Leave Celebrations, Enter Into Worship

There was a season where true believers became critical of how the church has been run and presented. It raised young thinkers to reconsider if not deconstruct modes and methods along with perceptions and understanding of previously held ideas.

This season was birth from a gnawing desire to represent Jesus lovingly and graciously to a world that had been doomed to hell by the preceding generation of legalists and separatist.

It should have developed a generation of deeper Christianity, but I’m afraid it developed a generation of cynics whose perception of truth were presented as ideas of logic rather than an avenue of deeper worship. It wasn’t worship we were after.

We left seeking out the awe of God to seek after the awful in us. We lost our sense of worship.

While we preached grace by faith, we worked on ourselves. Instead of spending time in God’s presence, we spent time picking at people’s preachings. Instead of deeper worship, we worried about being too spiritual.

Because of this, we exchanged worship for celebrations. We celebrated the example of Christ instead of worshipping Him as Lord. We became consumers of each other’s angst and thoughts. We held church celebrations without worship because we didn’t want to weird anyone out.

We left legalism to become elitists. We left separatism and became inclusionary. In our desire to show the love of God to all people, we denied being a holy nation. We distanced ourselves from being a royal priesthood.

We lost worship for worry. Instead of preaching saving grace, we became proponents of saving face.

There’s less worship in our churches that’s why there’s less prayers in our homes.

There’s less worship in our churches that why there’s less honor of Jesus in our lives.

Christianity is more commercial now than its ever been. Conferences for a fee, worship concerts for a fee, church merch, content creation for cash.

There’s more celebration of our faith, that’s why there’s more commercialism in our circles.

We go to conferences to listen to speakers, no worship. We go to concerts for worship bands, no worship. We gather in community to talk about issues, no worship. Reels, TikTok’s, clips for views, no worship. We are full of celebrations, but empty in worship.

We don’t need less church, or less conferences, or less concerts, or less community gatherings, or less content — we just need more worship.

Worship will bring real change. Worship will bring the awe of God. Worship will make for deeper connection and true sense of community.

Or maybe its vice-versa. Maybe the issue is not on our leaders, maybe we’ve become consumers instead of worshippers. Maybe we’ve become content consumers instead of Christ worshippers.

We’re more and more celebrating Jesus as an example while less and less worshipping Him as Lord.

So our churches are becoming places of celebration instead of houses of worship. So our services are times of motivation instead of a call to worship. There’s less worship in our churches because there’s less calls for repentance. We’ve exchanged altar calls for party halls.

Listen, not every service is the same, not every gathering is the same. Celebrations because of the joy and the elation can be mistaken as worship, but worship is different. Mary and Joseph celebrated the birth of Jesus, the magis came to worship Him.

Not every offering’s the same, either. Cain offered, so did Abel. But Cain offered in celebration of his crops. Abel offered in worship of his God. Cain killed Abel. The celebrant killed the worshipper. Abel worshipped even though his life was at stake. Cain celebrated but was angry and murderous at the end.

We can have a church celebration where people end up dissatisfied and disappointed, complaining about the music, the preaching, the “experience”. But worshippers will always leave better than how they came.

In worship lives are changed, the flesh is mortified, and Christ is exalted. In celebrations, if it’s a good one, the church organization is hyped, the preacher’s clips are shared, and the experience is exalted. And while celebrations have lingering effects, worship has life long changes.

It’s not that celebrations are bad—in fact we should celebrate! We have great things to celebrate. We celebrate Christmas. It’s great! We celebrate the blessings of God! He’s been good. We celebrate the gathering of believers. The Church is awesome. But all that celebrating will not do what worship is intended to do.

Celebrations can be momentary. Celebrations can be superficial. But in celebrations we can have someone or something else at the center. Celebrations doesn’t exalt Jesus, only worship can do that. We can celebrate the pastor, we can celebrate the band and the songs, we can celebrate the church; celebrations can be about anything

Church celebrations can be about Him, but it doesn’t have to be about Him either. Celebrations acknowledges Jesus as a superstar, worship acknowledges Him as Lord. We can celebrate Jesus as the greatest man and teacher that ever lived, but only worship will exalt Him as the one and only way. We can celebrate Jesus as Prince of peace, but only worship will exalt Him as King of kings, the Lord of lords, the everlasting Father. Celebrations can’t do what worship only can.

There’s no “I” in worship. In worship there is only God on His throne. There’s no “me” in worship, only Christ alone. Let’s remember that while the host of heaven were worshipping God, Lucifer celebrated his position. There can be pride in celebration, but in worship pride is discarded for surrender and submission.