Top Down Worship
Recently, I had a conversation with someone about a particular church practice for our corporate worship. It was an honest question, not intended to challenge my pastoral authority or create some kind of dispute or division. The person was asking a question with a genuine desire to understand. I appreciate those kinds of questions. Questions can be asked in a variety of ways: to challenge leadership, to argue, to create doubt (just to name a few). When a question is asked with no ill will or underlying tone of malice, I have no problem answering and discussing it further.
The question had to do with how something done in our church would be perceived unfavorably by unsaved young people, particularly college students, and why our church had this certain practice. I gave him an answer that included a philosophical and theological underpinning. I believe in a top-down approach to corporate worship.
A “top-down approach” essentially means that theologically speaking, God has the right to inform and reform how I — or anyone — should approach him in worship. It is a philosophical pillar of Christianity that God is greater than all. As Creator and Sustainer of all things, God stands infinitely above all that is not him — which is everything that has been created.
God transcends my church and me as its pastor; therefore, I do not get to set the rules for worship. God as my God, my King, my Lord, and my Master indicates that I am to be submissive to him in all things, including how we “do church” corporately.
This approach to the ministry is different than what other ministries might hold to. For instance, many churches have perhaps more of a “bottom-up” approach to corporate worship where we as human beings are more central philosophically and/or theologically than a “top down” approach. It is people — usually unsaved/unchurched people — who are at the forefront of the mind of those framing, structuring, and enacting the liturgy of the corporate worship. The philosophical and theological pillars of this rest more on man-centered notions than they do God-centered notions, though God is by no means absent, or even an afterthought.
Of those two types of approaches to corporate worship, I am absolutely convinced that a “top down” approach is not only best, but that which is required of New Testament churches. If we are truly going to be God-centered and strive to do all to the glory of God, then that would logically mean that our theological and philosophical approach to the corporate worship service must stem from and point to God. He is the object of our worship; the subject of our worship; the means of our worship; the leader of our worship.
Will there be unbelievers and unchurched people who attend our services? Yes, there will be. The goal is that they see something distinctly different than they would at a rock concert, or a leadership seminar, or some kind of social club. My hope is that they would come away thinking that we make a big deal about God, and desire to demonstrate that even in how we worship. After all, does not Hebrews 12 end with the plea that we would worship God reverently and with a sense of holy awe of God, knowing that he is a consuming fire? Let our theology and philosophy of worship, then, be rooted in and directed by God, adopting more of a “top down” approach in worship.
Taigen Joos is the pastor of Heritage Baptist Church in Dover, NH.
Photo: OSC Admin, Creative Commons 2.0 license