Thanks to Thoughts of a Worshipper for pointing this list of Saddleback Church’s 12 Convictions about Worship (read the original articles with more commentary from Pastors.com here and here:
1. Only believers can truly worship God2. You don’t need a building to worship God.
3. There is no correct style of worship.
4. While unbelievers can’t worship, they can watch believers worship.
5. Worship is a powerful witness to unbelievers if God’s presence is felt and the message is understandable.
6. God expects us to be sensitive to the fears, hang-ups, and the needs of unbelievers when they are present in our worship services.
7. Worship services do not have to be shallow to be evangelistic, and the message does not have to be compromised. It just has to be understandable.
8. The needs of believers and unbelievers often overlap.
9. It’s best to specialize your services according to purpose.
10. A service geared toward non-believers is meant to supplement personal evangelism, not replace it.
11. There is no standard way to design an evangelistic worship service.
12. It takes unselfish mature believers to offer an evangelistic worship service. This is the most important of all.
Any contentions? Any additions? He goes more indepth into each of his points in the articles, which are well worth reading.
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February 15, 2008 at 16:38
The Acts 2 crowd wasn’t in attendance at the worship, it gathered to find out what was happening. The results of the worship were attractive. But the attraction was the Spirit moving in people’s lives, not the worship.
If non-believers can’t worship, then why have worship services for them? Get your congregation to show unbelievers their changed lives, and make believers of them, then let them worship in response.
Worship is a response to a awe-inspiring God. Worship is not evangelism. If worship is for God, how can we “target” a service? It boggles the mind.
If we want to trace the root of commercialized Christianity, it’s this “Hey, come look at our product! Try it, you’ll like it!” attitude.
February 16, 2008 at 19:15
Almost unrelated, but it is related to Saddleback. I’ve been studying Lean manufacturing recently (and hope to put it into practice soon!) I’ve so far seen the 5 purposes come out of Saddleback, and now the 12 convictions about worship. In Lean manufacturing there are the three types of waste (muri, mura, muda), 7 types of muda, 14 principles of flow, and I’m sure a few others. I am not accusing Saddleback of anything like industrialising Christianity, but I am finding the parallels with Lean interesting. Personally I believe Christanity can learn a lot from Lean. Both in terms of continuously improving everything and the fact that after 50 years of pioneering Lean manufacturing, Toyota is finally worldwide number 1 car manufacturer, making cars that are more american than GM and they are paranoid about becoming complacent. Lean can be good, but taken to its extreme it becomes an unfulfilling gospel of works – a chasing after the wind, as Qoholet might put it (http://christianity.wikia.com/wiki/Ecclesiastes).
February 16, 2008 at 20:06
I’m concerned with their #1; can’t get past it enough to worry about the rest.
I’ve been an “us” and “them” Christian. I worked hard to understand and figure out and comprehend and explain and articulate and all to identify who was a “believer” and who wasn’t.
Does one determine whether one’s worship is true by whether one is a true believer or vice versa?
February 17, 2008 at 12:57
I personally feel the idea of the ideas on this list, which seem to amount to so much “lifestyle-compatible worship”: the idea of’purpose’ in worship, or cultural sensibilities coming into play, or even the “need” for “unselfish, mature believers”, only seem relevant when you imagine that a church is supposed to be an egalitarian meeting of like-minded folks.
I was particularly put off by the feeling that the whole “unselfish, mature believers” comment is just a reflexive criticism against anybody who doesn’t consider this list of convictions to be the heart of the matter as far as worship goes. Those are admirable qualities in leading a herd of people to feel comfortable with each other, but I fail to see how those qualities translate into confessional honesty, life-change, or a missionary-style sense of spiritual independence.
If worship is about ‘community’, it’s obviously not about God first and foremost. I feel like the level of self-consciousness necessary to make a list like this in the first place is the exact WRONG place to start. It’s as if the guy is ‘rejecting’ being a jerk in order to better be a Christian and advocating we do the same: playing the part of the all-inclusive hippie and attempting to make a church of furtively nice people doesn’t seem to me to be the best way to do more than socialize and gladhand, perform service projects and hold potlucks, and study old books together. It’s very ‘theological’, but I wonder how much a person’s heart can become Christ-like, or if such a church could even have that goal. Call me morbid, but I think the Christian, at any age or income, needs to live from the scourings of his soul that test the mettle of his conversion away from himself and made him want to follow Jesus in the first place.
If faith, and spiritual heroism really only amounts to learning the part of “mature” believers whose ways of declaring their faith happen to look good and charm, I can’t help but think that this guy’s church is not for the rest of us: sinners, trying to leave their sins and suffering on the altar for God to take.
I look at a church like that and think, “I wonder if listening to a sermon and singing a few songs each week is enough to convince a person, whose thoughts are consumed with bills and and personal hangups and work and TV and “being nice”, that their soul belongs to God? I wonder how many services it takes to make them forget again?”
February 17, 2008 at 22:54
The conviction that only believers can worship, begs the question, “who then is a believer, and how is the distinction made?” Jesus spent a lot of time talking about lifestyle being a defining characteristic of the righteous and says nowhere that one must recite the sinners’ prayer in order to inherit heaven, or a believer’s worship service for that matter.
February 18, 2008 at 12:56
It’s so much like the western rational mind to want principles iterated. Where do our ideas of a Christian fellowship meeting come from? Where should they come from? Should we look to Biblical examples or have dialectic with 19th century tradition? We have some pretty detailed descriptions of fellowship meetings in the Bible. We have 4 detailed chapters in 1st Corinthians 9-14 and several chapters in Acts. I tend to give this more value than Saddleback’s 12 convictions. What is an evangelistic worship meeting? Seems like a contradiction in terms. Here’s what a New Testament service was like when an unbeliever entered:
“But if all of you are prophesying, and unbelievers or people who don’t understand these things come into your meeting, they will be convicted of sin and judged by what you say. As they listen, their secret thoughts will be exposed, and they will fall to their knees and worship God, declaring, “God is truly here among you.”“
“What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church.”
Even though the church in Jerusalem had mega-church numbers, the normal fellowship meeting was home based. They met for the purpose of eating together, taking communion together, reading the word, singing, prophesying and ministering to each other with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It was decidedly charismatic. And woe to the unbeliever who entered. The secrets of his heart would be revealed through prophecy or a word of knowledge and he would be converted. This is the way disciples and strong Christians were built. Not entertainment centered pew worship. Not that we all have to instantly change our worship format, but this should be the goal to strive for because the fruits are so evident. And there is nothing wrong with evangelistic meetings but let’s recognize that is what they are, not worship services.
February 18, 2008 at 14:11
To those hung up on #1. For my own knowledge, so I can understand your thoughts, I have to ask, how does a person worship a God they do not believe in?
February 18, 2008 at 15:14
Once again we see the us versus them mantra raising its head. The purpose of worship is just that; to praise and honor God. If you are having specialized services you must beware that you do not quench the spirit of God. It doesn’t matter what type of “service” you plan, you must be open to the leading of the spirit. There really shouldn’t be worship
services or worship time in a service. It should all be about praising and worshiping the lord.