Greg Gilbert with a great follow-up to his post, Against Music. He writes:
So I think music is a good thing, even a great thing. But as I said before, every good thing in this world can and will be misused by sinful human beings. And I think that’s something that’s deserving of thought among Christians when it comes to music. My hope is that these questions, and the thoughts they provoke in you, will help you to be on guard against your spiritual life becoming unhealthily dependent on anything it should not be dependent on. I hope they're helpful to you:
- Do you get bored when someone reads a longish passage of Scripture in your church? Do you start wishing they’d get on with the music?
- Do you need music playing in the background for the reading of Scripture to affect your emotions?
- Does a prayer seem too “plain” or “stark” to you if it doesn’t have music playing behind it?
- Do you feel depressed a few weeks after a worship conference because you haven’t felt close to God in a long time?
- Do you desperately look forward to the next conference you’re going to attend because you know that, finally, you’ll be able to feel close to God again?
- If you’re in a big church with great music, are you able to worship when you visit your parents’ small rural church?
- Do you ever feel worshipful in the middle of the week, at work, at school, etc. just because of thinking about God and his grace? Or does that only happen when the music’s playing?
- Do you tend to feel closer to God when you’re alone with your iPOD than you do when you’re gathered with God’s people in your church?
- Do you feel like you just can’t connect with other believers who haven’t had the same “worship experiences” that you have? Can you only connect with other believers who “know what it feels like to really worship?”
- Is your sense of spiritual well-being based more on feeling close to God, or knowing that you are close to God because of Jesus Christ?
1 comment:
These questions are so, so good and helpful. "Worship" (by which many people mean, music and singing) has seemingly become more important than the preaching of the word of God and public prayer in some churches. This is a real tragedy.
Now, I am a serious fan of many styles of music, and I love to worship God by singing. However, the emotional effects of a "worship experience" should not become more important to us than God Himself and our relationship with Him. It's not always a huge emotional high to read the Bible, pray, and actively love and serve others. Whoever said that a relationship with God was supposed to be about constant emotional highs though? Oh, that we had more of the perspective of the Psalms in the American church... with tears, joy, and struggle in the process of knowing and worshiping God, and with God Himself as our end, not a temporary feeling of "closeness" to Him.
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