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EDITORIAL
Praise and worship

Jim Coggins

Defining worship is a difficult but increasingly necessary task. My hope is that the feature articles in this issue will bring increased understanding to this topic.

Worship and praise are often confused with each other, and the meaning of worship is often understood far too narrowly. My own definition is that worship is recognizing the greatness of God and praise is declaring the greatness of God. Thus, praise is only one aspect of worship. I can recognize the greatness of God by declaring God’s praises in song or in word, but also by simply being humble before Him, by remaining faithful to Him in the face of persecution, by trusting Him to take care of my finances, by obeying His commands, by caring for the poor, by loving the outcast and by doing a hundred other things.

Praise is often as misunderstood as worship. Contemporary Christian music has done us a great service by returning the focus of our singing to the matter of directly giving praise to God. On the other hand, I must confess that some contemporary praise songs leave me feeling a little uneasy, particularly those which repeat phrases such as “I praise You” or “I worship You”. In the first place, when I praise my children, I don’t say, “I praise you”; rather, I commend them for their hard work, obedience, intelligence, kindness, etc. There is nothing wrong with singing “I praise You” to God. It is a biblical phrase. But our praise should also have more content than that. Particularly in our age of doctrinal confusion, we need to understand what we are praising God for and, indeed, who the God is that we are worshipping. Our God is a God of justice and love, truth and wisdom, and our praise of Him should reflect that understanding.

I am also concerned about the “I” part of “I praise You.” In a society that is too often individualistic and self-centred, I am convinced that we need to sing “we” a lot more than we do. When a professional Christian singer writes a song out of his own personal devotion, it makes perfect sense for him to sing “I”. However, when we take such songs and repeatedly use them in congregational singing, it can do something not altogether good to our understanding of the unity of the Body of Christ.

The “I” bothers me for another reason as well. Again, it is not a question of right and wrong but of focus and balance. In many of our newer songs, it is we the singers who take the initiative: “I praise”, “I worship”, “I will be faithful”, “I love”, etc. It is a good thing to express our personal commitment to God. However, sometimes, especially when we sing several of these songs in a row, I get the uneasy feeling that we may be following too closely a biblical model – the model of the Pharisee praying in the temple and listing all of his own good qualities (Luke 18:11-12). At such times, I wonder whether we are really praising God or ourselves. The longer I live the Christian life, the more certain I become that it is not I who usually takes the initiative but God. It is not so much that I love God but that He loves me. It is not my faithfulness but God’s that I should rightly proclaim. In so many ways, it is God who really takes action; in the light of the mighty acts of God, my own actions are only a pale reflection.

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Last modified April 30, 2002.

© 2002 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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