It's kind of like we just decided that visible signs of emotion were a scary/bad thing. The ideal has been that everyone sit through the church gathering and fulfill their scripted responsibilities. Stand when instructed to, sit when asked to, and sing when the music starts. Emotion has a tendency to disrupt our carefully planned and skillfully constructed order.
Emotional responses in a collective worship gathering can also make some people feel uncomfortable. I mean, think about what might happen if someone next to you just started crying; seemingly without cause. A little emotion, and especially a lot of emotion, can give others the emotional sensation of uncomfortability. This emotion thing could cascade!
What if the preacher does not have the opportunity to share the sermon? What if someone were to get up and leave the church over a show of emotion? Is it too much to ask that everyone act a little civilized during worship? Does anyone else think that emotional outbreaks can come off a little irreverent?
The real problem is that I have sat through more than my fair share of emotionless services. A people who were unresponsive and unengaged. No one really wants to sit through a sermon devoid of soul, worship without passion, or a service without emotion.
It is important to note that God created emotion. While we live in a culture that is increasingly prone to sterilizing everything because someone will be offended or have some kind of an emotional response, we must acknowledge emotion has a purpose in our lives. If God created our emotions (and has them himself) then we need to learn how to utilize them in appropriate ways and not hide them away.
It starts with our parenting. No one likes to see a baby or toddler cry. Typically we rush to appease the source of their sorrows. We want to stop the emotion as if it is bad. Following funerals I have heard friends tell the family of the deceased individual that it is time for them to move on now. Translation = do not be emotional anymore.
We sometimes too quickly run to medicines to numb the emotions we are dealing with because they are not always very pleasant. Stopping emotions seems to be a favorite past time for some. I even recall someone getting quite upset in a medical waiting room because someone was reading the comics and laughing. When did emotions become so offensive?
We brought some of these things into the church. Remain calm, stayed, and collected during worship. Do not act in anyway that would disrupt the solemn attitude of those in attendance. I once remember a mother leaning over to her toddler child in the pew at church who was snickering about something while oblivious to what was happening in the sanctuary and saying: "Quit laughing, you are in church."
Certainly I am not advocating for some kind of emotionalism in our worship. Emotions should not be the driving force for any area of life! I am simply advocating for a healthy expression of emotion during our times of corporate worship as an essential element of worshiping God! We ought to be "emotional" when we worship!
If we really begin to think about what God has provided for us in His work of redemption we might get a little emotional. If we begin to review the steadfast love and faithfulness of God in our lives, we might get a little emotional. If we meditate on the tremendous sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross of Calvary, we might just get a little emotional. If we think about the promise of life to come in Heaven gathered around the throne of God, we might just get emotional. Bad? Not in a million years!
This Sunday, don't check your brain at the door when you walk into church to worship with your brothers and sisters in Christ. But do not check your heart at the door either. Worship our great Redeemer with all your heart, soul, mind, & strength!
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