to
do must have the mind of Christ. The great burden is to educate these
souls by the Word of God, and adapt its teachings to all classes. It
alone can purify the soul from all moral and spiritual impurity7”.
Love is important with regards to worship. The Pastro as
the leader of worship should be loving and must manifest the same
spirit as Christ. The Bible states that the Pastors should possess
the same attitude as did Christ8.
Without love worship becomes a dry mass a worthless murmurings.
Liturgy is akin with worship. When worship is submissive to the
liturgy, it leads to an informal dry packet of rote stage managed
activities that have no meaning. It thefore becomes the job of the
Pastor to ensure that the church learns to become part of the worship
service.
The Pastor in order to facilitate meaningful worship
must educate the church to regard Sabbathkeeping as part of true
worship. If the church ceases to regard the sanctity of the sabbath
then worship will nolonger be soul satisfiying. Consider the prophet
Ezekiel, in the twentieth chapter of his book there is a contrast
between sabbathkeeping and idolatry. God regards holiness with
sabbathkeeping as true form of worship. When the three Hebrew boys
were in a position of compromise they chose to follow the worship of
GOd rather than the worship of an idol9.
The idol of gold was to be a most imposing spectacle, and was to take
the place of God and be worshiped as God. The Third angel is heard
speaking against “...Human laws” which “...demand that
worship..” on an idol sabbath day should be considered “...as
sacred and holy, thus putting it where God's holy Sabbath should be.
Men speak great swelling words, and exalt their power, placing
themselves where God should be. Sitting in the temple of God, they
strive to make themselves as God, showing themselves to be God. When
Pilate said of Christ, "I find no fault in Him," the
priests and elders declared, "We have a law, and by our law He
ought to die."10
In order for the worship to be viewed by the heavenly
host as meaningful then the Pastor must be have the knowledge of hte
true God. This God we are told that He requires the service of
“...the whole heart; for God is a Spirit, and all who worship Him
must worship Him in spirit and in truth and in the beauty of
holiness...the Pastor must have enlarged views of God's
majesty....then the church's light will shine11.
Music
used by the Adventist pioneers laid heavy stress on the distinctive
doctrines of the church the Sabbath and the Second Advent. Beginning
in 1849 with Hymns for God’s Peculiar People That Keep the
Commandments of God and the Faith of Jesus, James White edited five
hymnals and four supplements for his fellow believers prior to the
organization of the church in 186312.
Doctrine might not seem like a factor when it comes to worship, but
with the pioneers, their hymnology considered them as part of true
worship. It there becomes essential for the Pastor to be an expect in
Doctrine. This would sustain the church as a perculiar people. This
perculiarity would ensure that church maintains a distinctive
lirtugical service from those of the other contemporary protestant
sister churches.
The
spiritual formation movement is spreading rapidly throughout the
Christian community. The concept of being formed spiritually is not
wrong in itself, but many practices that accompany the movement miss
the mark. Often, mystic rituals do not glorify the true God but can
instead lead us into dangerous spritualism13.
Spiritual formation, as Roger Oakland writes in his book Faith
Undone,
the term spiritual formation “suggests there are various ways and
means to get closer to God and to emulate him. Thus the idea that if
you do certain practices, you can be more like
Jesus” (emphasis in original)14.
The
implication in the Spiritual formation movement is that there is need
to augument what the bible has priscribe as true worship. Ignitius
Loyola invented the spiritual exercises as a means of attainig
realisation of the true God. These exercise when performed the
substitute for bible studies and true peity. The bible is
marginalised and then the worshiper will seek God merely based on
feeling with disregard of the simplicity of faith. The definition of
faith is the “...evidence of things not seen..” Spiritual
formation seeks to see the evidence that God is in the midst of the
church. Then the worshiper will desire spiritual manifestations like
speaking in toungues. When the worshiper seeks to feel the presence
of God, this nolonger is true worship. The Adventist Pastor cannot
therefore advocate for Spiritual Formation as set standard for
Adventist worship.
Spiritual
formation, then, can be seen as a way of seeking a relationship with
God and a transformed inner self through the practice of
spiritual—and often mystical—disciplines. Unfortunately, many
earnest Christians and Christian leaders are entering into a
spiritualistic lifestyle without even realizing it. Their desire to
draw near to God is leading them to mystic and even occult rituals
hidden among godly practices15.
Mystical
practices like Lectio Divina, contemplative prayers, meditation, yoga
and spiritual coaches they are all mystical. Lectio Divina is the
concept where by scripture is read with a distinctive intonation and
with speacial resonation of the voice such that it will incite a
sense of reverence. Not incucalted by the wonder of the beautiful
types and the theology of the bible, instead the awe is achieved by
the pitch and melody of the one reading the scriptures. Therefore the
Pastor who seeks to advocate for christ centered worship will not
advocate for Lectio Divina.
Yoga,
meditation and contemplative prayers are mystical. They have their
origins in the Eastern religions. Buddah was known to spend hours
meditating. The monks in the Hindu religion meditated, some they
achieved these out of body experience throught the meditations. They
were considered by the Hindu people as the Gurus. Hence the Christian
Pastor cannot at any level regard Hindu worship styles as spiritual
equavalents to Christian ones.
In
this contemporary culture, the gospel of self-fulfillment and the
latent ideals of consumerism, has had a tendency to define the church
and pastors by the standards of the business world. Among other
things, servant leadership has been confused with customer service,
“shepherding the flock” has been melded with corporate
strategizing, stewardship of spiritual gifts has been turned into a
pursuit of self-fulfillment, and preaching has become motivational
speech16.
The
gospel of self-fulfillment is the brain child of Robert Schuller. The
church is encouraged by the apostle Paul to act in concert like a
body. The body never acts in a selfish manner. When cells in a body
“decide” to act selfishly they become cancerous. The only way of
dealing with cancer in a body is by cutting it out or by poisoning
the cancerous part. A cancerous tumour spiritually speaking will
caouse the death of the church.
The
Pastor as a leader of worship should deligate the duties of worship.
If the Pastor had possessed the same spirit that Moses had, he would
have thorough worshipers who are not selfish. When Moses was much
burdened the Lord raised him up in Jethro an advisor and helper. The
advice was taken and the burdens that had come upon him were divided
with others and a two-fold object was gained; Moses was relieved and
he had a better chance for his life, hence a Pastor who would do the
same he would not suffer from burn out17.
In
conclusion the Pastor is the one who defines true worship. When the
Pastor is not knowlegable about the nature of God, he may be
influenced to horge the concept of worship. The worshipers will
nolonger see the perculiarity of the Adventist lirtugical system. The
Pastor must deligate the worship services. The people should avoid
the theological compromise with the pagan mystical Hindi religions.
These compromises are designed to demote the reverential nature of
the God of the universe. Music must inculcate to the worshipers the
idea of doctrine as a realisation of the awe of God's majesty.
1
Nichol, Francis D., The Seventh-day Adventist
Bible Commentary, (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald
Publishing Association) 1978.
Publishing Association) 1978.
2
RH Sept. 10, 1895
3
15MR 153.
5
Ed 242, 243
6{Amazing
Grace page 91.2}
7.--Letter
123, 1896, p. 2. (To Edson and Emma White, August 30, 1896.)
8
Php 2:5-6 KJV Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ
Jesus: (6) Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery
to be equal with God:
9{12MR
219.1}
10{12MR
219.2}
11Letter
29, 1898, pp. 4-5. (To Brother Sisley, January 11, 1898.)
12Anna
White, compiled Hymns
for Youth and Children
in 1854.
13What’s
So Bad about Spiritual Formation? by John Witcombe retrieved from
http://www.amazingdiscoveries.org
15Ibid
16
A theological approach to pastoral leadership today by Jon
Coutts retrieved from http://www.ministrymagazine.com
(2013)
17Letter
64, 1886.