Breaking Boredom With Prayer Worship
In the last Ancient-Future Talk I pointed to a major problem in worship. Some churches have substituted a dry intellectualism for transcendence and others a narcissistic "me-oriented" worship for true immanence. This month I'll explore the problem of substituting dry intellectualism for transcendence.
For most, "intelligible worship" and "intellectualized worship" are not the same. Worship that is intellectualized is usually dead, failing to engage the heart and mind. Its language is typically explanatory.
I've worshipped in many settings where worship is continually explained: "We just did this, and that leads us to our next act of worship, which will be this." Explained worship is driven by comprehension, management, and control. It intellectualizes the relationship with God, which normally is cultivated through worship's mystery. Consequently, its transcendence—or meaning—is undermined.
Let me create an analogy. When someone visits you, you greet that person with words of salutation and symbols, such as a handshake or a hug. You create an ambiance that expresses welcome and pleasure. You wouldn't say, "We just greeted each other with words of welcome and a sign of friendship, now we are ready to enter the living room and converse." Such an explanation would be awkward and insulting. It devalues the words and signs used to express the importance of the relationship.
This analogy transfers to worship. Worship establishes, maintains, repairs, and transforms our relationship with God. But this relationship, which is expressed in words, signs, gestures, and the like, is severely damaged through explanation. Explanation removes worship from the mysterious and numinous realm, where relationship truly lies, to the intellectual realm, where worship becomes an object to be understood and analyzed. Worship thus becomes dry, intellectual, and non-engaging.
The antidote to intellectualized worship is to understand the work of worship to be prayer.
Prayer—the meeting between God and God's people—creates the atmosphere of worship. Prayer cannot be explained. It lies in the realm of mystery and bears the quality of transcendence, only intelligible as mystery. The moment it is explained, intellectualized, and analyzed it is removed from the transcendent to the common realm. Most worship is too common, and that's why it's boring. Don't break boredom with entertainment; break boredom with worship as an engaging prayer. For further discussion on worship as prayer, click here.
Next month I'll comment on narcissism vs. immanence in worship. Send your interactive comments to rwebber@northern.seminary.edu.
Bob Webber
Myers Professor of Ministry
Director of M.A. in Worship and Spirituality
Northern Seminary—www.seminary.edu
(See Northern's M.A. in Worship and Spirituality and D.Min. in Worship by clicking on the website.)
