What does it look like to have a worship encounter with God? Scripture records many accounts of men and woman who had worship encounters with the living God with reactions and responses as diverse as the situations in which each took place. While Scripture does not place undue emphasis on the human response during these worship encounters, it does note that a response occurred. In each case there was true interaction with God: an encounter took place, and it was real. Do we anticipate meeting with God in our worship services? Is there an expectation of encountering His living presence when we gather together in our churches and home groups to seek Him? Could it be that some of the very structures and routines we have set in place to guard our worship have had the opposite effect of ruling out an encounter with the One Whom we worship? Perhaps we have fallen victim to what pastor and author Jack Hayford calls the “arthritis of ritualism—when form loses its focus.” While the individual is ultimately accountable for his or her worship response to God in any given setting, there is a crucial sense in which there is a corporate responsibility on the part of pastors and leaders to cultivate an environment of expectation in worship. The hesitancy to do so is based on the reality that encountering God can be risky—and often times difficult to explain to others!
These thoughts were on my mind while recently re-reading the account of John the Baptist’s birth in Luke 1. The story begins prior to his birth with an event in the life of his father, Zechariah. “One day Zechariah was serving God in the Temple, for his order was on duty that week. As was the custom of the priests, he was chosen by lot to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and burn incense” (Luke 1:8-9, NLT). Notice the ordinary and routine feel of what was happening in this narrative: “One day...on duty...chosen by lot...” Zechariah just happened to be on duty that week. While on duty he just happened to be chosen for incense detail inside the sanctuary. This had all the earmarks of a rather ordinary day-in-the-life experience. Zechariah’s service in the Temple this particular day, however, was about to be interrupted by an angelic visitation and an encounter with God!
One of the risks of encountering God is the interruption of our religious duties. It doesn’t necessarily replace them, for the angelic visitation came in the midst of fulfilling those very duties. But it certainly interrupted them! “Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah to come out of the sanctuary, wondering why he was taking so long” (v. 21). Religious duty can be done quickly and efficiently. Interaction with God takes time, sometimes more than we are accustomed to giving to God.
“When he finally did come out, he couldn’t speak to them” (v. 22). “Finally! What were you doing in there, Zech? Why was the worship service so long?” Another risk of encountering God is the resulting challenge to explain having met with God on the inside to people who have been on the outside. While Zechariah was inside the sanctuary “a great crowd stood outside, praying”—but apparently not encountering. “Then they realized from his gestures and his silence that he must have seen a vision in the sanctuary” (v. 22). Sometimes after an overwhelming encounter with the living God all you can do is make “gestures” in hope that others will realize and understand what has happened to you! The reality of genuine worship is that it is more “caught” than taught.
The fruit of that encounter with God would bring new life to Zechariah and Elizabeth’s heart and spirit, as well as a new life within Elizabeth’s physical body. “‘How kind the Lord is!’ she exclaimed. ‘He has taken away my disgrace of having no children.’” (Legend has it that some early manuscripts add: “...and made my husband unable to speak for nine months!”) Do you think the routine of temple service was ever the same after Zechariah’s encounter?I wonder what was on the minds and hearts of those men who followed him in their own weekly temple duty! (Were their wives now a bit anxious too?)
What a tragic loss it is for us as believers every time we go through the religious motions of a “worship” service without personally encounteringGod Himself. In her book “Worship Evangelism,” author Sally Morganthaler labels many worship services—even ones that feature popular praise choruses, or a worship band, or multi-media presentations, as counterfeits. As she states, “Interaction with God is either nonexistent or so low it cannot be measured. Instead, nearly every opportunity for personal response has been extricated.”
This “interaction with God” can be defined and described biblically in many different ways, but the bottom line is that it must be allowed to take place. Consider these comments from pastor Jack Hayford: “I had been in pastoral leadership for nearly 15 years when my thinking about corporate worship was transformed. Rather than tightly regimented gatherings, concerned over aesthetics, mechanics, and academic theology, we began to provide an unpressured portion of the service for free-flowing songs of praise and adoration. Within two years, our church began to experience God’s glory and grace in new and more profound ways, an experience that continues still.”
Let us as worshippers and worship leaders alike seek for, plan for, and expect to encounter our heavenly Father’s presence whenever and wherever we gather together to worship Him in spirit and truth. Let us be ready and willing to take the necessary risks of doing so. After all, Zechariah brought this whole “angelic-visitation-interrupting-the-weekly-temple-duty” experience upon himself in the first place: “The angel said, ‘Don’t be afraid, Zechariah! For God has heard your prayer!”
