The Power of Presence
The goal of worship is not to showcase musical talent, but to bring people into God’s presence.
By Mark Rutland
There is hardly an element of the Christian subculture more adept at the mechanics of worship than Pentecostals and charismatics. Our music is contemporary, congregational energy is ferocious, and the skill of our platform musicians unrivaled among evangelicals. We have mastered the methodology of the cutting edge. Yet in the doing we dare not forsake our longing for the one variable we cannot contribute: the presence.
Consider the instructions for the composition of holy oil and incense, a surprisingly scientific recipe in terms of its detail (Exodus 30:22–38). Included with the ingredients and their respective weights and measures is insight into the method of preparation. The art of the apothecary—to infuse spices into oil then strain them out again leaving behind a sticky, sweet ointment-like residue—is prescribed in these verses. Such a compounding chemistry is a sophisticated operation demanding time, precision, and a slavish adherence to detail.
The result, however, was an aromatic gum which, when burned, would thoroughly impregnate the air of any enclosed space. In the candlelit darkness of a large tent, the smoke from incense—thick and white and rich—combined with the aroma of perfumed ointment rubbed into the furnishings, appointments, vessels, and the skin of the priests would surely have been a sensual delight. God knew that and forbade its use for common purposes (verses 32,33,38).
The risk of the sensual
Our longing for intimacy makes the perfume of God’s presence powerful and dangerous. There is a deep need for intimacy within the arid, corporate soul of our alienated, post-Christian society. This profound need lures the needy into debauchery, dysfunction, and despair as they pursue a tender touch, the presence of others, and more specifically, another—the presence of God.
We live in a disconnected culture. Westerners long for intimacy, but remain unable to find it, generate it, or even identify it. What we want is presence, not mere physical presence, but to be with, to communicate with, to hear from and be heard by another.
Frequently this heartwarming inner ache for meaningful relationships draws the world through the church’s threshold. However, worship technicians, even those who have passionately mastered their trade, can offer little more than sugar pills—beautiful, well choreographed, exciting, upbeat sugar pills. But sugar, nonetheless.
When worship becomes nothing more than hi-tech mood music, the souls of the hungry go wanting for a divine encounter. The sensual appeal, the ambient tingles, and expenditure of excess energy can leave the worship experience stranded at the level of the superficial. A self-accelerated downward cycle begins there. Superficiality leads to sensuality, and sensuality, to sin.
In addition to its negative effect on worship and worshipers, superficiality without substance imposes a performance mentality on leadership, which is highly destructive and creatively imprisoning. Where demands of style and/or sensation limit latitude, worship leaders cannot lead congregations to seek the presence of God in new and rich fields of spirituality.
Where tradition reigns supreme, fresh expressions will be rejected regardless of spiritual or artistic value. By the same token, where contemporaneity and calisthenics rule the day and hype is confused with anointing oil, more contemplative aspects of worship will be recklessly branded as dead weight. Thus, under the burden to make the congregation leave each service on a high note, worship leaders are forced to become Dr. Feelgood and the Traveling Medicine Show. The goal of our gatherings is to meet with God, not the expert application of forbidden perfume on our own flesh.
Indeed, a divine encounter is the very promise of God and the great power of worship. Near the end of this Exodus passage, following all the detailed pharmaceutical instructions, God makes the most astonishingly wonderful statement in such a casual tone that it might easily be missed—“where I will meet with thee.”
Our inner longing is not for stacte or galbanum or frankincense, but for presence. The presence is the sweet aroma of worship. We should do all we know to mix with care a recipe of worship that is orderly and beautiful. But if God is not present, the cloying smell of ersatz—flesh-made intimacy—will sicken, not heal.
High atop Chipinque Mountain near Monterrey, Mexico, after a day of horseback riding along a beautiful waterfall, some Bible school students and I perched amid the boulders and peered down at the clouds below us. Someone produced a battered guitar, and we sang an old hymn. “Maravilloso es, Maravilloso es, cuando pienso que Dios me ama a mi.” (How marvelous it is, how marvelous it is, when I think that God loves even me.)
How marvelous indeed.
Then the music drifted, gently, unmanaged from chorus to chorus until, as we sang, a moist white cloud rolled up the mountain’s shoulder and engulfed us. First one, then another, began to weep, or pray, or prostrate himself on the wet grass until one boy whispered what we all knew: “El esta aqui.” (He is here.)
That moment, that awesome, precious, almost terrifying moment—amid all the church services and revivals and camp meetings of my life—lingers like perfume in my nostrils.
Our ache for the presence
Public worship, even that which is designed with pharmacological precision, is utterly incapable of manufacturing the one element God never ordered man to produce: the presence. God alone can supply himself.
The intimacy of worship—intimacy with God and with each other—can be so wonderful we may be tempted to feel the pleasure of the sensation rather than the power of the presence. In the tabernacle, the anointing oil and the white smoke of incense blended into a residential aroma that filled the air. Combined with the visual beauty of the art and pageantry of sacrificial worship, it must have had an arresting effect. None of that, however, nor all of it, combined with the essence: “I will meet with thee.” The essence was the presence.
When by our excellence of music, creativity of composition, or beauty of architecture, we dare to use the oil for our own pleasures, we undo all that we had hoped for in the recipe. This is no defense of slovenly, ugly worship in rundown venues. We should study to get it right. Good music, excellent drama, splendid choirs, and well-lit, climate-controlled auditoriums all go in the mix; they are important. Christ, however, prophesied a new worship reaching beyond locale and style: “True worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth” (John 4:23, NASB).
The reverse of that passage is startling. False worship will be in flesh and deceit. Forget the worship wars. That pathetic argument is nothing more than Style vs. Style, a family lawsuit embarrassing to the whole household. Whether singing hymns or hot, new choruses, the real question remains: Is God in the house? If He is not, then contemporary vigor and liturgical formalism alike are but flesh and deceit. Neither the bells and smells of liturgical order nor the wild abandon of Pentecostal liberty can generate God. We cannot make Him be where He is not.
Presiding truths
Having said that, important truths, frequently ignored by all sides in the infantile arguments over worship, need to be stewarded carefully, lest in the fray, they become forgotten. Here are seven of them:
1. Music is not the only expression of corporate worship.
Pentecostals unanimously use worship leader to mean song leader. There are other valid forms: prayer, verbal praise, directed expressions of faith, meditation, offerings, foot washing, and Communion.
2. No style has higher moral value than another.
Robed liturgists, gospel singers, hymnologists, and seeker-sensitive modernists glare at each other over the dinner table, all having forgotten that He, not their cultural preferences, is the issue. One teacher even claims that beyond a certain number of beats per measure, music becomes sensual and demonic. Now where would he get this revelation? Show us the golden tablets that we all may believe. Such idiotic teachings can degenerate into ethnic or even racist arguments draped in spiritual language. A converted Muslim from Iraq, for example, may not write Christian music that sounds like Augustus Toplady. We Pentecostals sit at a table big enough for all the kids.
3. There is no spiritual compromise in expanding the style parameters of one’s worship experience.
Those who want only hymns will not lose their souls if they sing “I’m Trading My Sorrows.” Indeed, perhaps they should consider just such a trade. By the same token, many who only want choruses written in the last 20 minutes carelessly squander the great theology and the rich poetic joy of “Oh, For a Thousand Tongues To Sing.” The arrogant that lightly despise the great hymns are often guilty of an egregious and juvenile chronocentricism, which we can ill afford.
There are times when stuffy old Pentecostals need to shake off tradition, kick off their shoes, and boogie for Jesus. There are also times when smug teenagers need a big dose of Charles Wesley to realize that there is great worship music, the lyrics of which have more depth than “hallelujah, do-wa, diddy, diddy, yay.”
We must remember whom we seek, who it is that desires to meet with us, and why we long for His presence. We are all made for intimacy with God, yet, because of differences of age, experience, background, or culture, find it in different ways. We must let love be the law. In other words, cut each other and God a little slack.
4. Structure is not the enemy of liberty.
Sometimes, in an honest and wholesome fear of quenching the Spirit, we have striven for informality and landed squarely in the midst of chaos. God deliver us from that old mindset that confuses being unprepared with the liberty of the Spirit. In preaching and worship, we must “study to show ourselves approved.” Choirs should be disciplined, worship sets carefully designed, and platform musicians well trained. Disorderliness produces little more than awkward moments where disengaged congregations watch confused, lost-in-space leadership search for inspiration while covering it with spiritual language and a good keyboard. Order in worship is not a barrier to the Holy Spirit but a prepared tabernacle in which God can meet with us—and then redesign as He pleases—when He leads, through sensitive and yielded leadership.
5. Christian worship has always and will always find unique expression in terms of culture.
Do we honestly think first-century Jewish believers who gathered for worship in Solomon’s Porch sang, “Just a Little Talk With Jesus Makes It Right”? They undoubtedly sang music that sounded more like Hava Nagila. Gregory’s chants were medieval because he was medieval. Luther wrote music that sounded like Oktoberfest, and our forerunners who wrote country gospel had obviously heard a lot of Hank Williams. Indian Christians sing music that sounds amazingly Indian, and Ghanaians dance to buoyant pentatonic choruses in their tribal languages. This cultural diversity, however, is a threat only to an Americanized gospel, which is not biblical anyway.
The fun starts when we experiment with the songs of our brethren. Upscale Pentecostals in North Atlanta occasionally need to sing “Soy Feliz, Christo me Salvo.” (“I am happy. Jesus saved me.”) Teenagers with multicolored hair ought to try “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” OK, not every night, but sometimes. Likewise, senior citizens in Wisconsin should be willing to experience a Vineyard song or two without having a cerebral hemorrhage.
6. Neither enthusiasm nor form equals presence.
In my early years of missionary evangelism, the journey home was always filled with anticipation. I envisioned the reunion—my children running to clutch at my legs, my wife’s sweet kisses—and I was never disappointed. There is nothing like children rushing into a tired preacher’s arms and shouting, “Daddy’s home.”
Imagine, however, if I arrived to find them seated quietly in the living room, chairs in a tidy line. When I burst through the door and throw wide my arms of love, my wife stands to direct the children. “Please rise,” she says, after which they sing, without even looking at me, a bloodless aria, “Father’s home, Father’s home, A-a-le-lu-u-jah.” No joy for Daddy in such cool and formal detachment.
Now, imagine that I open the door and my wife and children hurl themselves on the floor in unrestrained ecstasy, banging their heads on the walls, leaping on the furniture, and screaming at each other, “Daddy’s home.” And in the uninhibited celebration, they ignore me.
In both scenes I stand unmet and unreceived on the threshold of their self-absorption. “Where I will meet with thee” is the promise of the tabernacle.
7. The platform is a dangerous place.
An awesome weight falls squarely on the shoulders of worship leadership. The burden of balance, difficult to find and even more difficult to maintain, makes worship leadership a high and holy honor and a terrifying responsibility. Authentic passion mixed with diligent professionalism, genuine spirituality laced with expertise, and order open to liberty are possible only where motives are constantly crucified and where love fuels the fire.
There are great blessings in powerful worship and, as with all things powerful, great dangers as well. The most dangerous place in a worship service is the platform. It should be approached with fear and trembling, in sober awareness of those who, like Aaron’s sons, took matters in their own hands and died there.
How we have watched in grief as the supremely talented among us, while they stirred us to worship God, lost their own ministries and marriages. The inner life of the leader grows more important the further in and higher up he or she takes the people. The closer to the flame we get, the greater the warmth, and the greater the danger.
The willing presence
John Wesley said, “The best part is, God is with us.” Nowhere is that more thrilling than in a worship service where, by His grace, the promise becomes presence. He is willing to be found by those who seek Him. He is willing to be Immanuel, God with us, again and again.
God is willing to condescend into the praise of His own creatures. His awesome presence is the one indispensable that makes worship truth and spirit rather than sensual perfume on the flesh of strangers. He is willing to be wherever He is wanted, welcomed, and waited on.
In our first chapel of the year at Southeastern College, the room was packed, overcrowded actually, the excitement palpable, and the special music exquisite. The student worship team was filled with youthful energy and drenched in talent. All good. Very good. But not enough. Then as we prayed, sang, and entered into worship, God came in all His grace and filled the place. Suddenly we knew again, and wept at the knowledge, that the power is in the presence, not the presentation.
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Mark Rutland, Ph.D., is president of Southeastern College of the Assemblies of God, Lakeland, Florida. |
