Emotional Worship

Posted on Nov 12, 2010 | 2 comments

Have you ever been in a worship service where the people around you were completely uninhibited? Hands are raised, the people shout their praise with excitement and adoration, some dance with inexpressible joy.

As tears start to well up in your eyes, and you are about to join this passionate, expressive worship, a thought enters your mind, “is this all just emotionalism”?

Talk about a buzz kill.

If I’m really honest, I’ve been in that place more often then I’d like to admit.  I miss out on an awesome experience, where lovers of God come together with one voice to connect with their Creator.

Trust Issues

We have a hard time trusting our emotions, especially in North American culture.  We are a very rational society.  We love the work of the mind because ideas can be carefully dissected and examined.  We associate the mind with modern progress.  Look at all the technology, the innovation, the medical breakthroughs! They are all a result of bright minds, hard at work.

Subtly, we elevate our minds and intellect as superior components in our make up as human beings. Believing that’s the case, we do what we can to suppress our emotional engagement with God.

Inherently, we trust our minds but distrust our emotions. Hey, it’s not like anyone was ever manipulated through their intellect, right? (cough, holocaust, cough).

Any Ninja Turtles fans out there? You guys remember “Krang”, right?

I think when we exclude our emotions, we turn into little Krangs running around with exo-skeletons.

Can you imagine this little guy raising his hands (or nubs) in worship?

Awesome.

The Whole Person

I think you can see where I’m going with this.  I’m not trying to make one part of our human make-up more important than another.  I’m calling for our entire being to engage God.  ”All that is in us, let it praise the Lord”.

When Jesus was summing up the most important things that God would have us do, he started with this:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind. (Luke 10:27)

We’re meant to love God with all we are.  Mind and heart work together.  You cannot authentically respond in a worship service, without understanding who God is and what He has done.  Understanding leads to emotional engagement.

Music Is Emotional

There is no way to get around it.  Music is emotional.  It engages your emotions and causes you to respond in some way.  Therefore, worship leaders shouldn’t be expected to tone down their music to make it “less emotional”. Worship leaders should not feel guilty for leading a song that reaches people’s emotions, just as a preacher should not feel guilty for expositing thought-provoking, Biblical truth.

We use music to engage emotions, and then direct that affection towards a beautiful, loving God.

Give God access to your whole person. Taste and know he is good. Love him with all you are and all that you have.