Last Wednesday I had an interesting conversation with one of our worship leaders, the multi-talented Magoo del Mundo. We were initially discussing traditional hymns and praise and worship, contrasting the styles, messages, and experience. I’m a big hymns fan and love it when the church band incorporates old hymns into the worship set. Magoo has an equal love for the timelessness and theology of many traditional hymns.

But it wasn’t his comments on the modern rendition of classic music that drove me into a fit of deep thought – it was his thoughts on what true worship is and his leftfield idea on how we might challenge traditional corporate worship.

“The Jews worshipped differently,” Magoo informed me. “They sang in response to what they heard about God.” In other words, we’ve got it wrong. We go to church on Sunday and do the bulk of our praise and worship before hearing the Word, not the other way around.

So the question is, why are we singing? Is it because Sunday morning worship is a centuries-old established pattern? Do we assume our seats and “warm up” for the sermon by singing or are we praising because we’re responding to something we learned about God’s awesomeness and Biblical truth?

My bet is that of say 100 people singing in church on a Sunday morning, only a tiny fraction are worshipping as a direct response to God and His Word. The rest of us just go through the motions because hey, that’s the pattern. We’re used to it.

What my friend postulates is this: Sunday morning praise and worship is nullified when all we do is sing because we’re used to it. True worship happens when we respond to the preaching – the Truth of God’s Word – by singing praise and adoration.

So if he had his way, and this is the cool part, the bulk of corporate praise and worship would be at the END of the service, not the beginning.

I love it when traditional paradigms get flipped on their head.

I think Magoo is right. The Bible says that true worshippers worship in Spirit and in Truth (John 4:23). A lot of us worship in Spirit, coming before the Lord on Sunday singing because it feels good and is a great way to “get started”. We may try to dig down and ask the Holy Spirit to fill our minds and buoy us as we sing, (perhaps hoping, erroneously, that a little mysticism will go a long way too).

But we don’t worship in Truth – we’re not responding to the preached Word that morning; we’re not singing because we’re absorbed in the Bible. We might simply be singing a shallow modern worship song that’s more vague that it is theologically uplifting.

There needs to be a balance; we must worship in Spirit and in Truth if it is to be acceptable and pleasing to the Father as well as meaningful for us.

I wonder if we can accomplish that by shaking things up and literally restructuring the Sunday service. What if we all arrived at church, sat down, and after a moment of prayer and perhaps one song (as a concession), the pastor plunged right into preaching? Then, after hearing the Word we give our offering and start the praise and worship in earnest?

The worship leaders would be free to choose songs that are tied into the sermon message and urge the congregation to really think about what they just heard. Like if the pastor preached on the Holiness of God we might just sing Holy, Holy, Holy with a lot more conviction and understanding. If the message was about God’s superabundant grace, Amazing Grace might turn into something more than just a timeless classic.

I’m all for experimentation within the church, especially if it means trying to Biblical over traditional.

What do you think?