Music is not worship

Today, Michael Spencer called out EXACTLY what I’ve been thinking (and writing about) for a couple years.

Does anyone- I mean, really, seriously- have any idea what is actually happening within the worship culture of evangelicals?

Worship has now become a musical term. Praise and worship means music. Let’s worship means the band will play. We need to give more time to worship doesn’t mean silent prayer or public scripture reading or any kind of participatory liturgy. It means music.

My early (and very amateur) study of the Greek and Hebrew showed that of the 100+ times that worship appears in the Bible, it nearly always means “bowing down” and virtually never music by any stretch.

Don’t get me wrong, I love music. But music is not worship. And music you are only listening to (not participating in) is even less so. That listening to tunes is often the centerpiece of our corporate gatherings has contributed greatly to the self-destruction of the evangelical church.