In (partial) defense of the sermon...

There’s a lot of questioning out there in books and blogs- do we really need “sermons?" Should they really be so central to what we do as the church? And I’m fairly convinced that question comes out of a misunderstanding of worship.

For all our talk of moving away from the consumer model of church, it has to be said that one of the biggest underlying motivations in critiquing the sermon is this: I don't like it.
Oh, I know, I know... the real issues are its "pagan" roots. Or its non-interactivity and irrelevance.
But rather than simply asking- how can we be more interactive? or how can we aid people in connecting the truth of Scripture to all of life? the question seems to center more on, "do we even need to do this at all?"

Yes- At its worst, a sermon is dull, boring, impractical and just plain painful to sit through. I've sat through enough boring sermons to know. And here's an insight- preaching a boring sermon is no picnic either. Trust me... we know when we are fouling one off. 

But here's the thing: At its best? It moves us, it's used by God to change and rearrange us, and if I understand it correctly, that's worship.

When we willingly forgo other things to come together as a community and put ourselves under the Word of God- when we listen to Him, and allow Him to speak to us, push us, challenge and change us- that’s worship. When we respond in inwardly and outwardly in prayer and song saying, "Yes God- You are more worthy than my job, than my possessions, than my hobbies and than myself of my love and devotion," we worship.

Worship is trusting God, not myself, and it’s loving God- not my idols. It’s actively pulling my focus from myself and my wants and putting that focus on Him- His desires for this world. I think about who God is, what He’s done for me, and I am moved.

The whole point of worship is to “move us.” But when I say that I’m not talking about simply whether or not we had an emotional, charismatic-like experience. When I say “moved” I mean: If we don't find that our hearts have been moved from idols, whatever they are, toward God, we haven't worshiped.

Worship is finally being hit with the fact that what I am putting my heart on- my idols and functional saviors, cannot hold that weight, cannot give me true, lasting happiness... but Jesus can. And it’s being moved to respond- in my emotions, in my will, and then finally in my actions. And if worship is what moves us from focus on ourselves to focus on God, you can see that a lot of what we want to call worship, might not count- including singing, if in our singing our whole focus is on what we like or don’t like- whether the style, or the lyrics, or the band meets our approval.

At Evergreen, we try to give freedom to worship in the way that feels comfortable for them, in an effort to help people worship. You want to stand, stand, You want to sit, sit. Raise your hands in expressive worship, fold them in your lap in contemplative worship.

BUT… the danger is that you or I would begin to intuit, to feel that worship is somehow about me- what I like, what I don’t. If the music is right- I can worship. If it’s lame, I can’t. If the person leading talks too much, or not enough, or if they ask me to stand up, or if they don’t ask me to stand up, if this or that isn’t right, I can’t worship. And the problem is, right off the bat, that’s completely backwards- because worship- true worship, is about moving from self-centeredness to God-centeredness, and if I’m the one laying out all the conditions that have to be right for me to really “enjoy worship”, then I’ve completely missed the point.

And as someone said in our gathering this last Sunday... anything can be worship, but nothing automatically is.

So- yes, we can worship through song. We can worship through giving. We can worship through serving. And check this- we can even worship through the very act of being present in and to a community that is coming together for a guided time of meditation on/hearing from Scripture…
Also known as a sermon.

Should we strive to be more interactive and all the rest? Absolutely. But...  if the point of worship is to focus more on God and less on us, I can hardly think of a better tool than a community, together, exploring the truth of Scripture.