Jen Jeffrey: Worship Styles And Strained Peas

  • Thursday, October 8, 2015
  • Jen Jeffrey
Jen Jeffrey
Jen Jeffrey

When we think about worshipping God, why would we think about the style of our worship? We don’t think about our faith with a fashion sense do we? In our effort to invite the unchurched to ‘come as you are’ and ‘all are welcomed’ it seems we ourselves have lost our sense of respect for whom we worship in how we worship.

No, it shouldn’t be about what we wear – it should be about where our hearts are, but what does my heart speak if I go to worship the Almighty God, maker of Heaven and Earth wearing faded or worn jeans on Sunday morning? Or a tee shirt that bares my favorite Christian band? Comfortable and casual.

The style of our worship isn’t really about what people wear to church as much as it is about where our heart is and how we think of our creator. For me, I like to wear my best when I go to a house of worship. If my best isn’t the best – that is okay, I am not out to impress anyone, but I think I should put effort in what I wear to worship that is beyond comfortable and casual, because God is special to me. I think I should show respect for the day I set aside to go to the Lord’s house and I should prepare for worshiping Him.

Sunday is the day I have set aside to worship, so I have plenty of time during the week to prepare. Not just prepare my clothes to represent my Lord through my outward appearance, but to prepare my inward attire as well.

My worship for the Lord God is about acknowledging His worth and who He is – ‘worthship’ one might say. And He is everything. He is not my pal in whom I take along with me as I go about my way. He is the one I follow and when I fail to follow His lead, I look to Him for His guidance. When I pray to God, it is not to give Him my wish list of how I want things to be, but I pray for His will because I trust Him to know best. I don’t tell God how to do His job and I don’t see myself as His equal. God deserves much more respect than we give Him today.

My worship style is probably classified as ‘old school’ because I just do not get into the contemporary style of worship today. Oh, I understand the reason churches are allowing a more relaxed, youthful feel in their worship. Churches are striving to keep our youth interested and involved. With teen suicides and juvenile crime on the rise we must reach young people in whatever way they would receive God’s message.

One of my favorite Christian bands, is a local band in Chattanooga called “As Isaac” and I support their music, their efforts to reach the lost and their mission work. They are a young group, but when you listen to the songs they write and record, you know how deeply rooted their hearts and minds are fastened to the word of God.

I like listening to them in my car on their CDs I have purchased or when I am in Chattanooga or they travel out this way for a concert.

I also like listening to contemporary Christian, Christian Folk, R & B Gospel all with an upbeat that moves my soul.

But on Sunday morning, my worship style is a bit different that the contemporary services that have become so popular. I don’t knock anyone’s worship style just because it is different from mine, but it seems the few I see today who share the same preference in the way they worship are my parents and grandparents generation.

Attending several churches in the last 10 years as I have moved around, I have given the contemporary churches a fair shake. I have prayed about how I felt about what I did not like and I asked the Lord to help me see passed those things.

But when I felt my spirit at such unrest each Sunday when I stood to ‘sing along’ with the praise team after a year of attending my husband’s church in Kentucky, it is time to follow my heart. God has my heart completely and so it is easier for me to trust it now than when my heart was a self-seeker.

Not to put down any church who practice a contemporary style of worship, but here are the reasons I personally do not feel a part of that style of worship:

Attending a church, with no choir but instead a ‘Praise Team’ to lead worship feels too much like a concert to me and I love going to Christian concerts and I do feel worshipful when I go.

But on Sunday morning when I am meeting with a body of believers to worship at church, I want to feel one with them. I want to be able to hear the person next to me singing to the Lord - I want the intimacy.

I like singing, but I am not a professional who sings on the radio and cannot sing the contemporary hits with the praise team (who most likely has practice or rehearsal time) just because the words are on a big screen. Where are the notes? And how do I follow the lead if the key he sings is too low or high for me? Sometimes I might be able to hear another person singing harmony in the praise team, but the band usually drowns that out and it is hard for me to follow.

I missed having hymnals. I missed the songs I sang from my youth – even though contemporary churches try to weave a few of them in the service. I missed a choir’s anthem or a vocalists who sang as a way of their testimony. I missed the words of the older songs that were so rich in meaning for me – all four verses.

Instead of acknowledging God’s worth in the meaning of the hymns, I was guessing if the notes to the words on the screen were going to go up or down and not really knowing because the music was covering up most of the people’s voices around me.

It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate the music. I could sit and listen to the praise team in concert and enjoy it, but don’t ask me to sing along on Sunday morning and guess my way around the songs - that isn’t unified worship to me.

The preaching at my husband’s church was enjoyable and I respect the father and son who would share God’s word. They are down to earth and are as real as it gets.

What I miss, is the reverence we used to give God when I was growing up. Yes, Jesus is as close as a brother, I feel so close to the Lord and I even laugh with Him, but I do not make Him my equal. He is sinless, I am not. He is pure and Holy and … well, I try, but I humanly fail. I acknowledge God the Father as the Supreme Being over me. I want to show Him respect and honor. I don’t want to glorify myself and I don’t want to relax and be casual when I worship a God of such royalty. I want to experience worthship time with reminders of what I need to be focusing on.

I don’t want to just sing along with today’s popular music trying to grasp the message in them while focusing on the tune’s many riffs, then listen to a preacher speak of what God lays on his heart and then go home. I want a more worthshipful experience where I am reminded I am a sinner, and given the time to ask forgiveness in responsive reading with fellow believers. I am reminded of who God is and how I should come to Him as I worship … with all reverence and respect and love.

I visited a few churches around Murray in which I had been invited and they spoke the same message as the church I had been attending, but still heading towards that same contemporary style.

Change in method doesn’t bother me as long as the message is still the same. It just felt as though I had been on strained peas long enough and it was time for whole food again.

I had enjoyed attending First Presbyterian Church in Chattanooga before I moved to Kentucky and I felt I was receiving ‘whole food’ then, so I planned to find a Presbyterian church in Murray but before I did, I was curious to visit First United Methodist Church where my grandparents and parents went years ago.

For the last few weeks I have been visiting and I really feel at home in their worship style. I admit, I also experienced feeling of nostalgia knowing my grandparents attended every Sunday and sat on those same pews years ago.

I sit toward the front so I can see well. The choir loft is not in the center, it is parted.  In between the choir and up on the back wall my attention draws to the beautiful stained glass picture of Jesus kneeling in prayer. Not that I would pray to stained glass or think it is Jesus Himself, but it is a reminder to me of whom I am thinking about just in case I had a rushed morning at home.

The associate pastor welcomes us and then the ‘chime of the hour’ resounds. How beautiful! We begin with prayer and confession which helps to put our hearts where it needs to be for the rest of the service if it isn’t already there.

The Prelude last Sunday was a classical piece played beautifully on piano with organ accompaniment. Ah, I felt right at home. I could just see in my mind’s eye, my grandparents smiling as they most likely heard similar music on Sunday.  The opening hymn was not one I was familiar with, but I followed right along with the hymnal book.

Announcements were made and a ‘call to action’ (awareness of certain ministries at the church) and then the offertory prayer and hymn followed by the Doxology. I knew that song by heart, “Praise God from Whom all blessings flow…” I remembered that as a child. Yes, I think my childhood memories growing up in the Methodist Church (and the fact that this was my family’s church when I was a baby) had a lot to do with my feeling at home, but it was also the style of worship they have.

I liked that the minister wears a robe, I like the responsive reading that keeps me mindful of who I am and who God is, I like the traditional familiarity that just says ‘church’ to me. I like singing WITH the church and hearing those around me singing and the intimacy it brings as we all worship together.

Again, it isn’t that I think less of the way other churches feel the need to worship with a relaxed style and contemporary music blaring loudly, because I know many people love that style of worship, but the traditional and reverent style of worship, the respect, the honor and the focus solely on God is where my heart belongs. I truly worship in that setting and my heart is full of joy.

As the world changes and methods in worship change, I hope there will always be ‘the old school’ church for me as long as I am living. Maybe I am old before my time, but I actually think I have always been this way.

Go ahead and advance in technology. Change the way we do our work, change the way we communicate, change the way we are entertained … but don’t change the church where I go to worship my Father …Who art in Heaven. Hallowed be His name. His Kingdom come, HIS will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.

Amen

jen@jenjeffrey.com

 

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