Modern Worship Service

Is Modern Worship Too Emotional? (A Response)

/ Faith

I’ve been involved in the musical form of worship for more than 20 years now and it is feels like the role of our emotions and worship are often hotly debated.

The criticism of charismatics like me is that our forms of worship, contemporary, band led worship, open the door to emotionalism.

This is a slippery term, defined in the dictionary as excessive emotions, or simply placing too much emphasis on emotions. Though it unfortunately carries more than a little condescension in its general usage.

So if we are to be open, is the criticism fair?

The first thing to make clear is that emotions are not a good or bad thing – they are just emotions. They are deeply embedded in what it means to be human. Beyond that, and perhaps to our amazement, they are also something God expresses.

The scripture is full of emotional expression and at times we are strongly encouraged to express our emotions to God.

We are called to love God not just with our mind but with our whole heart. So that means directing our hearts emotions to God. Expressing joy, and thankfulness, and sadness, and disappointment and lament and gratitude.

The psalms, the hymn book of the church, is rich and expressive in its expression of emotion.

We also read in the biblical story examples of people whose worship certainly would have appeared highly emotional and yet was held up as an example.

Think of David dancing in his priestly garments before the nation as Michal, his wife, looked on in contempt. Or the woman who anointed Jesus and wiped his feet with tears. Does it get more emotional or “over the top”? Yet she is commended by Jesus.

In many churches, charismatic or otherwise, such acts of worship would cause more than a few eyebrows to be raised! Unfortunately contempt for others and their form of worship is never far from any of us…

So the depth or extremity of the emotion cannot be the issue surely?

Strong emotions can be the fruit of genuine devotion.

Smiley face

FEAR OF MANIPULATION?

So if emotions themselves are not the issue is it the fear of manipulation?
 
Often the criticism is expressed that certain musical tools are used to try and induce certain emotions, which makes the emotions expressed somehow less true.
 
This is strange one to me. Music simply moves us. It touches our emotions in ways other things can’t. It is powerful and it often signposts the transcendent – even when played by musicians who are not worshipping God.
 
Music is designed to elicit a response. And music designed to honour God is no different. Worship music should inspire us, challenge us, awaken passions, provoke love, aid contemplation, help us grieve etc.
 
Do we think Handels Messiah is manipulating us when the tears well up in our eyes? No, music is helping us express something that is true.
 
Similarly God honouring worship music which helps us express ourselves to God, helps us understand God’s vastness, his spendour and his Grace should elicit an emotional response.
 
If it doesn’t something is wrong within us.
 
It is not manipulation to use worship music to help people express emotions any more than any form of art may help us understand life as a human or express something we wish we could ourselves.
 
Taken at face value the emotionalism criticism could apply to other areas of church. Should we make our teaching dull so that people don’t experience emotions that might manipulate them into believing truth?
No, infact a skilful preacher will use the emotions of a story to actually help people receive God’s truth. Modern science increasingly reveals that that is how people actually learn.
 
Should we be less warm in our welcome so that visitors are not manipulated into feeling loved?
 
Should we discourage other Christian art, painters, graphics designers or dancers in case it makes us too emotional?
 
Certain instruments play different roles in how they help us express emotion and we should use them all together to create songs and musical arrangements that move our emotions to express what for many of us is otherwise inexpressible.
 
The opening of Solomon’s temple was a massively orchestrated event with thousands of musicians, it really must have been an incredible sight and sound.  A feast for the senses, coordinated and planned. I’m sure it elicited a strong emotional response. And rightly so.
Boxing gloves punching

ARE TRUTH AND EMOTION IN CONFLICT?

Perhaps underlying the criticism is that our emotions can be detached from truth. This is certainly true, people can very excited or angry about things that are not true. Just check your social feed.
 
The criticism of emotionalism is often lobbied at the charismatic church from our reformed brothers. So there are of course areas of truth in which we stand in disagreement, but none of these fundamentally change the God we all worship.
 
Our worship songs should be thoroughly aligned with the doctrine of scripture and be directed at God.
 
It is also important to realise that in the same way our emotions can be based on falsehood – our minds can be just as easily deceived. I’m sure there are even occasions where our hearts are right and our heads are wrong!
Having said that I would agree that most of the time we don’t want our emotions to be in the driving seat of our lives.
 
When it comes to worship though we need to fully engage our whole being. That means worshipping with our minds, hearts and soul. To help people do that our songs should be rich in theology, help us elicit strong emotions to God and ultimately shape our character into Christ.
 
Most of the time, even in charismatic churches, I would suggest our emotions are fairly tame compared the truths we hold.
 
God’s grace, his love, his joy, if fully grasped would have us at times dancing like crazy, at other times on our faces in tears, at others beaming with joy.
 
Certainly staring at our feet and awkwardly toe tapping feels a far cry from the worship we will one day take part in.
head question mark

WHAT ABOUT THE FAKERS?

Now of course I’m sure there are some people who simply act emotional to get attention or for a variety of reasons that express the brokenness of our souls.

The difficulties for pastors like me is to apply discernment. Within a local congregation, where relationships are built over weeks and months, it should be quite easy to get to know someones heart.

Given the stories like that of the woman weeping on Jesus feet I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. I find myself not wanting to be on the same side of the argument as the Pharisees or David’s wife Michal.

I’d rather leave God to sift people’s motives, than play amateur phycologist. I’d rather allow some over the top worship than be found to be stifling a genuine heart after God. Jesus’ warning for those who stand in the way of people genuinely seeking him are pretty stark.

Also is it more fake or less fake to lead our emotions to line up with biblical truth? Bless the Lord O My Soul!

Earth

CULTURAL IMPLICATIONS

Often our expression of emotion are conditioned by the culture we live in. The culture of our nation, the culture of our church and the culture of our family unit.
 
Having had the privilege of being involved in worship in Africa, I can tell you they are much more comfortable with emotional worship.
 
Is it any less God honouring? I would hope you would agree not. We need to occasionally lift our eyes and recognise that our western worship culture is only a tiny slither of what worship looks like across the globe. We are increasingly the minority.
 
Our worship is culturally shaped and most cultures outside of the West tend to be much healthier in their expression of emotions. Do we need to be careful we don’t create worship in our own image?

Are charismatic churches guilty of emotionalism?

The problem is this would require us to know someone else’s inner motivations.
 
Emotions are part of being human and the more alive we are, the more we are connected to our emotions.
 
Worshipping God should be as emotional as it is intellectual.
 
Discerning the difference between the woman in tears at the feet of Jesus and someone trying to get attention is a dangerous game to play.
 
Can we be too joyful at our salvation? Too emotional with the love of God? Can the music become too good such that we feel too uplifted?
 
So whilst emotion based on falsehood should be avoided, emotions connected to truth is vital to our worship. I suspect we all have a long way to go before our emotions line up with the amazing truth of the gospel.

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1 thought on “Is Modern Worship Too Emotional? (A Response)”

  1. George Carratt

    I will never forget one of the CLAN team celebrations when the leader of the children’s ministry danced a highland fling solo. It was in response to a word from God and it was such a blessing to witness such pure worship and so powerful to watch.

    Reply

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