Our Focus in Corporate Worship

Hey guys, I just started reading Worship by the Book by D. A. Carson, Mark Ashton, R. Kent Hughes, and Timothy Keller, and I came across this very well worded section concerning our focus in corporate worship. It’s a little long but I feel like it does a great job of explaining how our focus can begin to shift from God to other aspects of the corporate gathering.

“In an age increasingly suspicious of (linear) thought, there is much more respect for the “feeling” of things—whether a film or a church service. It is disturbingly easy to plot surveys of people, especially young people, drifting from a church of excellent preaching and teaching to one with excellent music because, it is alleged, there is “better worship” there. But we need to think carefully about this matter. Let us restrict ourselves for the moment to corporate worship. Although there are things that can be done to enhance corporate worship, there is a profound sense in which excellent worship cannot be attained merely by pursuing excellent worship. In the same way that, according to Jesus, you cannot find yourself until you lose yourself, so also you cannot find excellent corporate worship until you stop trying to find excellent corporate worship and pursue God himself. Despite the protestations, one sometimes wonders if we are beginning to worship worship rather than worship God. As a brother put it to me, it’s a bit like those who begin by admiring the sunset and soon begin to admire themselves admiring the sunset.

This point is acknowledged in a praise chorus like “ Let’s forget about ourselves, and magnify the Lord, and worship him.” The trouble is that after you have sung this repetitious chorus three or four times, you are no farther ahead. The way you forget about yourself is by focusing on God—not by singing about doing it, but by doing it. There are far too few choruses and services and sermons that expand our vision of God—his attributes, his works, his character, his words. Some think that corporate worship is good because it is lively where it has been dull. But it may also be shallow where it is lively, leaving people dissatisfied and restless in a few months’ time. Sheep lie down when they are fed well; they are more likely to be restless when they are hungry. “Feed my sheep,” Jesus commanded Peter (John 21); and many sheep are unfed. If you wish to deepen the worship of the people of God, above all deepen their grasp of his ineffable majesty in his person and in all his works.” - D.A. Carson

First of all let me say that I feel like we do a pretty good job of directing and keeping our focus on God in our corporate worship times. This is something I have been very grateful for during our time at NCC. After reading this I really started to think about the songs we sing on Sundays. I am happy to say that after doing this I found that the majority of songs we play focus our attention onto God and his many wonderful attributes. This is awesome, and also so very important as we aim to remove the attention from ourselves and focus on God. I just wanted to encourage all of us who are involved with leading worship to continue choosing (and even writing) songs that speak of God and his greatness. Let’s continue to supply the church with thought provoking songs that speak truth about the person and nature of God into their lives.