A few weeks ago I heard someone make the comment to a group of people that “worship was really good today.” There were several in the group that nodded their heads in agreement. One commented about a specific song that they really liked. It seemed apparent to me that most everyone in the group agreed with the original assessment that worship was good on that particular Sunday.

I’ve been apart of these conversations before. I probably even made similar comments. So I understood the purpose and the context of that discussion. Maybe this day God wanted to say something new to me. Maybe, my current devotional readings have challenged me to look at Christianity through a different lens. Or maybe it was just my sarcastic and cynical nature coming out. Whatever it was, I found myself internally questioning that if today had good worship was there such a thing as bad worship. Of course, I’ve been a part of the church long enough to have experienced some poor musical performances or the occasional awkward call to prayer. But can any worship be called bad? Can there be a bad worship song?

Whether this line of thinking was inspired by the Spirit or by my own dysfunction, it led me to a place where I began thinking about the criteria in which we evaluate worship.

• What made that particular Sunday good?
• Why was it better than the week prior?
• Will next week fail to reach the same level in worship? How will we know?
• What is the measuring stick to judge good worship?

If I asked Joe Christian what makes good worship what do you think the response would be? 　It focuses on God in his Glory and Goodness? It lifts up or celebrates God?

I would expect that type of answer. I’ve heard that before. And that makes sense. Except that if I’m being honest, the songs we sang this week were no more detailed or focused in their praise and celebration of God than songs we sing any other week. Why was worship “good this week?”

“I liked the music better.” The church I’m a member of has some of the most amazing musical talents that lead us in worship every week. Skilled vocalists sing alongside a group of talented musicians on a variety of instruments. As a person who appreciates music, it is very easy for me to get caught up in the musical performance on any Sunday. Every week our praise and worship team works to lead us in worship using great songs performed in a quality manner.

So maybe “worship was good” because a few of these amazing musicians sang some really great songs. 　We have such a large talent pool for our worship team that different people are part of the worship team each week. Maybe the group this week was the A-team. The best performers. Or at least better than other weeks. Is that why worship was better? The quality and skill of those preparing the worship and performing the music? Is worship not as good at some small church where some poor tone-deaf pastor selects a few songs with zero understanding of music theory and performance and then leads the small congregation in worship while poor old sister Francis bangs out the old hymns on an out of tune organ?

At this point, you may feel like you’re being set up. And you are. But it’s an honest question; is the quality of worship determined by the quality of the musical presentation? Of course, us Protestants (maybe my catholic friends can give some input here) would say that it’s ultimately not the quality of the worship, rather its that we give God the best we have. Because honestly, worship isn’t about us, it’s about God. Worship is about praising the Almighty for His greatness and mercy. It doesn’t matter if I can carry a tune or not, or if the worship leader knows that adding a minor 6th to the chord progression evokes a certain emotion. It’s not about me. It’s about worshiping Him.

Sounds good. But I have a pretty good feeling that if my church decided to use Gregorian Chants exclusively for Sunday morning worship that there would be equal amounts of people complaining to the pastoral staff and leaving to find a new church home. How can I know that? I live in an area that has 4 or 5 churches of the same denomination within a few minute’s drive of each other. The doctrinal beliefs are the same. The pastors studied at the same schools, for the most part.

Yet somehow we determine which one of these churches to attend. How do we choose? Most would agree that worship and worship style play heavily into that decision. 　Can I worship at a church that chants in Latin? I guess. Is it praise to God? To the best of my ability, it is. Is it my preference? While I do have Gregorian chants as a channel on my Pandora  I wouldn’t want that to be my primary method of worship. Then there is that pesky traditional hymns vs contemporary praise music debate. How do you side in that discussion? Is it your theology that dictates where you land? Or is it preference?

I’m on both sides. I enjoy hymns and praise songs. Sometimes I find an affinity to one over the other just to discover that a few weeks later my preference has switched. So is what made “worship good today” the fact that someone heard songs that they like? “This is my kind of worship.” 　But we quickly run into the idea that worship should be about God.  So we try to spiritualize our preferences. Give theological support for the use of one style over another.

There are several moments where worship seems the most real to me and that I keep coming back to in my search for understanding. There is one moment that stands definitive in my mind as the first time I really experienced worship.

I was a junior in college. I was working the midnight shift at the warehouse and attending class full time. The way my class schedule worked combined with my work schedule there was one semester where every Monday I wouldn’t sleep. I went into work Sunday night at 11 pm, got off work around 7 am and would go to class at 9 am. Usually, read or do homework in between. The day of classes finished at 3 pm but I had an evening class from 6:30-9 pm. I had to be back to work around 10:30 to start the Tuesday shift. That’s how I started every week. And even when I didn’t have night class, the workload for school required more time than I had to work on it. Add to that the fact that home (I was a commuter student) was not the most stable environment. It’s easy to see how this could all go wrong. I used to take pride in being a good student. Deans list and all that. But I quickly began to fail. At almost everything. Missed too many chapel services and had to pay big fines as well as explain to the school why they shouldn’t suspend me. 　I was falling asleep in random places between classes. I felt isolated, exhausted, overwhelmed, and afraid. I was slowly failing, losing friendships. My grades suffered. Every day was a challenge. But I refused to quit. I had sensed a call from God and at that point, that call was about all that I could hang onto. 　There were a few people that helped me a great deal, but they couldn’t fix this for me. I felt broken and numb. Then one Wednesday during chapel in Chalfant Hall, the praise band sang a song I had never heard before, Breathe .

“This is the air I breathe

This is the air I breathe Your holy presence living in me

This is my daily bread This is my daily bread Your very word spoken to me.”

I sang the words as I struggled to focus my mind on the screen. But then the next line in the song came up:

“And I, I’m desperate for you

And I, I’m I’m lost without you”

And when I got to the word desperate I lost it. And by “it” I mean all control over my emotions, thoughts, everything. That word desperate struck me deep down. It defined my situation. 　I was honestly desperate for God. I had written in a journal around the same time that I wasn’t going to survive unless God showed up. And I’m not one to be dramatic. That’s how I felt; that’s what I believed. And for the first time, I wasn’t just singing a song about God or about me. I was singing to God about me. My worship wasn’t just about God. And it wasn’t just about me. It was about God with me.

And there I stood sobbing in the middle of my chapel row surrounded by a group of people I didn’t know (never got to know my chapel buddies. Pretty sure to them I was just the kid who slept in chapel). I couldn’t make the crying stop. The word desperate wouldn’t stop repeating in my head. It’s like my whole being was yelling about my desperation for God.

About the same time in that semester I had Preaching and Worship class with Dr. Bray. He defined worship as response to revelation. Word then worship. Table than the altar. Revelation then response. I understood that worship wasn’t only about telling God He is great for being God, but that I worshiped God by responding to His revealing Himself to me. Worship is my response to an incarnate God revealing Himself. These two moments combined defined worship for me. There have been several similar moments since then. Moments where I felt overwhelmed in worship. Where I felt like I truly understood my relationship with God at that moment.

What was the common thread running through every one of those moments where I felt like I was engaging God during worship? It wasn’t a particular style of music or song. It wasn’t because of a particular prayer during that time. It wasn’t because of the talent or skill of the musicians or leaders. It was that at that moment I felt God speaking directly to me. My greatest moments of worship have come as a response to God speaking to my heart. Years after that original experience when I found myself with the title pastor in front of my name and the ability to shape a worship service I changed the entire order of service to focus on a time to respond to God.

The traditional way of doing church was to have all the worship at the beginning, then a message with an altar call at the end. But time was always short at the end and so you might have the time it takes to sing two verses of “I Surrender All” to respond. I wanted our worship to be a response to God. And not some abstract idea of God. A very specific revelation.

I put the sermon at the beginning of the service (after a hymn). 　My messages always followed the same pattern; Biblical text, explore the text, identify the crisis or challenge within the text, then God’s answer to that crisis or challenge . After we spent 30 minutes listening and exploring God’s word and then hearing the Good News from that text, we　worshiped. Jessica always planned the music to go from invitational directly following the message to celebratory and joyous at the end. People were honestly glad when church was over. And not just because I was done talking. Service ended with people clapping sometimes. And not because anyone led them to clap. Our church was experiencing a difficult time and yet we praised God in our worship. 　The whole service was structured around the idea of providing the most time to respond to God and God’s word.

I’m not saying that’s the only way to worship or that we did it right and everyone else is wrong. Although to be honest, I sometimes have a difficult time worshiping just because the clock says its time.  As I was thinking about what made “worship good this week” I couldn’t help but hope that it wasn’t musical preferences or the talent of the worship team that made the difference. Or the thought that God heard our praises “real good “this week. I hoped that they experienced the amazing moment when God’s revelation connects with one’s personal situation. When God’s word becomes more than a concept in our heads but captures and defines our situation as if God was speaking directly to us; then our only response to God is to worship and the only way to worship God is in sincere response.

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