Obedience and Worship

I have been reading about worship and celebration in the classic book about Spiritual Disciplines called "Celebration of Discipline" by Richard Foster.

As I was reading I ran into this quote, "Just as worship begins in holy expectancy, it ends in holy obedience. If worship does not propel us into greater obedience it has not been worship. Holy Obedience saves worship from becoming an opiate, an escape from the pressing needs of the modern life. Worship enables us to hear the call to service clearly so that we respond." (173).

One of my frustrations with being a leader and a teacher in churches is I feel the constant demand from people to give them the "easy button" to a closer relationship with God. People want five purposes that are easy to apply and utterly change their life. They want one structural change to our churches programs that will make the "big difference", and will change everything. Furthermore, they don't want that easy thing to cost them very much.

Nowhere is this attitude more pervasive than in worship. Maybe if there was better music people say, than more people would walk through the door. Perhaps if there was a more dynamic sermon, than our faith journeys would be a little easier. In other words, if I had my way in this, that, or the other, than my life would be easier.

The truth is though, many of treat worship like the "opiate" or drug described in the quote. It is something to make me happy. To make me feel good. To make life a little easier. So we come to worship saying we want to hear God, but when we say we want to hear God what we mean is that we want God to whisper daily affirmations in our ear. We don't want to obey. We don't want to follow. That might mean we have to deal with our drinking problem, our greed, our anger, and do the hard work of choosing God over our destructive habits.

That is not an easy word to hear.