Worship (Meetings) As Discipleship
It’s sometimes hard to talk about The Salvation Army. Yes, we are one Army, worldwide, with central tenets and doctrines, shared across 130-plus countries. But our worship meetings look beautifully different the world over.
We started in London, England, 160 years ago, mainly as an outreach ministry. Our music consisted of bar tunes and chromatic romanticism. Our groups were mainly rag-tag brass bands. Our lyrical message was militaristic: win the world for Jesus. And while for your average non-Salvationist, any mention of The Salvation Army conjures up images of brass bands, those of us who are part of this movement know that nowadays our worship service experiences are much more diverse.
Walk into any corps around the world on a Sunday morning, and you will be greeted with modern, traditional, reggae, country, or any number of musical expressions. You will still encounter some fine brass bands, but alternatively, you are just as likely to be led by a praise and worship team with full backing tracks, a beginner pianist, or even music videos to fill the gap when live musicians are unavailable. Lyric-wise, we still use battle language, but we’re just as likely to incorporate songs about Jesus, and to Him, as well as times of surrender, response, and reflection.
With this much diversity, is it really possible to speak about worship as discipleship in The Salvation Army as a whole? I think so. Because although expressions vary over places and times, the hearts behind those expressions will always be in need of becoming more like Jesus.
So then, how should our worship meetings form and shape us? Well, we can glean some pretty deep wisdom from Jesus’ famous conversation with the “woman at the well” about the nature of true worship. Let’s eavesdrop a little:
“The woman said to Him, ‘Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.’
Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth,’” (John 4:19-24 NKJV).
For a tradition-informed people like us Salvationists, there are some pretty counterintuitive statements in this passage (tradition not being a bad thing on its own). If we imagine the Samaritan woman speaking on behalf of the diverse churchgoing crowd of her time, we can see a stark contrast between her statements and Jesus’ wisdom.
The woman’s starting point is human activity, “Our fathers worshiped…” Jesus’ starting point is the Father’s activity, “The Father is seeking…” She gravitated toward tradition. Jesus reorients her phrase around relationship.
She focused on the where, “on this mountain.” But Jesus focused on the Who, “worship the Father.” She asked, “Which humans are right?” But Jesus redirects, “What does the Father want?”
Her framework was external, temporary, what could be seen. Jesus presents a different framework, more secure, more lasting, more weighty: the internal, the eternal, what cannot be seen with physical eyes.
This is why Heaven will not be filled with the music of any particular genre, instrumentation, or time-period, but with the anthem of the saints throughout ages whose hearts resonate with the worth of the Father who loves them. In the diversity of our corps worshiping life, in the planning of our meetings, this is worth considering. How does each element of the worship service reflect (or not reflect) Jesus’ thoughts about true worship? If Heaven is a non-stop worship service, it would behoove us to prepare ourselves for it now! One of the ways we can do this is by letting Jesus’ perspectives and priorities influence how we orchestrate our worship services here on Earth.