Worship as Command Performance
“As important as fellowship and service are, they are in the general area of the Church’s life. The special aspect of the Church’s ministry is worship. Mainstream evangelicalism is particularly weak in the area of worship, though this is beginning to change. It is the job of the elders to appoint the times and the format of formal worship.
People in our culture tend to view Church services as something which they ‘attend.’ They may sing a few hymns, but for the rest they sit quietly while the pastor does all the talking and all the praying. They don’t like it when new hymns are picked, because they have to work at getting the tune right. Worship is a time to sit passively and drink it in, they think. This tendency in worship is called ‘quietism.’
The Bible is not quietistic in its view of worship, and in its days of greatest strength, the Church has not been either. The Bible commands us to praise God with musical instruments and with the dance (Psalm 150). A good deal of effort is needed to learn how to do this, and more effort is needed actually to do it.
We can call this ‘command performance worship.’ Whether the worship service is sparse and plain or rich and ornate, the purpose of worship is not the entertainment of man, but the entertainment of God. God is the Audience; we are the performers in worship. We direct prayer and praise to Him. We listen carefully when He speaks to us through His Word, as explained by the preacher. Too often, however, a self-centered attitude is found in the man in the pew. He comes to Church to get something, rather than to give of himself to God. With that attitude, he always goes away unsatisfied. This is because man’s highest privilege and greatest joy is found in the praise of God, but praising God means throwing yourself out of yourself. It means throwing yourself wholeheartedly into the activity of worship. It entails effort, and we live in an age pervaded by the false notion that worship should be effortless.”
James B. Jordan Extracts, Christianity & Civilization #4, The Reconstruction of the Church
