The Dynamics of Worship

Wow is how I want to start this book review.    Wow!  I just got done reading The Dynamics of Worship by James P. Gills.  I will give you a link to it a bit later on if you are interested in reading it.  This book has been around a while but it is full of valuable information and insight.  I will give you a little of the things that spoke to me personally.  A lot of it was a bit hard to swallow, mainly because this book forced me to reflect on what it truly means to worship.  I know I have heard others say some of these things before but it seems as if we just don't get them. Gills does a relatively good job in my opinion of breaking down the specifics of what worship is, what it should look like, where we should be as Christians in order to worship.  He explains these things with several specific terms and how they relate to our personal relationship with God.

Gills states early in the book "The void within us is spiritual.  Yet, how often do we look to other areas of life in hope of finding the answer to or malaise?"  I thought that statement was particularly indicative of how nearly all of us go about our lives from day to day.  We long for something, many of us know that it is a close relationship with God yet we fill our lives with all shorts of things that we try to fill the void with.  I don't feel like I need to go through a list of things here..... I am sure you all get it...... suffice it to say if you get more excited about anything.... ANYTHING!.... than you do about God there is a really good possibility that you have an idol before you and you are expending your energies worshiping that thing instead of expending your energies in improving your relationship with and worshiping God. 

Gills goes on to say the following "You understand why religion was invented.  It was to keep God at a safe distance.  I used to believe that all the religions of the world were men reaching out for God.  It isn't.  All the religions of the world are there to keep God at a safe distance.  You see, man knows there's a God, but he's scared spitless of Him, so he's got to keep Him away.

I thought that was a very interesting perspective and in retrospect when I look at how religion is organized there are an unbelievable amount of similarities with church today and the very religiosity that was created by the Pharisees and the Jews in the old testament.  There seems to be a desire to compartmentalize God and worshiping Him to the point that we have control over what things are being done.  Almost to the point of us being able to say what we will do and won't do in the name of God.  Could you imagine if we made a choice to live a radical life for Christ.  One that made others in the so called current establishment uncomfortable.  A life that was focused on pleasing Christ first and others secondary.  We would be called crazy..... koookooo for coco puffs..... and many other things along the way.  I don't think we would be very popular.  ( I am used to that one)

There were several quotes used in this book to make some really great points.

Worship is the missing jewel of the evangelical church!  A. W. Tozer

I can see that.... I don't know that I have truly worshiped God in the way that he would have me worship Him, a life totally abandone to him.  (again the point here is not what the worship leader is doing, all though they should be helping the congregation understand what true worship is as well as the pastor)  It is about our relation ship with God through Christ on a day to day basis.  I have heard this given lip service also..... I am guilty as well.

To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God.  William Temple. The Archbishop of Canterbury in his book The Hope of a New World.

I often wonder while we are worshiping God, in song, in prayer, in scripture.  How many times are we somewhere else?  Are we thinking about the game, lunch, the bills, the ugly tie that Mr. Zimbart is wearing today and not focusing on worship God or the attributes of God that make him worthy of worship.

The only person justified in not worshipping is the unbeliever.  For to worship you have to have a Savior, and your Savior has to be the central figure of your life.  Chuck Swindoll

I would venture to say for most of us there are a lot of things that are the center of our lives and Christ is not one of them....... oh don't get me wrong Christ is a part of our lives...... but he is not the center of our lives.  We make choices every day that relegate Christ to the smallest portions of our lives, the little back corners, that we suppress while we engage in the futility of what we call life here in the world.   We hardly notice what Christ would have us do until there is a ............... Crisis then we pull out all of the stops, we pray with out ceasing...... we make promises to him that we don't keep.  We just go about it in the most selfishest of ways.... you know what I am talking about.

The path of wholehearted discipleship has never been crowded, or popular           A. P. Gibbs

There goes the popular thing again.   I am thinking God wants us to not worry about being popular with people.  There just might be a correlation with how popular you are in the world and with people and just how popular you are with God.  Popular with God just makes everyone else uncomfortable cause you are saying and doing the things that most everyone else does not want to hear or do.

Most Christians have read parts of the Bible.  Yet, they admit they can't understand much of it -- especially the more profound divine truth.  Only the Holy Spirit can reveal the shades of meaning.  Relying totally on His guidance, we submit our entire beings -- spirits, souls and bodies --- to Him.  That may take a while because we cherish our independence.  We surrender little by little.  When we do though, our study and prayer times, as well as our praise and worship, will produce much spiritual fruit.  James. P. Gills

I do think our independence is the biggest obstacle to a real relationship with God.  We all want to belt out a line from the Frank Sinatra song,  I DID IT MY WAY.  While we may all want to puff up with pride and say that it will get us into a lot of trouble and even a one way ticket to H. E. double hockey sticks.  I can assure you that will not be any fun.

Dr. Gills gives an example of a triangle and each of those sides being equal.  On each of those sides he places the words, Covenant, Knowledge, Worship.  He makes points specifically about anytime one of these things gets out of measure with the other it creates imbalance that ultimately effects our worship and our relationship with God.  He uses this to drive home with specific examples how it does effect our relationship with God and what Churches or people look like when they have one or more of these specific relationship points with God out of balance.  He goes in depth here and it is a real eye opener as I can see certain times in my life were specific imbalances in these areas effected my relationship with God in specific ways, I also recognize specific patterns in churches that I have attended past and present.

Finally he goes in to specifics about the obstacles to worship.  I am going to list the points here, he goes in depth and defines and describes what these obstacles look like and how they prevent us from worshiping.  (I stay away from the phrase true worship because there is only worship either you are doing it or not.)

1.  Pride
2.  Lack of Knowledge
3.  Independence
4.  Critical spirit
5.  Laziness
6.  Impatience
7.  Legalism
8.  Emotionalism
9.  Elitism
10.  Traditionalism
11.  Unforgiveness
12.  Worldly Influence

This is a good book that will help you put into perspective what a life of worship to God looks like.  It will help you identify the pitfalls that are there that would separate you from that relationship with God that he wants to have with you.  A relationship that far exceeds anything that most have ever experienced.  While there are a few things that I don't agree with it in no way takes away from the validity of this book, and those issues do not in any way do injustice to the core Christian beliefs, or doctrine.  This book can be found for a very cheap price in some cases as little as $1.  I would recommend that everyone take the time to read this book and you can start your search for a copy by going to the following link