Recently I have been considering the role of affections in our
corporate worship. I believe
when we truly come before God in gathered worship, among our emotive
responses should be joy, gratitude and repentance. The scripture
commands those who worship to respond with joy, praise and various other human
emotions connected with love and thanksgiving.
I ask our team of 8 pastor/leaders to pray and consider how we might
assist our people to grow in their knowledge and affection toward the gospel. I
desire that we proclaim the truth of the Gospel in such a manner that
the beauty of the Gospel compels our hearts and engages our emotions. Our pastor/leader Rich Tuttle, who leads (amazingly well) our
music and coordinates our gathered worship, responded to my
inquiry about increasing the affections of our people with the following, which
I am delighted to share with you. It is
a joy for a lead pastor to work alongside a music leader and worship coordinator
like Rich in whom I have the utmost trust and respect.
From Rich to our pastors (edited somewhat by John Mark)
Our pastor/leaders at Wornall Road know what it
means to cultivate the affections of our people in worship, but achieving
it is another thing altogether. It is not our duty or place to be the cause or
manufacturers of emotions of our people. But it
is our place to point them to the cause and source which can give
life to the affections, and not just simply point them, but to nurture them in
the affections and aid in their development. Our 'success' or 'failure' does
not rest in whether or not our people respond with the proper affections.
That's a helpful indicator, but not the goal. Our 'goal' and the measure of our
success and failure in the realm of affections, is how well we show, reveal,
clarify, explain, and display Christ. Essentially, how well we point to Christ and
how well we cultivate a lifestyle of proper affections is the real
challenge.
I can show my children something I think is
amazing and be underwhelmed by their lack of response. On some level, it's up
to me to cultivate their understanding in such a way that they then have the
ability to view it with an appropriate level of awe. I showed my daughter Adison
a picture of a mountain in New Zealand yesterday. I was blown away by the
beauty of the picture, the immensity of the mountain, the beauty of the snowy
peak above and the lush green below. I said, "Look at this" and she said, "eh"
and walked away. If I were really serious about getting her to see the same
beauty I was seeing I would really have to sit down and think for a bit,
especially on her level, to come up with a way to show her, "here's why
it's amazing". The best way might not even be explanations--though that is
often a necessary and worthy route--but rather to just take them to see the
mountains in real life, up close and personal. Hopefully cultivating affections and wonder at
an early age will establish a lifetime of astonishment. Showing someone the
wonder, beauty and amazing truth is necessary and needs to happen, but it is
far greater to teach them to wonder, to feel the stab of beauty, to cry or sing
amazing truth on their own alongside you.
Translating this theme of cultivating affections
for those immature in their faith and or inhibited in worship would seem easy enough, just
show them Jesus, but it's pretty difficult. It's the same as me showing the
picture to Adison. It's amazing sure, and some will be awed by it (since they
are able to rightly be awed). And that's where we find ourselves now here at
Wornall Road where we have done a noble job thus far simply showing and
displaying Jesus as amazing and worthy of our affections in worship. And those
of us who are able to be amazed may not have a hard time doing so. But I think
the difficult part, the part that prompts us to pray and write emails about it
and be concerned for the flock, is this idea of how do we cultivate an
understanding to those inhibited in worship which gives them the ability to view the beauty,
truth, and goodness of Christ with the appropriate affections.
One place where we can start is ourselves. Think
through what you find amazing about Christ. What makes your heart leap when you ponder it?
It would be helpful to our people if we
begin to share with them what amazes us, or shocks us, or grieves us, or causes
joy, etc. Not necessarily what should cause joy or what should
amaze us. And I'm not necessarily thinking it should be presented as in a
personal testimony, but that our speech, when we speak of our desire, would be
full of flavor when we speak about it. It's like when you tell someone,
"Try the steak". The way you say it reveals your love for it, your
desire for them to participate in the same experience you've had, even though
you never said you've tried the steak for yourself. It's just evident that you
did.
As we pray for ourselves to lead our people to
grow in affections for Christ, consider these four insights:
1) We have a job to do regarding the affections
and that job is to point clearly to the truth, goodness, and beauty of Christ
and aid in cultivating the affections of our people.
2) The right affections of our people ought to
be a helpful indicator but not be the measure of our 'success'. When it becomes
the measure/the ultimate goal, we will always, always manipulate and try in our
own strength to produce the effects and usually with spectacular 'success' or
'failure'.
3) Cultivating the affections is deep and
continuous, like training children, and it has to be a 'lifestyle' of the church
and her leadership - always cultivating, always being amazed, always on the
lookout for wonder in everything.
4) We cannot be content to just show people a
wonder; we desire to teach people to wonder.
Taste and see that the LORD is good: Psalm 34:8
