Made to Worship

My name is Aaron, and I am a recovering anal-retentive worship leader. In fact, I remember once posting a blog that tried to refute what I am about to write. You see, there is this trend in the worship world that is dismissive of every song that is not explicitly doctrinal, and endorsed by reformed guys. I used to be that guy. In fact, I will use the song Made to Worship by Chris Tomlin as the case study for my point.

For many years as a worship leader I refused to lead the Church in the aforementioned song. I had a solid list of reasons, topped off by the fact that it does not reference the cross, or Christ even once (although two books of the Bible are guilty of the same offense. I always said something like “A Muslim could sing that song and mean every word.” In my defense, I took my job very seriously, and had a strong filter for what would be presented to the Church. I still do.

My change of heart came not through a change in my theology of worship music, but at a deeper level in my theology of the Church. You see, the Church that gathers each Sunday is a very defined entity in scripture. In Greek it is called the ekklsia. The “gathering”. The “assembly”. Even the Old Testament uses a similar word (qahal). While this is a semi-debated subject in Christianity today, I think that scripture is clear that this ekklesia, this “gathering” is not a gathering of people, or citizens of an area, but of God’s people. In fact, the OT term referenced earlier is found when God leads his people out of Egypt “That they may worship Him”. There is a gathering where God’s people worship.

That said, with a right theology of the Church, we now sing Made to Worship at my Church. I said earlier “a Muslim could sing it and mean every word.” But, we aren’t Muslim. We aren’t Mormons. We are God’s people gathered together, and that carries with it the implication that we are singing to Christ. He’s the reason we’re there in the first place.

My hope in this post is that the worship leader who reads it will learn from my mistake. This mentality leads us to put such an emphasis on teaching doctrine in song that we dismiss a song that is built on doctrine (though not explicitly teaching it). As a final example, a couple of good friends of mine wrote a song that contained a grand total of 4 lines. “Draw me near to Your side, I want to be close to you. I will run, I will fall at Your feet, Lord Jesus.” I know far too many music people who would run from this song because it does not teach enough. We need to get past that killer element of our filter, right our theology of the Church, understand that these are the people Jesus bought with His blood that are singing the lyrics, and do songs that encourage worship on a level deeper than intellectual.