What Makes for a Good Musical Worship Experience?
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:04.260 | [Farsi]
00:00:12.880 | God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.
00:00:16.640 | That's what you just heard in Farsi from our friend Mo.
00:00:20.560 | Mo is bringing Desiring God resources to Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan.
00:00:25.680 | Incredible work.
00:00:27.440 | You will want to hear the story in just a minute, but first we get to today's question here on this Wednesday.
00:00:34.080 | What is a good musical worship experience?
00:00:37.520 | That's today's question from a listener to the podcast by the name of Jeff.
00:00:40.800 | Hello, Pastor John.
00:00:42.240 | I know many Christians speak of a good worship experience as one associated with an emotional response,
00:00:48.080 | and I have several relatives that will say a good worship experience is tied to the quality of the music,
00:00:54.640 | how well the musicians sing and performed on stage,
00:00:58.160 | and they will defend popular Christian worship bands who hold to a theology that's a little bit weak,
00:01:03.680 | but defend the songs because of the personal emotional high that they cause.
00:01:09.600 | As a result, my relatives will say things like the worship experience was "very powerful."
00:01:15.360 | We even know of a local church that doesn't allow children in the singing portion
00:01:20.000 | because it distracts from the worship experience.
00:01:23.840 | So my question for you, Pastor John, is this.
00:01:26.240 | What makes for a good musical worship experience?
00:01:32.640 | I put that question to Pastor John in Nashville.
00:01:36.000 | Here he is.
00:01:37.680 | Well, not taking the kids out,
00:01:41.120 | Noel and I wrote an article in our first year or two at Bethlehem
00:01:47.440 | making the case that we will not have a children's church,
00:01:51.680 | but the children will be in worship services after age, I don't know what we chose, three, something like that.
00:01:58.000 | And my argument was where else will a three, four, five, six, seven year old boy, say boy,
00:02:09.440 | learn what the heart of a mature man toward God is if he doesn't see his dad sing,
00:02:19.440 | if he doesn't see his dad pray, if he doesn't see his dad bow down in holy reverence.
00:02:24.720 | And so there's so much more going on in a good experience of worship.
00:02:31.600 | So the other thing that came to my mind when I heard that question was that the word experience is viewed negatively
00:02:42.800 | because it's got connotations of empty emotionalism.
00:02:47.520 | And all that was just an experience.
00:02:49.040 | But the word experience in English is necessary.
00:02:52.400 | I mean, it's a good word.
00:02:54.560 | Worship is an experience.
00:02:56.800 | It is.
00:02:57.360 | And it needs to be fleshed out as what kind of experience it is.
00:03:01.840 | And what makes it good is that there is truth and there is response to that truth in understanding.
00:03:14.160 | And there is worth and beauty and greatness.
00:03:17.760 | And there is response to that in affections.
00:03:21.520 | Now, that little summary there came from a sentence from Jonathan Edwards.
00:03:27.920 | So Jonathan Edwards says, God glorifies himself in the world in two ways.
00:03:34.880 | He glorifies himself by his glory being seen, meaning known, understood.
00:03:43.680 | And his glory being delighted in.
00:03:46.960 | He who sees God's glory does not glorify him so much as he who also delights in that glory.
00:03:55.600 | Now, when I read that sentence, I thought, "He's so absolutely right."
00:04:01.200 | And you heard me say yesterday, God will not be half glorified,
00:04:05.920 | meaning he doesn't want a doctrinally straight church with zero experience of affections.
00:04:14.000 | And he doesn't want a church with all over the top emotions and affections
00:04:20.000 | and almost no rich understanding of the nature of God and what he's done in the world.
00:04:26.080 | And so what I'm looking for in a good experience of worship is,
00:04:30.320 | is there richness of truth here, truth in the welcome, truth in the prayers,
00:04:36.560 | truth in the preaching, truth in the singing and the lyrics of the song.
00:04:41.280 | He's just permeated with the Bible truth that is loved in this church.
00:04:47.040 | And do these people give some evidence it makes a difference?
00:04:52.640 | Like it touches anybody.
00:04:54.160 | Does anybody feel anything here?
00:04:56.400 | Because if this church is totally blank, I mean, it is emotionless.
00:05:02.400 | I'm thinking God is not prized here.
00:05:05.200 | God is not valued here.
00:05:06.560 | God is not cherished here.
00:05:08.000 | God is not enjoyed here.
00:05:09.680 | That's just not worship.
00:05:10.800 | I don't care how true the doctrine is or how straight the preaching is.
00:05:14.880 | So those are just massively crucial things, I think, for worship to be a good experience.
00:05:22.160 | Now, all of that, I think, presumes, or maybe I shouldn't presume it,
00:05:28.080 | that the chief actors in worship are the congregation.
00:05:34.720 | This conference is all about how you lead in order to make that happen,
00:05:41.040 | but it's the congregation singing or praying or confessing or reciting.
00:05:50.240 | The congregation is the worshiping body with the help of people who are musicians or leaders
00:05:59.200 | from the front, which implies, now, what would that be?
00:06:02.320 | What would the good leadership be to make that happen so that the people are singing,
00:06:09.440 | the people are praying, the people are reciting,
00:06:12.240 | the people are confessing authentically from the heart?
00:06:15.440 | And I wrote down the leader will not…
00:06:19.040 | I used the term "undistracting excellence" is needed from the leaders.
00:06:25.920 | Undistracting, you don't get in the way.
00:06:29.440 | So not shoddy, because that's going to distract.
00:06:31.920 | You make mistakes, people are going to be jarred and won't be able to keep focusing.
00:06:37.040 | Not ostentatious.
00:06:38.480 | That means you're too good and you're showing off on the piano
00:06:41.760 | or whatever instrument you're playing.
00:06:46.160 | Not entertaining, not calling attention to themselves.
00:06:50.560 | I mean, the tension in this conference is significant, isn't it?
00:06:54.560 | This is a largely performance-oriented conference.
00:06:57.280 | Even though you're singing a lot, these are remarkable things going on up here,
00:07:01.280 | and they could easily intimidate a lot of pastors that they can't do anything like that.
00:07:05.920 | And I know Keith and Kristen don't want that to happen to any pastor in the room.
00:07:10.960 | They want a 30-person church with lay leadership and no education in music
00:07:17.520 | to be powerful in connecting with God on Sunday morning, which is very possible.
00:07:23.760 | So not calling attention to themselves.
00:07:26.240 | And then maybe lastly, I wrote a list of things that I think,
00:07:29.760 | in a good experience, you'd look for in the music.
00:07:33.040 | One, it's singable.
00:07:34.800 | It's singable by men.
00:07:37.040 | Men, M-E-N.
00:07:39.760 | Men.
00:07:40.560 | Because I was just talking with another remarkable music theoretician back there over lunch,
00:07:46.320 | and he was talking about the changes of the last 30 years.
00:07:48.880 | And one of the changes, he said, is that the register has gone up.
00:07:52.080 | So then I would say, in our service at home, too often, I have to say,
00:07:59.920 | I think I look at people, "The men just dropped out.
00:08:02.560 | Did you know, did anybody notice no men are singing right now?
00:08:06.960 | Or they shift to a lower octave, and that sounds weird."
00:08:09.760 | I was like, "They were doing just great right here, then..."
00:08:12.480 | [imitates low octave singing]
00:08:14.560 | "What just happened?"
00:08:15.360 | So the scope of singability, and I actually think it's crucial that the men sing.
00:08:21.120 | It's almost a given that women sing.
00:08:22.480 | Women seem to have an easier ability to get all over the range on these things.
00:08:28.720 | Men, we're not so good at that.
00:08:30.800 | We need a lot of help to sing.
00:08:33.280 | And when the men are singing, oh my goodness,
00:08:35.680 | that really helps the women, helps the children, helps everybody view this God better, I think.
00:08:42.560 | Emotionally suitable, truth-carried lyrics, lyrics that are seriously joyful,
00:08:48.320 | lyrics that are God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated, gospel-rich.
00:08:54.960 | And then I have to say one more thing, Tony, because this is what I write about,
00:09:00.560 | this is what I did for 33 years.
00:09:03.520 | Don't ever talk about, "We worship for 30 minutes and then we preach."
00:09:09.120 | I'll get my back up if you say that.
00:09:12.560 | I'm a preacher and I worship.
00:09:14.960 | Preaching is worship.
00:09:17.200 | It ought to be, I call it, expository exaltation.
00:09:23.040 | Because it's not just music that should have truth components and affectional components.
00:09:27.840 | Preaching should have truth components and affectional components.
00:09:32.960 | So expository, I really am explaining the Bible,
00:09:36.960 | drawing meaning out of the Bible that's really there.
00:09:39.360 | And I'm really thrilled about it.
00:09:42.080 | Can anybody tell?
00:09:43.120 | That's what I want.
00:09:44.800 | I want, that's what preaching is.
00:09:47.200 | It helps people see the truth and then be caught up with the preacher
00:09:53.760 | in his love affair with that God and that salvation.
00:09:57.920 | So I think a good experience, a good worship experience will have at least all of that.
00:10:05.280 | [Conan] That's good.
00:10:06.000 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:10:06.800 | [Applause]
00:10:08.800 | [John] Wow, such a great time.
00:10:10.000 | Thanks to all of you who showed up to the live recording in Nashville.
00:10:12.960 | It was loud and engaged, as you can hear from this audio,
00:10:16.160 | and it was great to meet many of you after the recording.
00:10:18.480 | Well, I mentioned at the start of this episode that a team of friends are working to bring
00:10:24.720 | Desiring God resources to non-English speaking countries,
00:10:28.080 | and that includes a friend of ours named Mo.
00:10:30.560 | You heard his voice earlier, and we asked him for an update on his work.
00:10:34.640 | Here's what he said.
00:10:36.160 | My name is Mohammad Sanavi.
00:10:38.480 | I was born in Iran.
00:10:40.960 | I'm a founder and director of the ministry called Bible Training Center for Persians.
00:10:47.680 | My ministry is among Farsi speakers.
00:10:50.560 | There are three countries people speak Farsi.
00:10:54.080 | Iran, Afghanistan, and part of Tajikistan.
00:10:58.000 | So, whatever we do is to reach those three countries.
00:11:01.920 | The material that we have translated into Farsi from the Desiring God are solid joys,
00:11:08.960 | the good news of the great joy, and many of the pastors' John's sermons.
00:11:17.600 | In the last year, I noticed every few days on my social media, I have a deleted contact.
00:11:28.960 | They're all my Afghani friends.
00:11:31.120 | They're the pastors, they're the teachers who are working in Afghanistan.
00:11:35.280 | And then, boom, we saw it on TV what happened.
00:11:40.720 | The Afghanistan fell in the hand of Taliban.
00:11:44.640 | I said, "No wonder these people are deleting themselves from us,
00:11:49.600 | because it could be a very dangerous situation for them."
00:11:53.360 | Months passed, and all of a sudden, I got a phone call.
00:11:59.840 | It's unknown.
00:12:01.840 | I don't know who that person is.
00:12:03.360 | I answered the person, and it was one of my Afghani's friends.
00:12:09.120 | He was a very devoted, he's a very devoted Christian.
00:12:14.400 | Very devoted minister.
00:12:16.800 | In the back of my mind, I'm thinking, probably he wants me to help him to get out of Afghanistan.
00:12:25.200 | And finally, I said, "Brother, what can I do for you?"
00:12:28.880 | The answer I heard from him embarrassed me.
00:12:32.960 | He said, "Just pray for us.
00:12:36.400 | I call you to let you know we need to have a stronger faith to stay here.
00:12:42.320 | Just pray for us and do one thing.
00:12:44.560 | Can you send me audio sermons every few weeks?
00:12:48.480 | Just one thing to encourage us to stay in our country."
00:12:51.600 | I said, "What about if I give you the full Advent devotion?"
00:12:58.160 | He loved it.
00:12:59.680 | And I said, "And after that, I'm going to give you daily devotion,
00:13:03.840 | three to five minutes devotion, every day for the rest of the year."
00:13:07.360 | He was so excited.
00:13:08.880 | He said, "Do you have it?"
00:13:09.840 | I said, "Yes, we have already worked on the good news of the great joy.
00:13:16.240 | We already worked on the solid joys, and they are ready.
00:13:21.360 | I will make sure that you receive it.
00:13:24.160 | Send me a contact information.
00:13:25.680 | I will send it to you."
00:13:27.280 | He received it, and then later he told me, "I listened to every devotion over and over
00:13:36.560 | every day, and it burned my heart.
00:13:40.160 | It made me fall in love with Jesus more and more."
00:13:43.760 | Thank you so much, brother.
00:13:45.680 | Who knew that in God knowing the future, we are working on this for the Iranian,
00:13:53.360 | but in fact, it was for the Afghanis because they needed that.
00:13:56.880 | Whatever I do, I want people to fall in love with Jesus,
00:14:03.040 | make their relationship deeper with Jesus,
00:14:06.560 | to come to the point that they are ready to die for Jesus.
00:14:11.600 | That's what I love about this Iranian God.
00:14:15.280 | God is using every penny that people are giving to this organization
00:14:20.880 | to bring more and more people to the cross.
00:14:25.200 | So, keep doing what you are doing.
00:14:28.960 | We don't know how many people converted because of the $5, the $10, $100 that you gave.
00:14:35.760 | When we go to heaven, God is going to say, "Well done, my children.
00:14:40.320 | See who are the people here because of your commitment."
00:14:44.720 | Thank you.
00:14:46.420 | Amazing testimony.
00:14:49.280 | So brilliant to hear this.
00:14:50.320 | Thank you, Mo, for your faithful labors in these hard places.
00:14:56.400 | If you're listening right now and you gave to Desiring God's Work in 2022,
00:15:00.800 | you made Mo's work possible, and I bet you didn't even know it.
00:15:05.120 | So, thank you for your partnership.
00:15:06.720 | If you're not yet a partner and you want to join in what's happening through Desiring God's
00:15:11.120 | resources in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan, join us today.
00:15:16.800 | Become a monthly ministry partner.
00:15:18.800 | Much of our financial support comes from friends of ours who give, on average,
00:15:23.120 | $30 a month to support the work.
00:15:26.320 | To set up monthly giving, go to give.desiringgod.org.
00:15:29.760 | That's give.desiringgod.org.
00:15:33.760 | Hugely appreciated.
00:15:36.800 | We are going to be back on Friday.
00:15:40.000 | We'll see you then.
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