This week, I’m leading worship as a part of our Vacation Bible School-esque program here at Hope Church. Each year, our children’s team does an incredible job with designing a program for kids of all ages here. They have a blast, and in the process are taught a lot about the gospel, the mission of God, and worship.
Now I’m pretty sure that this didn’t originate with him, but I heard Tim Hughes once say that worship is something better caught that taught, meaning that the experience of worship often teaches more about worship than simply being told or reading about it. This can be said of pretty much anything: baseball is something better caught than taught (pun!), geometry is something better caught than taught, etc… It emphasizes the experiential over the logical as a tool for learning.
Of course, this sets up somewhat of a false dichotomy and discredits the teaching/study of a subject in general. Teaching (or being taught) is not seen as an experience within itself: I experience being taught in the same way I experience singing a song. It is only the experience itself that is different, not the means of experience.
It also seems to undermine the role of the mind in worship. Worship should involve the whole person, mind, body and soul; and while these may be involved in various ways and degrees, they are all present and active in worship. AND God is concerned with the redemption of them all, so to exclude/emphasize one over the others in something as central to the faith as worship could lead to poor and ill-grounded assumptions about redemption itself.
Perhaps this caught/taught relationship could be clarified through looking at worship as a verb and not a noun, an action and not a subject. What does it mean to worship? Through what we’re doing at VBS, I hope our kids will have caught glimpses of worship through the worship of the people serving in our church, and that those glimpses teach them what it may look like as they grow as worshipers.
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