The Heart of Worship
Today I have been singing Matt Redman’s Heart of worship in my head. It’s a great and powerful song that has a tendency to shift my paradigm of worship. Even though it is a simple chorus it’s a very challenging one as well. I mean I love the employment of technology in worship and the use of huge creative elements but at the same time they can become more of the focus than what they are designed to point towards. As I sang through that song today I am reminded of the story behind it. You are probably already familiar with it but just in case here is the story from Matt Redman’s website back in 2006 (I used it in a college paper which is why you probably can’t find it on his website today but nonetheless there are many versions floating around the internets and all tell the same story).
A few years back in our church, we realized some of the things we thought were helping us in our worship were actually hindering us. They were throwing us off the scent of what it means to really worship. We had always set aside lots of time in our meetings for worshipping God through music. But it began to dawn on us that we’d lost something. The fire that used to characterize our worship had somehow grown cold. In some ways, everything looked great. We had some wonderful musicians, and a good quality sound system. There were lots of new songs coming through, too. But somehow we’d started to rely on these things a little too much, and they’d become distractions. Where once people would enter in no matter what, we’d now wait to see what the band was like first, how good the sound was, or whether we were ´into´ the songs chosen. Mike, the pastor, decided on a pretty drastic course of action: we’d strip everything away for a season, just to see where our hearts were. So the very next Sunday when we turned up at church, there was no sound system to be seen, and no band to lead us. The new approach was simple – we weren’t going to lean so hard on those outward things any more. Mike would say, ´When you come through the doors of the church on Sunday, what are you bringing as your offering to God? What are you going to sacrifice today? If I’m honest, at first I was pretty offended by the whole thing. The worship was my job! But as God softened my heart, I started to see His wisdom all over these actions. At first the meetings were a bit awkward: there were long periods of silence, and there wasn’t too much singing going on. But we soon began to learn how to bring heart offerings to God without any external trappings we’d grown used to. Stripping everything away, we slowly started to rediscover the heart of worship.
Before long, we reintroduced the musicians and sound system, as we’d gained a new perspective that worship is all about Jesus, and He commands a response in the depths of our souls no matter what the circumstance and setting. ‘The Heart of Worship’ simply describes what occurred.”
When the music fades, all is stripped away, and I simply come / Longing just to bring something that’s of worth that will bless your heart… / I’m coming back to the heart of worship, and it’s all about You, Jesus
If we have no music or modern amenities, will our substance still exist? That is the heart of worship.
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