Music Matters
Show 16

Good day, I'm Robert Barnes and this is Music Matters. Last week, we talked about "Deadly Differences" in worship, those errors that should be fought over, that people should be fired over, and that any church guilty of those offenses should find themselves with an empty parking lot the next Sunday.

This week, we'll look at "Dynamic Differences," those differences in worship styles that are good and healthy and should not be condemned because of the silence of Scripture concerning the matter and respect for how God uses differently gifted people and traditions in His body for His glory.

The first thing we must admit is that the Bible is silent in some areas. While God is clear about the basic truths of Christianity, there are other matters he saw fit to leave vague in Scripture. One of those areas is the exact content of a New Covenant worship service. He gives us plenty of details about the Older Covenant, but virtually none about worship content under the New.

So, there is room to embrace change and uniqueness and newness without giving up our good and helpful and biblical traditions. And if we can change without violating Scripture, then there is a way to become relevant without necessarily becoming worldlier. But how?

This area of freedom in worship is created as we affirm God-centered and Biblical presuppositions about worship. With these firmly in place, we can then explore the gifts God has given us from culture and individual gifting. With this "safety net" in place, we can have life-giving, dynamic differences in our worship of God that are legitimate expressions of worship, but may be different from mine. For instance:

• Instrumentation is optional. You can use a variety of instruments in worship of God under the Older Covenant, and we would expect more, not less, freedom under the New. But you may also be free to not use ANY instruments. The Bible does not say, "Thou shalt always use instruments in worship of me." Perhaps we could all use a couple of Sundays per year where we turned off the Pipe Organ, put away the drums, and worshiped God with only the sound of the human voice, with thoughtful periods of silence after each song, or after the sermon, or at the beginning of the service.
  
  
• Decoration is optional. You can have banners, or no banners. You can have pews or chairs. You can have classical architecture, or contemporary. But remember these send a message to the worshiper. Do we approach God casually, or reverently? Do we approach as a body, all sitting in the same seat, or do we sit in movie theater seats, as if we are observing a religious play? My vote is to make your decoration FLEXIBLE. Make it possible to create a casual setting for one occasion or a formal one for another. Use backdrops, plants and lighting to create the appropriate setting for the given situation. But remember: Whatever you do, you are worshiping God. Worship is a holy time, and reverence must accompany relevance.

I could go on. Note that these areas of difference, while we may be free to choose among them, are far from meaningless. Each decision we make will change the flavor and expression of your worship. But God has seen fit to not mandate exactly how we perform in these areas, so neither can we.

How can we learn to be silent where God has whispered? How can we grow from angry dogmatics, where everything is an essential of the faith, to mature Christians who know when to fight, when to join hands, and when to surrender? Only by the power of the Holy Spirit applying the truths of the Gospel to our lives. Only through deepening our repentance and believe in the Gospel, the right and left foot of the Christian walk, can we find a way to grow beyond worship wars.

This has been Music Matters, and I'm Robert Barnes. For information about a Music Matters seminar in your area, please call Covenant Presbyterian Church at 407.671.8080 or email me at [email protected].