I recently had an interesting conversation with a very Godly young man who has a genuine heart for the Lord.  The conversation was centered on worship and, in particular, his frustration with the seemingly lack of genuine, heart-felt worship at our church in Evergreen.  This annoyance of his was fueled by his recently visiting a church were people were "moving into the aisle and raising their hands, really worshiping."  He had a longing to see that kind of reaction to worship at our home church. 

To a certain degree, he is correct.  I know of several believers at my dear church who truly want to express themselves in different ways during worship but refrain because they feel the atmosphere is not conducive to their expressive desires.  In a similar way, a few members have approached me with a longing to take better advantage of the altar, but do not feel like it is the "normal" thing to do at FBCE.  Thus, to the degree that worshipers have a true heart to be more expressive during their praise and quench that due to fear, then we have an issue. 

But that usually is not the sense in which a statement like my friend's is made.  The usual take on such an idea is that genuine worship can be seen most fully when there is spontaneous, expressive elements on the part of the worshipers, including the raising of hands, bowing of the knees, or moving into the aisles.

With all due respect to my friend, it is simply impossible to know if a church or an individual is "truly worshiping" during a one time visit to a church service.  The reason is because worship concerns the heart, not the hands.  To discern whether or a not a church is engaging in worship with all their heart, soul, and mind, one needs to have a bit of history and experience with the church.  If we as church members, and especially those as worship leaders, begin walking down the road of outward expression to judge genuine worship, then we very quickly will find ourselves being rebuked by Christ himself.  Notice this exchange from Matthew 15:

Then Pharisees and Scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?  For they do not wash their hands before they eat."

Notice the concern of the Pharisees.  They are equating true piety with the outward sign of hand washing.  There is nothing inherently wrong with that tradition but the Pharisees made the mistake, as they were so often prone to do, of making an erroneous parallel.  So, Jesus says this in reply:

He answered them, "And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? . . . . You hypocrites!  Well did Isaiah prophecy of you when he said, "This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrine the commandments of men."

Whether it is washing hands or raising them, Jesus addresses the fundamental issue of worship.  The heart.  Beware of labeling someone as a "great worshiper" because they fall to their knees during a service.  Beware of labeling someone as "uninterested" because they fail to raise their hands during a powerful song.  Can falling to your knees be a genuine expression of worship?  Absolutely.  But no more genuine than the joy-filled believer who sings to the Lord standing on their feet (or sitting) with their hands clasped together, not bring attention to themselves. 

I lead worship on a pretty regular basis.  I understand all too well the frustration of playing music to the Lord and seeing a room full of lifeless, dull faces.  There is no doubt that many are just going through the motions and I believe regardless of your outward expressive tendencies, there should always be a sense of engagement on the part of the worshiper.  Not necessarily always happiness, but engagement.  Having said that, I still must safeguard against seeing those who are more animated as somehow "better" at worshiping than those who are more reserved.  That is not only a faulty way of viewing worship, but it is also dangerous.

Historically speaking, the raising of hands during songs is a relatively new phenomenon, made popular during the charismatic movement of the 20th century.  Walk into a service of the great reformers in the 16th century and you will not see a room filled with hands stretched in the air.  Do we dare assert that they were inferior in their worship?  Oh that we would have the heart and mind for God that those servants of old had.  Some may point to the Scriptures that mention the raising of hands during worship, most notably 1st Timothy 2:8, which speaks of raising holy hands during prayer (speaking to men by the way).  In the very next verse, Paul speaks of women not wearing braided hair.  The issue Paul is concerned with is the same that Christ was concerned with; the status of the heart during worship.  These verses are to instruct us not to always lift our hands or never wear braids, but to take seriously our heart and example during corporate worship. 

For me personally, raising my hands during worship is a very rare thing.  It is not natural and it does not typically help me engage closer to God for His glory.  There have been, and will be, personal exceptions.  My question for those who are hand raisers is, why do you raise your hands?  If it is just learned behavior that we do because we like the song, then I suggest you think long and hard about your motives.  If it is a genuine expression of your worship and closeness to God, then get those hands in the air!

Finally, I think we can all probably learn a little something from the other side.  Us Baptists would probably do well to learn a little something about worship from our more charismatic friends.  Our charismatic friends would probably do well to learn a little something about worship from us.

This is a letter I sent to my church members today in reference to the 2010 Week of Prayer for North American Missions and the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering.  I thought it was applicable to post here as well.

Dear brothers and sisters,

One of the most biblical and vital
aspects of local church ministry is the unity and partnership we work
toward with our sister churches, Baptist or otherwise, who are also
engaged in the cause to reach the lost for Christ.  A great benefit of
being a Southern Baptist church is that we get to enjoy that reality
with thousands of SBC churches around the world.  Allow me to provide
two current examples of how this can make a powerful impact for the
kingdom of Christ.

First, this week is set aside as the 2010 Week of Prayer for North
American Missions.  Believers all around the world will be lifting up
the names of specific North American missionaries who are able to serve
and win people for Christ because of the aid and assistance given by
the SBC.  Every day this week highlights a new missionary family. 
Colorado's own Bill and Carol Lighty are included this year in the
prayer week.  For the weekly list of missionaries that you and your
family can pray for, simply click here.  You can also visit the FBCE Family Ministries website where I will be updating the list every day.  This is a great way for your family to have focused prayer time this week.

Second, During the season of Easter the SBC challenges churches
with what is called the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North
American Missions.  For many of you that name may not be familiar. 
Yet, this offering is a critical means by which over 5,500 North
American missionaries are able to continuing serving Christ on the
mission field.  The national goal for the AAEO this year is
$70,000,000!  Every cent of those monies goes to the continued support
of our missionaries, including almost $50,000,000 for salaries.  To
read more about the person Annie Armstrong and her legacy of inspiring
churches to support missions, click here.   

It is a great joy to serve with you here at FBCE and to serve with millions around the world. 

Many Blessings,
Pastor Philip 
          

There are two Bibles that are usually found open on my desk:  The ESV Study Bible and the MacArthur Study Bible.  Up to this point, the MacArthur study Bible was only available in the NKJV and the NASB.  I am happy to see that in August of this year the MacArthur Study Bible will now be available in the ESV translation.  I commend it to you as a great additional resource for your Bible study. 

A few days ago I posted a brief article on my initial thoughts concerning the Great Commission Resurgence Progress Report.  I expressed what I thought were some great strengths of the report, primarily found in the introductory remarks, and some areas that I thought were on the weak side.

Today I received an email sent to all prayer partners from Ronnie Floyd, chair of the task force, providing a bit of additional insight into the progress report.  I can only imagine the number of questions that have been raised since its release.  Floyd says, "Since so much information needed to be shared initially through our
report, it is now essential that we bring greater clarity to certain
areas."  The focus of the email was on the relationship between the cooperative program and Great Commission giving.  And it is truly baffling.  At least to me to it is. 

Floyd's entire email is a three part "defense" of the task force's commitment to the Cooperative Program.  It says that:

1.  The Cooperative Program is the SBC's primary and most treasured means of fulfilling the Great Commission.
2.  When churches support other offerings, like Lottie Moon or Annie Armstrong, that does not weaken the support of the Cooperative Program.
3.  When the GCR celebrates with our churches their work toward the Great Commission, there will be an ongoing enthusiasm for the Cooperative Program.

In my initial response to the progress report, I thought the actual principles laid out by the task force were somewhat underwhelming.  Not bad, just nothing really new.  This new email by Floyd and his 3-part defense of the Cooperative Program, which is as rudimentary and traditional SBC (not in a bad way) as you can get, shows me that this task force could have a difficult road come June if they really do want to make some lasting changes for the good of the Great Commission.  Absolutely nothing in the initial progress report demonstrated the task force were making huge steps in the way of change.  And yet apparently the team was bombarded with emails and phone calls about how the changes will impact the SBC's overall commitment to the Cooperative Program.

So, whereas I was looking for a bit more of a punch to the progress report for some "change we can believe in," perhaps the team is wise in moving slowly through the waters of change for the good of the Great Commission.  Perhaps releasing too many ideas at once would cause such a panic that the members of the SBC would pull their collective head under its shell and the GCR would be crippled and the task force a failure.

I just hope by June we get to hear some new and exciting ideas about our churches reaching the lost beyond what we already know - that the CP is the greatest missions tool in the history of the church and that we should give enthusiastically.  I don't need a task force to tell me that.    

Hollywood is making another comic book movie.  This time they move into the life of my favorite superhero, Captain America.  I'm scared.  Oh yes I'm excited, I'm anxious to see how the story line will follow - or differ - from the origin of Cap in the comic books, and I'm thrilled to see the best superhero of all time get his own film.

On the other hand, maybe things are better left untouched.  Whether good or bad, the influence Hollywood can have on our perceptions over a variety of different issues is flat out amazing.  Take Oliver Stone's 1991 epic JFK.  Although there had always been a good number of conspiracy theorists out there, Stone's movie catapulted the believe in a near world-wide cover up and sent the diminished reputation (rightfully so) of Jim Garrison skyrocketing to the place where he still holds a kind of heroic stature in the minds of most Americans who have seen the film.  Most of our younger generation today see Tobey Maguire when they hear the word Spiderman.  And so on.  Some of these things are just the reality of making movies, no real harm done.  But that doesn't mean I am necessarily thrilled to see my hero have the potential to get typecast by some lame Hollywood face who has a good jaw line but no idea who the character and man of Steve Rogers really is.  Case in point - the portrayal of Reed Richards in The Fantastic Four by Ioan Gruffudd still has me making regular trips to the bathroom for a nice daily dose of vomiting. 

Thus far there are 6 or 7 seven men in the running to play Cap.  One of them is John Krasinski, an actor from the widely successful t.v. series "The Office."  I am assuming that the makers of this film will try to sign whoever plays Cap for a least a two movie deal so there can be continuity with the release of The Avengers due out in 2012.  If you take a look at the Avengers movie page on IMDB, you will notice there is not actor listed to play Cap (Cap is not even listed yet at all). 

So, I will keep on eye on this with cautious excitement.  Let's hope they get it right.