WHEN WORSHIP BECOMES HYPE

Worship has been reduced down to an emotional experience. This is why many churches focus on the song service.

Emotionally "uplifting" songs in a darkened sanctuary with dramatic stage lighting and a "Praise Team" that puts on a performance to help stimulate and manipulate the congregants has turned the weekly gathering in such a way that worship has shifted from seeking God through the preaching of the Word to making sure people walk away with an emotional high.

I've seen what "emotionally saturated" worship services do. It gets people, especially youth, on an emotional high that eventually fades after a week or two. No one can hold that emotional high for very long because eventually, life happens. Things occur that cause those emotions to go in the opposite direction. Suddenly, they equate emotionally hyped worship services with "nearness" to God and when that "emotional high" wears off, then they wonder, "Why doesn't God feel near anymore." God's still there. Their emotions have changed.

Worship has become man-centered. People think if they don't leave a service on that emotional high, then they haven't worshipped. They're seeking for what THEY can get out of it instead of what they offer to God.

Worship isn't just the music. It's sitting under doctrinally sound expository preaching. It's reading Scripture daily. It's meditating on the passages we read each day. It's praying individually and corporately with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. It's living in service to one another.

Stop relying on your emotions to make you feel closer to God. Emotions change. Emotions are based on circumstances. God is there when life is good and He's there when it feels like it's spiraling down into toilet.

Our worship must always be rooted in the truth of Who God is and we come to know Who He is through Scripture, not an emotionally hyped song service.