Worship and Community: Singing

I was once given tickets to a Los Angeles Lakers’ game at the Staples Center, in the middle of their championship season. Brianna and I had good seats too, right behind the basket, about twenty rows away. I had never been that close to a professional basketball player before. They look like sticks galloping across the TV screen, but in person they look more like NFL linebackers, but with better muscle tone.

I’ll never forget the anticipation upon entering that stadium.

To my right was a girl wearing high heels and a scarf, seemingly unaware that she was at a sports arena about to watch a bunch of sweaty guys hurl their bodies across the air like gladiators. To my left were a pair of slightly drunk men, convinced that they could start a wave across countless rows of waiting fans who seemed content with eating popcorn and overpriced churros. It worked! A two-tier wave rippled halfway across the stadium, and why not? There was this buzz of anticipation in the air that would make a crazed fan do almost anything. At this point, the crowd was pulsating in a restrained manner, as if it were waiting for an excuse to enter into a frenzy. That excuse came as soon as the starting line-up for L.A. entered the home court under a spray of purple lighting. In the wake of this event, I learned more about worship than many books on worship have offered.

Sports fans can be crazy with how they interact with one another.

And when Kobe made a classic, game-winning clutch shot in the fourth quarter, I lost control, too. I started screaming at strangers! The stadium erupted in excitement, as people toasted their $10 beers, and jumped up and down.

But we weren’t applauding each other. We were reflecting the fame of the team off of each other, and back on to our beloved sports franchise.

This is how Paul portrays the singing aspect of corporate worship.

He says we are to come together in order to speak “to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord” (Eph. 5:19, NASB. emphasis mine). Notice two directional elements to corporate worship,

1. to one another
2. to the Lord

Is it possible that our Christian singing is not designed to be as personal as we would like it to be?—at least, not as the New Testament depicts it. What Paul has in mind is more akin to an arena, in which elated fans cheer with each other, yet not for each other. This happens on Sunday mornings, when buildings are crowded with people who have gathered in droves to be in corporate awe of a famous person.

Are you engaged in what is unraveling before your eyes, namely, the beauty of Jesus? Or are you the one with high-heels, oblivious to what’s going on?

Related articles

• Corporate Worship and the Sacraments [beware of tangents] (christopherlazo.com)
• Worship and Community: Putting “Supper” back in The Lord’s Supper (christopherlazo.com)