Plastic Praise, Plastic Worship

In our era, a success card was a very precious document to someone sitting a national examination.

To the point that some would be depressed if their collection of such was very small as compared to others.

Looking back, the picture on the front was many times completely removed to the whole mood of the candidate and examinations, a majority featuring a young couple in Uhuru Park, KICC or some other picture-centric location of our city.

Even the writing on those cards was as brash, consisting a little more than the basic wishing you success in your examinations.

Very little thinking went into the design of those cards. And I am saying this as someone who has been in printing for some time.

Incidentally, very little has changed in that direction.

Do you realise that with all the progress we boast that apart from the fact that many are now manufactured overseas and have uncreative music and lights, there is little, if any, creativity involved in the design of those cards

Look at get-well cards. And congratulations cards. Or any other cards.

We will pick a card and look at the message resonating with how we want the recipient to think we feel.

The marketer who can come with a message that resonates with most is certain to have a bounty harvest.

I hope you still understand I am talking about praising God.

How much of our praise and worship is directly from our heart? How many of it is the actual overflow of our relationship with God?

Where is the originality of our worship experience?

Time and again I have said that God gives new songs to His worshipers. And by new I am not talking about newly released songs.

I am talking about each believer singing a new song of praise to God, the Object of his praise. Not for recording purposes. Not for performing purposes. Not for entertainment purposes.

It is a soul afire for God exploding in praise to God in the best way he knows according to the way he is feeling at the moment.

Just like each bird has its song, I believe each believer has his series of songs to praise God with that are released freshly all the time.

Some will be sung once and be forgotten. Some will be sung in prayer. Some will linger long so that God can spread the aroma of that praise to the rest of His body.

But no song is given by God for recording or performing purposes.

They are recorded because they resonate with the rest of the body of Christ.

Incidentally, many are recorded because they resonate with the goats because they make the goats feel good. They are not therefore songs sung for the purpose of lifting God high or even giving Him praise.

At the heart of what we call secular songs is exactly that; songs that will make people feel good whatever their station in life. They resonate with the base instincts and lusts.

That is why we have liberation songs for those under difficult situations. And we have the war songs that breed discontent and rebellion.

Their purpose is making man move in the direction of the master of the song who directed the composer, instrumentalist and singer of the song.

Drunkards never become completely drunk in those liquor dens because the songs (and lights) in those dens release a spirit (if I may call it that) that will make the drunkard asking for more as long as they are under its aura.

Or have you ever seen a drunkard being carried from a bar because he became too drunk in the den? Why do they always become comatose after they have left that environment, many times a few steps from the den?

Why is it that even those whose drinks are spiked never succumb in those dens?

Where am I taking us?

Authentic worship is completely different from this because it never leaves us where the encounter was. It leaves lasting impact on our person.

Jacob’s encounter left him limping for the rest of his life.

What does this have to do with plastic worship? And what is plastic praise anyway? Someone is asking.

I call it plastic because it is prepackaged. I call it plastic because it is taken as it was brought. I call it plastic because it requires no depth from our side. I call it plastic because it costs us nothing. I call it plastic because we love it because ‘everybody’ loves it. And I call it plastic because many times we do not even know the language it is sung in and so really have no idea, not just of the message, but the tenor of the same.

We think that by making the moves the composer made we will be able to recapture whatever kind of worship they were part of, many times without seeking God to know whether it was even worship they were part of.

I have been to places where I heard a popular ‘worship’ song sung in its original context and language and the feel of the same is completely different from the feeling you get elsewhere. And I have had that experience a number of times.

You see, the worship that produced my song was predominantly mine and was personal, a personal worship experience.

That is why Jesus elevated the closet since it is the source of all authentic worship

Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. (Proverbs 4:23)

Worship that does not originate from the heart is at best plastic. Praise that is responsive to external prompts is also plastic.

A heart in tune to God’s frequency will resonate with the throbs of heaven and not of the earth, however heavenly they may appear or sound.

I am not trashing all music.

What I am stating very boldly is that praise and worship should be coming from my heart and fueled by the heart.

How it connects with other praise or worship will therefore be determined by my heart and not the authenticity or lack of the same from any other source.

How real or otherwise of any other praise should never affect my praise since it is an external input.

He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (John 7:38)

It is the fellowship of those rivers that make corporate worship and corporate praise.

Talking praise or worship without stressing the importance of personal and private praise or worship is what I call plastic praise and worship.

You remove the closet and the only thing you are left with is plastic with a zero chance of being acceptable to the One we seek to praise and worship.

And it is the same with corporate prayer, and even fellowship.

It is a kinship of like hearts resonating with the same devotion to God that can become a prayer meeting or fellowship.

Anything else is a pretense that has no capacity of drawing anybody to God, however much it is psyched or made to appear real and spiritual.

Look at sports fans to get a classic case of what I mean.

It is not the stadiums or games that makes them so.

It is their passion for their game that brings them together.

You will listen to fans discussing a team and game on the opposite side of the world better than they would discuss what was happening in their neighborhood. They will follow the progress of their team to the smallest detail when the have no idea how their employer makes the money he pays them to follow their team.

That, in very simple terms, is the closest we can come to praise or worship.

Two worshippers coming together should be like having two fans of the same team coming together.

They do not need any introduction. They will just need to learn that they support the same team and become family without any fuss even when they do not share a language or culture. The game becomes their culture, whether they are in the stadium or following the game through the media.

That is similar to what should be happening in the church of Christ.

But that is not what is happening and this is the reason I am writing about plastic praise and worship.