Appropriate Worship in Public

One of the characteristics of the Contemporary Christian Music worship movement has been writing songs that express a deep personal intimacy with God. This intimacy is expressed in lyrics that read like love letters to the Creator and Redeemer. This is appropriate for private worship but I question whether this type of song is best for the public worship gathering.

The psalms of the Hebrew Bible are no strangers to expressing desire and longing for God. Psalm 42 “As the deer pants for water, so my soul longs for you, O God” is a beautiful picture of the desire for intimacy with God. David’s direct address of the Divine shows his closeness with God: “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.” (Ps 139:17-18) David was intimate with God.

There is something exhilarating about being in the midst of a group of worshipers so caught up in their private communion with God that all else disappears from their consciousness. For them, it must be a lot like that first teenage kiss: the feelings of wonder and joy are overwhelming; you feel like you’re going to melt.

But I propose that the most intimate expressions of our love for God should be reserved for the private “prayer closet” (Matthew 6:5-8) and not be put on public display. It’s like a lovey-dovey married couple. Between a husband and wife there are appropriate expressions of affection behind closed doors that are completely inappropriate in public. I think that principle holds true for public worship as well.

Public worship is just that – public. It is the gathering of the body, the community. The corporate expression of adoration, praise, lament, surrender requires an outlet different from personal intimacy. The actions for corporate worship need to be actions that the group can do together. Therefore I strive to choose singable songs and to get us comfortable with new songs; we do all we can to provide good sight and sound and temperature – so what we do together we can do with a minimum of distraction.

Well, those are my thoughts on the subject. We all have different personalities with varied emotional and expressive capacities. Whatever we do in our gatherings for worship, let us do it to the honor and glory of Christ. (1 Cor. 10:31-33)  AMEN