Bob Kauflin: Our aim is to respond to God, his glory and greatness naturally in ways that point to his glory and our satisfaction in him.
David Zimmer: Welcome to Sound Plus Doctrine, the podcast of Sovereign Grace Music where we explore what the Bible has to say about music and worship in the church and encourage those who plan, lead, and participate in their Sunday gatherings each week.
DZ: Hello, welcome to the Sound Plus Doctrine podcast. My name is David Zimmer.
BK: Hello, my name is Bob Kauflin.
DZ: Wow, Bob.
BK: I’m excited on the inside. But outwardly I don’t feel it’s appropriate to show it. We are talking today about 10 problems with your church’s physical expressiveness.
DZ: Oh my goodness, I love…
BK: So I thought I would just model what that might be.
DZ: Thank you for modeling that.
BK: You’re so welcome. We’ve been talking about this.
DZ: We have been talking about this a lot.
BK: Physical expressiveness and we titled today 10 Problems With Your Church’s Physical Expressiveness, ’cause you know that when you use a number in the title, more people are gonna check in, because it’s…
DZ: Very provocative.
[laughter]
BK: It’s a complete set, 10 is also a full number of completion.
DZ: And then outside of that, there are no more.
BK: That’s right. This is it. This is the only problem. And someone might… I think you said, Sovereign Grace Music, doing something on problems with physical expressiveness.
DZ: Yes.
BK: If you watch our videos, you’ll see.
DZ: That’s not a problem.
BK: That’s not a problem. But we want to talk about 10, I think concerns that people have with physical expressiveness.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: So we got 10. These are reasons that people give for… Well, actually, before we get into it, what was your… Growing up, what was your church like?
DZ: Yeah. I would say my church was not very expressive physically.
BK: Okay.
DZ: We didn’t see that.
BK: So no one really loved the Lord.
[laughter]
DZ: We didn’t see that from the front. And I don’t think it was… It wasn’t that it was looked bad upon. It wasn’t like, “Hey, don’t do that.”
BK: Yeah.
DZ: I just don’t think it was necessarily encouraged. And I think that… We’re probably gonna talk about it in this list. But I think that came from the 1 Corinthians 14 where… Keeping things in structure, right, all things.
BK: The 26, I think?
DZ: Yes. 14. Well, 14:40 I’m thinking.
BK: Okay.
DZ: All things should be done decently and in order.
BK: Oh, yes. Yes, yes.
DZ: So yeah, very orderly, structurally, not moving outside of that, not welcoming chaos. So I think that’s where that came. But when I went to college, a lot more people were more physically expressive. And my college pastor actually came from a background that was more physically expressive. And so I think that also set the tone in our college ministry, but I’ve always been an expressive person.
BK: Yes.
DZ: So that’s been sort of my journey.
BK: Yes, that’s good. So I was raised Catholic, and then became a Christian as a freshman in college in 1972. And became part of a Pentecostal becoming charismatic church, which… Different points in time, like one of the high points of the singing would be when they’d form a hallelujah line. I don’t know what it was. But we would sing a song and march around the pews.
DZ: Nice, wow.
BK: It was so moving. So we were trying to get away kind of from that kind of thing. But so my background, I mean, I’ll talk about some of it as we go. But I wouldn’t say neither one of us came from a background, we were saying, “Yeah, this is what you should do.”
DZ: Right. Yeah.
BK: So let’s jump in.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: This episode’s just gonna be about concerns that people have, questions that people ask. Number one is worship is a more of a mental heart activity than physical. So, what Jesus said to the woman at the well, John 4:24, “God is Spirit. And those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” So God isn’t so concerned concerned about what we do with our bodies, as what we do with our hearts.
DZ: Right.
BK: So that’s legitimate. Number two…
DZ: Yeah.
BK: A desire to avoid hypocrisy. Especially in the Old Testament, but in the new as well, God doesn’t want us to act on the outside, something that’s not happening on the inside.
DZ: Right.
BK: So Isaiah says in Isaiah 1:15, “when you spread out your hands, God says I will hide my eyes from you, even though you make many prayers I will not listen, your hands are full of blood.” So you know they’re going through the motions of worship, glorifying God, but their lives were totally disconnected from that.
DZ: Right, and not to side trail from… Maybe we’ll talk about this later. But I have heard that argument a lot of nothing’s even started and my hands go up.
BK: Yes.
DZ: So it’s like I’m not even responding. But it’s sort of that…
BK: Checking my deodorant…
[laughter]
DZ: Oh my… We’re gonna have a lot of those. So I think they can see that as hypocrisy. Wait, that’s not connected to anything?
BK: Yes. Yes. And I have felt that myself, there have been times when I’ve been singing, looking engaged, even when I’m leading. And realizing I’m not even thinking about what I’m saying.
DZ: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
BK: And that’s just a sobering thought.
DZ: Yes.
BK: And so, we don’t wanna feel that way, we don’t wanna look that way, we don’t wanna look like we mean outwardly more than what’s really going on inside.
DZ: Definitely.
BK: So a desire to avoid hypocrisy. Number three, my theology teaches me something different. So this is… I mean, a number of these are drawn from scriptures, the scriptural texts. But this is just kind of a whole approach to worship. One of the main scriptures, you already mentioned one of them, which we’ll get to in a moment from 1 Corinthians 14, but the Hebrews 12:28. I remember, when I first started studying worship in the late ’90s, I’d been leading in churches for about 25 years and I started studying late ’90s. This was a verse I came across frequently, Hebrews 12:28. “Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe.”
DZ: Yeah.
BK: And then there’s Psalm 46:10. “Be still and know that I’m God.”
DZ: Yeah, yeah.
BK: Or Habakkuk 2:20. “But the Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before him.” And it communicates this impression, that when we gather to give glory to God, to praise him, that the tone should be reverent, somber, sober, maybe it’s a better word. Because God tells us how to worship him. We can’t come and just worship God however we feel. It’s not like God’s a rockstar, we’re his fans, and we just can do whatever we want. No, he’s God. He’s the one who tells us what exalts him and what pleases him. That means that we don’t come and just. Like you said, just start acting physically without even thinking about who God is. Don’t just flail our arms around, dance in the aisles and appear to lack self-control. One teacher recently tweeted, something to the effect that if you raise your hands at a high point in a worship service, your expectations have been shaped more by 20th century Pentecostalism than the Bible, implying than the Bible, which I think there’s some truth to that. I think there’s a lot of people who are physically expressive just because everybody’s doing it.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: And it’s not necessarily something they got from the Word of God.
DZ: Yeah. Well, and can I ask a question, Bob? Like in terms of the reverence and awe, I think it’s easy to see two extremes, right. When we YouTube, worship music or worship bands.
BK: Yeah.
DZ: You’re seeing either the chaos that you’re talking about, where everyone’s really excited and expressive and happy and jumping. And then you see the opposite version, where it’s tears and crying and really lengthy songs, 12 minutes, 20 minutes, and it’s just sort of this like…
BK: Yeah.
DZ: And I think, as a reaction to both of those extremes, it’s easy to go “Well, awe and reverence is this.”
BK: Yes. Yes.
DZ: One thing.
BK: Yes. Yeah.
DZ: So maybe we’re gonna get into this, but how do you say, Well, it’s not just that one thing.
BK: Yeah, yeah. So we should have said this at the beginning. This is gonna be a three-part podcast. The first is, all the questions, all the problems, all the concerns. Second, we’re gonna look at what the Bible says, in a brief way and then answer each one of these questions. And then the third podcast is gonna be, this is the plan, let’s see how it goes, the third one is gonna be how do you lead your church through change?
DZ: Yeah.
BK: So that’s the plan.
DZ: Right.
BK: So we’ll get to that, I think.
DZ: Great. Okay. Great.
BK: We’ll talk about, what are we aiming for?
DZ: Yes.
BK: ‘Cause it’s not just expressive or non-expressive.
DZ: Yep.
BK: We’re aiming at something.
DZ: Yeah. Great.
BK: So these are the problems. Number four, disorderly. Yeah, it’s disorderly and you mentioned 1 Corinthians 14:40. All things should be done decently and in order. And that’s… Sure, of course, that’s in the Bible.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: We’re here to focus on the Word, focus on the Gospel, focus on the lyrics we’re singing, not our responses. Physical responses can just be chaotic. I’ve been in services that are chaotic. I’ve seen services that are chaotic, and kind of everybody’s doing their own thing. And there’s no sense of unity, no sense of we gathered together to do this thing.
DZ: Right.
BK: It’s just like, “Hey, whatever I feel right now.” And so that’s disorderly. And I think that turns people off to the whole idea of people being physically expressive. And number five, fear of distracting others. Now this is, again, this is a legitimate concern. 1 Corinthians 14:33, Paul says, “For God is not a God of confusion but of peace.” We don’t want to distract other people from what they’re to do. And we’ve all maybe been in situations where someone’s raising their hands or someone… I mean, in the ’70s and ’80s, waving a flag. I think they still do that sometimes. You know, someone’s just dancing, moving in a way that you think, “I can’t even focus on what we’re doing here. That is so crazy what you’re doing.” And of course, depending on the church you’re in that might be a relative, a sliding scale in terms of what’s distracting.
DZ: Right. I hear probably that the most, the distracting piece.
BK: I don’t wanna be distracting or it can be distracting.
DZ: Yeah. It can be distracting, and I don’t want to contribute to the distraction. Yeah. And in that same vein it’s also… I just, this is… I go inward. This is between me and God.
BK: Oh, okay.
DZ: And I do think that’s something that factors into the, “Okay, I’m just gonna push everybody out.”
BK: Yes.
DZ: I don’t want be a distraction. I don’t want to be distracted.
BK: Which, if you’ve listened to many episodes of the podcast, we’ve…
DZ: We talked about that.
BK: Numerous times. Where it’s not just about me and God.
DZ: Yes.
BK: It is about a church gathering.
DZ: And why we’re looking at each other and why the lights are on, and why we’re engaged.
BK: Yes. But we don’t want be distracting. So that’s legitimate. Number six, fear of being emotion driven. 2 Corinthians 5:7 says, “We walk by faith and not by sight.” And I think we’ve seen the effects of different times of being given over to emotions. You know, it’s a mob mentality. It’s just like, it’s happened so quickly. Just whatever anybody else is doing, that’s what I wanna do. And we become fearful of minimizing objective truth and being controlled just by our emotions. Now, in preparing for this I was thinking of 1 Kings 18:28-29, where the prophets of Baal are confronting Elijah on the Mount Carmel. And it says, “they cried aloud and cut themselves after their customs with swords and lances until the blood gushed out upon them. And as midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the ablation but there was no voice, no one answered, no one paid attention.” And I’m thinking some people probably picture that, when they think of just kind of letting your emotions go. And just we’re just ranting and raving, and you think God’s gonna listen to you, no way, it says right here, No one answered, no one paid attention. So it’s… We don’t wanna be emotion driven. Which leads to the next one, number seven. Where do you draw the line? Like, I think you came up with this.
DZ: Well, it was… Yeah. I mean, is there a line between I’m raising my hands and I have a ribbon in my hand and I’m dancing across the stage? With a tambourine.
[laughter]
BK: Not for you. I mean, I’ve seen you do both, so there’s no line there for you, but…
DZ: That’s not true, just for the record.
BK: I think for others there might be.
[laughter]
DZ: Yeah. What’s the line? Where do we draw it? How far are we gonna go on the expressive scale.
BK: Yeah. So I thought of Proverbs 22:3, “the prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it.”
DZ: Suffer for it. Yeah.
BK: Yeah. So it’s like, does joy, celebration, does raising hands lead to dancing, lead to banner waving, lead to animal noises, lead to… It’s just like, “Who’s to say?” So I mean, there’s some legitimacy in that. Listen, I’ve been in meetings with animal noises, I’m not proud of it, but I am.
[laughter]
BK: Okay. So here we have three more. If you’re counting, this is number eight. This is one that I’ve heard so often, It’s not a part of my culture.
DZ: Right.
BK: Like where I live, we are just not physically expressive.
DZ: The thing you quoted earlier, wouldn’t it be connected to that in some way? Not by context, the 20th century Pentecostalism.
BK: Yes. Yes. Although… Yeah. Well, you know, American Christianity is not the only Christianity there is, for one. Or Western Christianity even. Other ethnicities are much more movement oriented than we are, but we’re gonna get into that. So I don’t want to say too much about it here.
[laughter]
DZ: These are just teasers. These are just little bite size teasers.
BK: These are just teases. That’s exactly right. This gets you hooked on the podcast. So yeah, I’ve led and taught in the UK, and I’ve had people there say, I remember leading music at a large conference, 3000 people in Wales. And we would sing this song In Christ Alone, In Christ Alone. That’s one of the two songs I always use as examples In Christ Alone, Before the Throne. But it was that song we were singing and, “Until he returns or calls me, here in the Power of Christ I’ll stand.” Silent.
DZ: Crickets.
BK: Crickets. And it’s… I just thought, “Wow, that’s amazing.” Same thing happened in South Africa, trying to lead. And I mean, always leading. And, well, we’re South African, we don’t do that. Sydney Anglicans, so in Sydney, just, we don’t do that. Or there was a time I was up in Northeast, Northwest rather, Seattle. Our culture’s grunge. We’re not physically expressive. It’s not what our culture does. So I’m gonna respond to that in the next podcast, but I’m just leaving it out there. And just say that’s a reason, that’s a problem a lot of people have with your church’s physical expressiveness.
DZ: Well, and if your church has 300 people and none of them are expressive, you might feel boxed in.
BK: Oh, your church culture?
DZ: Yeah.
BK: Yes. Okay. That’s good.
DZ: Yeah. Taking one step further, you’re talking about different…
BK: Geographical culture.
DZ: Yes. But even in your church culture you’ll… That’s our next point.
BK: Well, not, kind of. Number nine is personality. That’s more, could be the church personality, could be your personality.
DZ: Yes.
BK: I’ve heard so many people say I’m just not physically expressive.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: I’m calm.
DZ: Yeah. I don’t really get excited.
BK: I’m sober minded, phlegmatic, soft spoken, even-keeled. I’m an enneagram number one. I am the rational idealistic type, principled, purposeful.
DZ: I think you are.
BK: Self-controlled and perfectionistic.
DZ: [laughter] You’re definitely a one.
BK: So by the way, this is in no way any support of enneagrams.
DZ: I know. I’m messing with you.
BK: I had to do the research to find out what these were.
DZ: I’m a three.
[laughter]
DZ: Go on, go on.
BK: We’ll talk about that later. On the Myers Briggs test, I’m more of a sentinel than an explorer.
DZ: Wow.
BK: Yeah.
DZ: You know thy self then.
BK: So, I just don’t do that. So yeah, it’s just not my personality. And a lot of people say that. Number 10, and I think this is maybe the biggest. And no one would generally come up with this as the first, but sometimes they will. I fear man more than God. I just think about what other people think of me, when I’m doing it. It’s not given normally as a reason, but I think it’s a lot of times behind the other reasons. You’re in a conservative church and if you show any kind of physical expressiveness, it’s like people will think I’m a charismatic or that I’m drawing attention to myself, that I’m a wacko. That I’m inconsiderate. They think I’m faking it. I mean that’s legit in terms of it really happens for a lot of people where we are just more conscious. We don’t say it’s a good thing, but we’re just aware that yeah, I’m very aware of what the people around me are thinking.
DZ: And even the perspective that says they all look like they’re so much more engaged than I am, so I should muster that up.
BK: Well that’s the other way, yeah. You’re saying that if people around you are expressive, I gotta look like that.
DZ: Yeah, and I’m not, so I should muster that up. So it’s like even that is a misunderstanding of why.
BK: Yes.
DZ: Which is what we’re aiming to talk about.
BK: Yes. And it’s so hard not to address all these things right now, [laughter] but to save time and to honor people’s time, we are breaking it up. But this is an area, it’s not a primary area. And this is not a primary significance, but I would say, and I will say that I think it’s an area that people live in confusion with. They don’t always dig down to get behind the reasons they give for why they have problems with physical expressiveness. Now we should say too that there’s some people listening who are too expressive. And yeah, they just don’t think about it enough. They fear man too, but it results in, as you were saying earlier, them just doing what everybody around them is doing. My granddaughter just started going to Grand Canyon University, one of my granddaughters, Maddie. And she sent me a picture of 1000 college students at one of their… Oh, I don’t know, it was a worship night, retreat. I think it was a worship night. And everybody was so engaged and I’m thinking… Well, first I’m just so excited that my granddaughter is there just loving it, just totally enjoying it. But I have no doubt that there are a number of those kids who are just kinda doing it. Just like, “Wow, this is so exciting. I’m just gonna be so free.” But not necessarily honoring the Lord with what they’re doing.
DZ: Yeah. So are you saying at Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville when you play the first chord, every hand goes up? Is that what you’re saying?
BK: How did you know? [laughter] No, that would not be the case at all.
DZ: Right.
BK: And we are gonna talk about…
DZ: Which is so interesting because I think sometimes people see our videos and think “Yep, this is what you do.”
BK: Yeah. And it’s not just…
DZ: It’s like one plus one equals two in that sense, but what we’re saying and what you’re saying is it isn’t an exact “Hey, we’re gathering. Here they come.”
BK: Correspondence.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: Yes. Yes. Well, I’m gonna go ahead and share something I was gonna share in the next podcast, but it’s important that we know what our aim is. Our aim is not to get people’s hands raised. Get people’s feet moving. Our aim, we could sum it up like this, is to respond to God, his glory and greatness naturally in ways that point to his glory and our satisfaction in him. There’s not to be an artificialness about it, artificiality. It’s to be what we naturally do. As we’ve been talking here, our hands have been moving. Our bodies have been moving. I mean, we haven’t jumped up and down or anything, but our body… God gave us bodies, and we’re gonna dig into that next podcast, so I don’t wanna get too far into that.
BK: But it’s a natural response. And again, I think there’s just so much confusion on this. It’s something we need to talk about, something I’ve wanted to talk about for a while. And so here we are talking about it. And yeah, pray that it’s encouraging to you and that you not take what we’ve done here, hopefully you’ve resonated with some of what we’ve said today. And said, “Yeah, that’s my issue.” Yeah, those are things I agree with. But we wanna look next time at okay, what did the Bible say? And then talk about each one of those concerns we had and see where that takes us.
DZ: Great.
BK: So, hey, and by the way, if you have a question about, for us, which we really appreciate, you should just call us. David’s cell phone number is… No don’t do that. [laughter] You should email us at soundplusdoctrine@sovereigngrace.com.
DZ: That’s it.
BK: And you spell out the plus.
DZ: Yep.
BK: Okay. So we’d love to hear from you and we’re looking forward to the next podcast, and we hope you can join us.
DZ: I’m so excited. Yep. Thank you.
