“Falling on my knees in worship / Giving all I am to seek your face.” While the band in Singspo played Hillsong’s “Came to My Rescue,” I committed the cardinal sin of worship services: I opened my eyes. As I looked around, I realized something disheartening. Hardly anyone does what they believe — or, well, sing. It makes me worried to think our corporate worship is distractedly half-hearted, and have to wonder if it is indicative of a more serious ailment.
Maybe I’m wrong, Biola. But what am I to make of the student who sings, “I want to be where you are,” while checking her text messages? And I can’t bring myself to trust the guy who sings “Lord, all I am is yours,” while watching hips swish in front of him.
Is this a symptom of a 30-chapel requirement? Repeated motions, rote response to campus culture indoctrination? It is not a matter of belief. We sing because we’re told to; except for the homework-and-nap club in the balcony — but at least they showed up, right?
That said, at least the slide-and-gliders are honest. “I’m just here for credit, and find this whole program a waste of my time.” I get that. There are even moments when I respect it.
Returning to authentic worship
Who I have trouble respecting are the students who, week after week, robotically sing lofty prayers: “My whole life I place in your hands / God of mercy, humbly I bow down” — doing this and not engaging the whole of who you are invites hypocrisy.
Certainly, I’m not submitting gospel aerobics as a prerequisite for authentic worship. Forcing one’s body tall and dumb-struck whenever reciting “I stand in awe of you” does not mechanistically achieve worship — nor should we expect any bruises after “falling on my knees …” It does seem odd to me that we so often sing lines such as these that are so apparently not true of the moment. But no one actually expects a Father-Abraham-style dance routine for every song in the set. I also want to allow room for — and give voice to — those who just simply don’t like Chris Tomlin songs. I certainly respect that, too.
My fear goes beyond the half-hour-a-week most of us give to worshipping God corporately. Maybe we need clearer directives for why we do what we do with the band and the overhead projection of the Kinkade-landscaped lyric slides. Or maybe we need to ask if we’ve taken the same aloof detachment to the rest of our Christian life.
Do we yawn our way through Jesus’ command to love the poor? Do we look the other way when he says to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength? Are we too busy watching her hips to love our neighbor as ourselves?
Living out the words of Christ
Sometimes, when I hear us Christians reading Jesus’ words in Luke 6, I wonder how wholly engaged we are with the text. “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,” we read, and dismiss as simply a mental mental. “Blessed are you who are poor … But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort,” we casually scan on our smartphones and iPads.
While we sing “falling on our knees,” we sit on our hands and reason we’re doing that in our hearts; in reading what Jesus says, we think intellectual ascent satisfies the love commands. Jesus cautioned against the same: “But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation.”
When I opened my eyes in chapel, I fear what I saw was the symptom of a greater disease. It wasn’t just a few students who don’t like Hillsong or Chris Tomlin, but far too many of us who neglect the seriousness of our expression of love.
