Emotion in worship is a good thing. But emotion in worship that is not rooted in the Christ-event–“Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again!”–is artificial and will not last. Think of seeing a movie that had a great storyline, script, cast, and score. It moves you. You may laugh, cry, be inspired. And yet…when the movie is over, so are your emotions. Thirty-minutes after bawling like a baby when a character dies, you’re thinking about where to go out to eat. It’s artificial emotion because it’s detached from history. It has nothing to do with your story. Moreover, you have nothing to do with its story.
So many worship services are like that: well-produced movies. The music moves us, as only music can. We dance, we clap, we sing, we cry. And then we aren’t thinking any more about it once it’s over. It may have been epic, but if it’s not rooted in history–the Christ story!–it has not bearing on your life.
That is why all Biblical worship is rooted in historic event. [I blogged briefly on this; Read it HERE.] In the Old Testament, it was the event of Creation, and then the event of the Exodus, and later the event of the Exile and eventual return. In the New Testament, it is the Christ-event: that Christ died, Christ is risen and that Christ will come again. It is the God of the past, present, and future, the God who was and is and is to come.
Emotion in worship is powerful. But is it artificial emotion, generated by clever arrangements and good “story-telling” and dim lights and nice use of media? On the other hand, if we use music, media, and all the technology available to us to tell the Christ-story–that God in Christ is reconciling the world to Himself, that Christ died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again to make all things new–then we may well evoke emotion. But that emotion won’t be rootless and artificial. It will be rooted.
