A growing trend that is happening in churches worldwide is the trend of human centred worship. As part of the postmodernism movement, Christians all around the world start to move into a mind-set that there is no absolute truth, and truth is subjective to each individual. They do what feels right to them, and alter church worship to their desire, letting emotion triumph over authority. To attract the visitors and maintain their membership numbers, churches also promote sensationalism and create an entertainment atmosphere in the worship service.
Some practices include but are not limited to: partaking of the Lord’s supper apart from the designated every first day of the week (Acts 20:7), like on weddings; introducing unauthorised elements of singing like mechanical instruments, clapping, apart from the authorised congregational singing from the heart (Ephesians 5:19, Colossians 3:16), or trying to create an entertainment atmosphere through performance groups like solos, choirs or praise teams; having women to lead in mixed assembly worship like singing or prayer (1 Timothy 2:12-13), and many others that deviate from God’s desired form of worship.
What does the Bible say about such practices?
Worship is not to be a performance for man, or to create an entertaining atmosphere for the worshippers and visitors. In Matthew 6:1-18, Jesus openly condemned how certain people put their worship on display just to be seen by man (giving, praying, fasting). The Greek word “theathēnai” used in verse 1 is translated ‘to be seen’, and is where we get our word theatrical. The Pharisees were condemned as they were focusing the attention of others onto themselves. We have to be careful in generating an entertainment atmosphere where the focus on the creation draws away our attention from the creator. In Matthew 23:5, Jesus spok3 against human pride, where certain people had lost their focus on God, and instead focused on how they were portraying themselves to others. This ties in to the previous point on how they want to be seen by man due to their pride.
Worship ought not to follow what man wants for themselves, but to follow God’s pattern. Paul warned against will worship in Colossians 2:23, also known as self-contrived worship. J. H. Thayer depicted will-worship as: worship which one devises and prescribes for himself, contrary to the contents and nature of the faith which ought to be directed to Christ. Vine describes it as a form of worship which a man devises for himself. King Jeroboam was guilty of causing Israel to sin when he devised his own method to worship instead of God’s commanded way (1 Kings 14:16), i.e. changing the location of worship from Jerusalem to Dan and Bethel, creating priest out of every tribe which God spoke nothing about, among other things.
We need to understand that worship is meant to please God, and not men. We are participants in worship to God, and worship is not a time and place for men to be entertained by a performance. We need to quell our human pride and submit to God’s will. Such behaviour goes against the principles of Bible authority (John 4:24), and silence of the scriptures (Hebrews 7:13-17).