Being Led into God’s Presence
We often assume the job of the worship minister is to “lead people into the presence of God.”
While on some level I understand what we mean by this, I also think there are some fundamental misunderstandings of both worship and God in a statement like this.
FIRST, the statement assumes that the presence of God is “out there”…wherever “there” might be. I’m afraid we have this abstracted notion of God that He is off in some distant, heavenly space far removed from our every day lives – almost like the God of Deism, only we can (sometimes) encounter our God on Sundays when we go into His presence.
But this is not the case. God is not “out there” somewhere waiting for us to invite him into our presence or waiting for us to come into his presence. God is with us, amongst us, inviting us to participate in what he is doing in the world. If the Bible teaches us anything it is that God desires to dwell among His people and within His people.
The practical implications of this faulty assumption are huge – It suggests God is not a participatory God. Rather, He is distant and removed from our everyday experiences and therefore offers little if any help. He is high and lofty in this view, to be sure, but He is hardly helpful or intimate.
SECOND, notice how this statement makes humans, not God, the primary actor. It is our job to approach God. It is our job to lead others into his presence. It is our job to make ourselves worth of his presence.
But the biblical story is of a God who acts on behalf of humans, who lifts them into his presence, who calls, woo’s, and dies for us. In the biblical story God, not humans, is the primary actor. He does not need us to come into his presence; He dwells, willingly, among us. He has condescended to come and be with us. We do not approach him, he approaches us.
Again, the practical implications are huge. If we are the primary actors and movers in worship, then worship is about us. It becomes about whatever style suits our desire or whatever method makes us feel good. But if God is the primary actor in worship, then worship originates and concludes with Him. He is the creator of the story we live in as we worship and therefore he is the beginning of worship. We worship out of that story, His story, and therefore worship is all about him, from first to last.
When we realize that worship originates in God’s activity, not ours, we are able to delight in worship for what it is, not how it makes us feel or what style of music is used during a service. Worship becomes more than about my emotion or even my own theological statements – it involves participating in the story of the Triune God to redeem the world. Worship does not originate in me and therefore is not dependent upon me to be accomplished through technique or effort – as if God needed something from me. When the story of God’s redemption is in me and I am participating in it, my worship is an overflow of God’s activity within me, within us.
Therefore, we do not need anyone to lead us into the presence of God. We need worship “leaders” who exemplify for us what it means to dwell in God’s story of redemption. This also means that worship “leaders” are not just music directors. The worship leaders position is democratized – that is, applied to the entire church. Everyone who participates in the redemptive story of the Triune God is one who proclaims the truth that God is the primary actor in the Christian story, not me!
