Much discussion and thinking over Shaun Groves’ series, Shut Up and Worship led me to a few conclusions about worship and music and how the pieces fit together…

Style of music matters so little to me. I much more look at how Scriptural a song is. Often times I find “Christian” music, particularly of the last 10 years or so, to be all about feeling good and getting the warm fuzzies. I find a lot of “secular” songs that deal more truthfully with the issues we’re facing in the real world. If one so desires, he can live an entire life in CCM-style music and feel like the world is already a perfect place where sin is okay and we’re all forgiven and we’ve been saved from all responsibility.

The problem with that is it’s not true. We do have responsibilities. We aren’t saved simply to have our sin forgiven, we’re saved to be set free from sinning. We aren’t saved so we can be individuals who individually get to “go to heaven”, we’re saved so we can live day in and day out as a part of a BODY of believers… we’re saved to be part of the winning team.

But if we minimize the impact of salvation, if Jesus merely gives us a ticket to heaven when we die, and the rest of our life looks just like any other red-blooded cling-to-my-rights American, then God is just a ticket machine and we needn’t be grateful for much of anything. In fact, God starts looking like a mean guy — he gives me salvation, but not the next guy. I got my golden ticket… sucks to be in the rest of the world! Oh well, when do the Lions play?

Worship is FAR MORE about attitude. It’s about recognizing what filthy God-hating trash we were and how incredibly much God sacrificed on our behalf so we could have LIFE restored to us. It’s about realizing that everything we have is a gift to be shared with someone else. It’s about recognizing that our brothers and sisters are the most valuable asset on this earth. It’s about thanking God for a gift we could never afford.

What does that attitude look like? Sometimes it’s “Be still and know that I am God.” Sometimes it’s lying prostrate for an hour because words just don’t come. Sometimes it’s crying out in agony because our little minds just don’t understand. Sometimes it’s making a loud noise.. so loud it wakes the dead. Sometimes it’s a quiet hymn, while other times it’s blowing the roof off in music. But most of the time, it’s living a life of peace as much as it’s in our power, of feeding the hungry, of healing the sick, of housing the homeless, of strengthening the weary, of supporting the hurting. We mourn with those who mourn and we rejoice with those who rejoice. We forgive faster than we can think up a grudge and then we seek moment by moment ways to bless our friends as well as our enemies.

Worship isn’t music. Worship is becoming the grateful, godly, bold, intelligent, well-informed, loving people God created us and saved us to become. It’s living every moment of our life knowing that God is so incredibly awesome (in it’s original sense) that we can’t even earn a second of His ear or a moment before His throne… and then realizing that He dug into the filthy mess we’ve made to pull our stinky carcasses out and breathe into us new and everlasting life.

Wrap THAT into a song :-)