Bob Kauflin: I wanna be able to sing loudly, to move my hands, to be engaged bodily because my affections say, “This is good and this is right.”
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 and welcome back to the Sound Plus Doctrine Podcast. My name is David Zimmer.
BK: And my name is Bob Kauflin.
DZ: And you are stoked.
BK: I’m excited because we’re talking about physical expressiveness today. And I thought I’d just give people an idea of what it can look like when you’re physically expressive.
DZ: What do I do with my hands?
BK: Well, I’ll show you. I will teach you, David. I will teach you. All right. Enough of that chicanery, tomfoolery. That’s a word my mom used to use.
DZ: If you did not listen to the first episode of Physical Expressiveness, go back to that.
BK: Shame on you.
DZ: Go back to that and listen to that because I think it was pretty helpful to talk about the 10 reasons that your church…
BK: The problems.
DZ: Problems that your church has with physical expressiveness.
BK: Or that people have with your church’s physical expressiveness.
DZ: Yes.
BK: Yeah. We tried to highlight some of the main things that people say when they’re talking about, “Yeah. I don’t think we need to be physically expressive.”
DZ: Yeah.
BK: So, today we wanna look at what does the Bible say?
DZ: Yep.
BK: And then respond to each of those 10 concerns.
DZ: Yeah. You don’t have the, not to put you on the spot, but you don’t have the… You said right at the end, “I want to give the key motivation.” Can you share that again?
BK: Well, yeah. God has given us bodies to naturally respond to him in ways that point to his glory and our satisfaction in him. There is a… Which we’re gonna get into, but we’re not aiming at what I did when we first started this podcast. [laughter] That is not our aim. Just we’ve gotta be excited all the time. We’ve gotta be moving. But there is a natural responsiveness that glorifies God and communicates something. So, first we realized that there is some connection here between the glory of God and our bodies, simply because of creation. God never meant us to respond to him purely in an intellectual, disembodied manner or to respond to biblical truths in an intellectual, disembodied manner. Nor is it limited to it simply an inner emotional response. God created our bodies to glorify him. “You were bought with a price, therefore glorify God with your body.” We are not souls with bodies, we are our bodies. A number of great books have come out recently that talk about that truth, the reality, there’s so much confusion about the connection between who we are and our bodies. Our bodies say something. We are not Gnostics who downplay or negate the importance of the body in true spirituality.
BK: So, we see it from the very beginning. Genesis 2:7, “The Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” Romans 12, Paul says, “I appeal to you brothers by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice,” implying your whole life, which includes what you do with your body. Love what Paul says in Philippians 1:20, “It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now, as always, Christ will be honored where? In my body, whether by life or by death.” And then I love this, our bodies are gonna keep going even after we die. Philippians 3:20-21, “Our citizenship is in heaven. And from it, we await the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body.”
DZ: Crazy.
BK: That’s gonna be so great, “By the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”
DZ: Wow.
BK: So, God has created us to love him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And that certainly includes the bodies he’s given us. So that’s the first thing the Bible says about honoring God with our bodies. Second is we wanna look at the vocabulary. So, many of the words that we translate worship in our Bibles. The Hebrew and Greek words contain the idea of bodily movement, which is… So, this is not just a Western thing. The two most prominent words, and forgive me if I butcher these, I have not taken Hebrew, histahawah in the Old Testament, and proskynein, in Greek connote the idea of bending over at the waist or bowing down as an expression of homage. It’s not just mental intellectual. In addition, physical expression is both commanded and spontaneously modeled in Scripture as a way of giving God glory, all over the place. So, Ephesians, I’m sorry, Exodus 12:27, “You shall say it is the sacrifice for the Lord’s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel and Egypt when he struck the Egyptians, but spared their houses and the people bowed their heads and worshiped.” Like, just as a natural response, that’s what they did.
DZ: Yeah. Immediate response.
BK: The expression of God’s deliverance. This one, it’s not worship as we typically think of it, but when Job was informed that he had lost everything he had, including his children, Job 1:20 says, “Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped.” There is a bodily engagement when we engage with God that’s appropriate, that’s normal. So in the broadest sense, excuse me, worship and Scriptures always connected to physical acts that communicate things like homage and respect and celebration and servanthood. So that’s the vocabulary. Third thing that we can look at is just the scriptural examples. So many.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: Again, some are modeled, some are commanded.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: Nehemiah… Were you gonna say something?
DZ: I was gonna say the Psalms are just full.
BK: Psalms are full?
DZ: We’re gonna get there.
BK: Nehemiah 8:5 and 6, “Ezra opened the book. So he’s just reading the word of God in the sight of all the people, for he was above all the people. And as he opened it all, the people stood.” No indication that he even said to stand. They just stood. “Ezra blessed the Lord the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, amen,” Lifting up their hands. “Amen.” And they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.” All that physical responsiveness in response to just the word of God being read. Remember one time I was at a conference with Matt Papa, I don’t know if I’ve shared this on podcast or not, but he just… He read that passage and said, “You know what? I’m just gonna read the Bible, read God’s word and let’s respond in the way that would be appropriate to what we’re hearing.”
BK: Oh, and it was so cool, because there was no music. It was just, this is the Word of God. People were shouting, “Yes. Amen.” People were kneeling and yes doing different things. Nehemiah 8:9, right after that, Nehemiah said to the people, “This day is holy to the Lord your God. Do not mourn or weep for all the people wept as they heard the words of the law.” There’s another physical response to what God is saying and doing. Psalm 47:1, kingship Psalm, “Clap your hands all peoples, shout to God with loud songs of joy.” Ephesians 5:19, “We’re singing and making melody to the Lord.” Psalm 95:6, “We’re bowing down, we’re kneeling before the Lord.” Psalm 134:2, “Lifting up our hands to the holy place and blessing the Lord.” Revelation 15:2, John says, “I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mingled with fire, and also those who had conquered the beast in its image and the number of its names standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands.” Harps of God. Psalm 149:3, You have dancing, the tambourine and lyre.”You should appreciate that, the tambourine, you percussionist.
DZ: I do. And the dancing.
BK: Psalms 22:23, “All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him and stand in awe of him.”
DZ: Yeah.
BK: All these references that include clapping, singing, dancing, bowing, kneeling, lifting hands, shouting, playing instruments, and standing in awe. Now, some have said that the New Testament contains few references to physical expression, a few, some kneeling, singing, lifting hands. Although that last one isn’t emphasized too often, but it’s not readily apparent. I think this is the important point, that the bodily responses that are both modeled and commanded in the Old Testament have been superseded or fulfilled in Christ’s high priestly work, or that we now only obey him in a spiritualized manner. You know, I’m dancing in my heart. I’m jumping up and down. I’m lifting my hands in my heart. But I don’t want anybody to see it. No, we need to apply these Scriptures in a way that truly honors God and edifies the church. He intends our whole beings to give him glory. Psalm 16:9, “Therefore my heart is glad, my whole being rejoices,” not just part of me, my whole being.
DZ: I love that.
BK: That’s what we were saying. When we started, you asked me, what are we aiming at? It’s that natural responsiveness that includes our bodies. It’s not confined to our bodies, but it includes our bodies. God gave us bodies that we might bring him glory. And he’s not looking for an ill… A feigned enthusiasm. We don’t have to fake it. You know, we’re not… Lift your hands like you mean it. No, we really mean it. Sing like… You should never say that, sing like you mean it. You should mean it. [laughter] We’re not putting on a show. I just spent a few days with my wife. We did a wedding down in Dallas, Texas, and we were together for three days. We took an extra day to visit Magnolia actually, Chip and Joanna Gaines, and had a wonderful time. But if someone was to see me with her during that time and I was just kinda walking next to her and not touching her and just kind of ignoring her. But thinking in my mind, “Oh, I just really enjoy being with Julie.”
DZ: So close.
BK: We’re so… That’s right. [chuckle] We’re so close. That would be ridiculous. No. I was showing her numerous points along the way, just know I care for her. I love her. I open the door for her. I’d get her things. There were things I’d do with my body to say, “I love you.” It’s not totally dissimilar when we talk about our relationship with God and the truths that we live in the good of. So, we have some time, fortunately, I was afraid this was gonna take too long, to address and that’s not everything. I mean, we could talk about more that Scripture says, but what I think would be helpful to do is to address each of the 10 concerns…
DZ: Yes.
BK: We talked about in the last podcast. So the first one is, worship is of the mind, is for the heart, it’s not physical. And I think we addressed this earlier, we’re not disembodied spirits. We’re not just doing telepathy here. I see your eyes I see your hands, we’re communicating with our bodies. And as God commands us to love him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, that’s gonna include our bodies. From the earliest pages of Scripture to the scenes of worship in heaven, physical movement and engagement is expected, present and encouraged. We can’t get around that, no matter what culture we’re from, we can’t get around, that’s the clear testimony of Scripture. If you read your Bible without the lens of your culture, that’s what you see. So in Revelation 19:4, “The 24 elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshipped God who was seated on the throne saying, “Amen. Hallelujah.” So it’s not just, we’re trying to keep our bodies from doing anything that shows that we’re really enjoying this or meaning this.
BK: Number two, a desire to avoid hypocrisy. That’s a great desire. I think the problem there is how we think of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is when you act in a way that you want to deceive people. You wanna trick them, you wanna give the impression that you’re more spiritual or more engaged than you actually are. That is completely different from acting the way that’s meant to stir up your affections, or in a way that properly responds to God. So years ago, I came across this quote from John Calvin who was talking about outward signs. John Calvin is no charismatic, he talked a lot about the Holy Spirit, but you wouldn’t think of him as being one who would be excessive in physical displays. But he wrote this in commenting on Acts 20:36, “The inward attitude certainly holds first place in prayer.” In other words, what your heart does is most important. “But outward signs, kneeling, uncovering the head, lifting up the hands, have a two-fold use. The first is that we may employ all our members for the glory and worship of God.” I mean right there, he just says it, “You know what, all parts of our body are gonna be employed in giving glory to God.”
DZ: Yeah, that’s Psalm 16:9.
BK: Yes, yes. Then secondly, he says that we are, so to speak, jolted of our laziness by this help. [laughter] I love that.
DZ: How do you feel about that? [chuckle]
BK: Jolt you out of your laziness. There’s also a third use in Solomon public prayer. “Because in this way, the sons of God profess their piety and they inflame each other with reverence of God. But just as lifting up of the hands is a symbol of confidence and longing, so in order to show our humility, we fall down on our knees.”
DZ: Wow.
BK: That so spoke to me when I realized that, you know what, sometimes my heart’s just lazy. And I need my body to tell me, “This is what’s appropriate.” So there have been times, sometimes on a Sunday morning, sometimes in a conference where I will be singing and I realize I’m not really honoring God in my heart. And I will kneel down and I will put my face on the floor. And I will just think, “This is what God is worthy of,” even if I don’t feel it. But I’m not doing it so that people will say, “Oh, wow. He’s so spiritual. Whoa, I wish I could be like that, bowing down on the floor.” I’m not doing it for that. I’m doing it because I need to. I’ll lift my hand sometimes for that reason.
DZ: Well, and you have to look far in Scripture to know that we will all be humbled. We will all bow.
BK: Yes. Yes.
DZ: It’s like…
BK: That’s right. That’s right. No one is gonna say, “Lord, I never bowed on earth, so I don’t feel it’s appropriate to bow now.”
DZ: So I don’t think I can do it here.
BK: “Sorry.”
DZ: But honestly, we lose that perspective that we have been saved.
BK: Yeah, oh my goodness.
DZ: And we are worshiping God. He put the song in our mouth. He is magnifying himself through the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We get to participate in that now.
BK: Yes. Yes. I love Psalms 40, I think it’s verse 7, 8 or 9. “I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation. Behold, I’ve not restrained my lips. As you know O Lord, I’ve not hidden your deliverance with my heart. I have not concealed your steadfast, I’ve spoken of your steadfast love and your faithfulness. I’ve spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation in the great congregation. I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation.” That’s a… Yeah, “I’ve spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation. I’ve not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from great congregation.” Why? “As for You, O Lord, you will not restrain your mercy from me.” So that begins at verse 9. He’s just saying, “I cannot restrain myself because you have shown unrestrained mercy to me.” So yeah, that’s not hypocrisy. That is responding in a natural way to what God has done. Next one, my theology teaches something different. So we talked about Hebrews 12:28, you’re worshiping God in reverence and awe.
DZ: Yes.
BK: And it’s just that reverence and awe isn’t the only stipulation that God has put on our worship. And actually, that passage goes on to speak of the way we live in reverence and awe. Hebrews 13, showing hospitality to strangers, not living in such a way that we love money, honoring the marriage bed, keeping our lives free from the love of money. All those things, that’s worshiping the Lord with reverence and awe. It’s not just what you do in a meeting. What we do in a meeting includes celebration, rejoicing, shouting, jubilation, enthusiasm and whole-heartedness. Whatever we’re doing, we’re doing whole-heartedly. So Psalm 71:23, “My lips will shout for joy when I sing praises to you, my soul also, which you have redeemed.” In other words, my whole body’s getting in on it. I’m not just restraining myself because God’s too great, he’s too good. Psalm 108:1 and 2. Love this. “My heart is steadfast O God, I will sing and make melody again with all my being, awake O harp and lyre, I will awake the dawn.” So he’s not waiting for the musicians to kind of motivate him to get going. He’s not even waiting for the sun to come up. He’s saying, “I am so amazed at God’s goodness to me that I’m gonna tell the instruments to get going. I’m gonna say to the… ” How does he say it? “I will awake the dawn.” “Dawn, get going, wake up. Sun, rise.”
DZ: Right.
BK: Because of what’s in his heart. So Psalm 2:11 says, “We rejoice with trembling, and we draw near to the throne of grace with confidence.” So there are a number of different ways that we see modeled and commanded in Scripture in terms of what is to characterize our gathering. It’s not just reverence and awe.
DZ: Yeah. And just as I hear you speaking about clapping and shouting for joy, there’s such a public element to that.
[laughter]
BK: You mean you can’t clap like that?
[laughter]
DZ: Well, and we’re clapping, we’re also encouraging other people, we’re engaging with other people.
BK: Yes, yes. And it’s meant to have that effect.
DZ: Yes. Right.
BK: Calvin mentions that, it affects those around us, when we’re enthusiastic.
DZ: Yes, the Calvin quote, right.
BK: Or engaged, I should say.
DZ: Right.
BK: Because sometimes engagement means sobriety, that you’re really engaged. But that’s not to say that sobriety is the only proper response.
DZ: Yes. Well said.
BK: All right, next thing of concern, people are disorderly. Physical expressiveness can be disorderly, but it doesn’t have to be. People naturally engage physically in conversations all the time. You can… I was just at a wedding, and there’s a wedding reception and people are talking in different ways. It’s not disorderly, people are engaged. But there are different points when someone addresses everybody, and then people are unified in their responses, but there’s a single focus. And there’s some variety in it, but there’s a single focus. And so what’s happening when we gather is, there’s a single focus. And we might respond differently, in different ways. I might raise my hands at one point, someone might just be sitting quietly, listening, that’s a proper response. But our focus is the same. Now, there are other times when we say, “Let’s do this together,” and that’s totally appropriate as well. But it doesn’t mean that when two people are doing different things, that it’s disorderly.
DZ: Right.
BK: So that’s that one. Fear of distracting others. Really good concern or legitimate concern. Our physical expressiveness needs to be governed by the principle that Paul lays out in 1 Corinthians 14, and that is the principle of edification. Whatever we do has to build up the body. So 1 Corinthians 14:12, “With yourselves, since you are eager from manifestations of the spirit, strive to excel in building up the church.” And then 1 Corinthians 14:26, “Let all things be done for building up.”
BK: So recently, I had this trip, I did the wedding in Texas, I had that privilege of going to Matt Boswell’s Church, The Trails Church. And it was a less demonstrative group than Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville would be, not unresponsive at all. But I was sitting in the front and I was aware that, you know what, I’m not gonna just be as responsive as I wanna be, I wanna be thoughtful about the people around me, and I would say amen at different times, and not to draw attention to myself, but to draw attention to what’s being said, and what’s being sung. And I think when people say this, that they’re fearing distracting others, they have a picture in their mind of, who’s the craziest person I’ve ever seen. And no, that’s not the point. It’s when you see someone who is genuinely excited about something in a normal way, you’re drawn into that. So when two people are married and the bridegroom is there and the bride walks in and the bridegroom lights up, well that’s… You smile. That’s totally appropriate. Or any kind of situation, a child runs into the room and greets someone, it’s like, “Oh, hi.” That’s not distracting. “Stop that. Stop raising your hands to be held. Just walk calmly.” [laughter] It’s just we don’t do that.
BK: Just like. So, yeah.
DZ: Well, and if I can say, one of the things that you mentioned about, you were in that context and you were aware of the people around you, but it didn’t stop you from engaging.
BK: No, no.
DZ: And I think one thing that I’ve learned from you and maybe others that are listening to this podcast, is when you have responded in a sermon or in a song, when we’re singing a lyric, that engages my heart to go, “Woah, I missed it. What was it?” If I’m not engaging.
BK: Okay.
DZ: But if I am engaging, it is saying, “Yes, I am tracking as well.”
BK: Yes, yes. Okay, I gotta tell one… Are you done? Sorry. [chuckle] I gotta tell one funny story.
DZ: So, I think that has been encouraging to me.
BK: Yeah.
DZ: I’m done.
BK: Thank you. [chuckle] You can talk as much as you want. Recently, I had the joy and privilege of being part of the same conference, Keith and Kristyn Getty, and I was teaching in a seminar, and I wanted to make a point about how when you lead, you…
DZ: Oh, I was here.
BK: When you lead pastorally…
DZ: This was terrible.
[chuckle]
BK: When you lead pastorally, you wanna direct people’s thoughts to what we’re singing, so we sing the doxology, “Praise God from whom all blessing flow… ” We just sang it. And I said, “All right, let’s sing it again. Praise God from whom all blessings flow.” And I said, “Hasn’t the Lord been kind? Praise him all creatures here below. The Lord made us. Praise him above you heavenly host. Everyone should be giving glory to the Lord. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” So I said… So that’s how we did it. And I said, “Okay, now, were those two times we sang that differently?” And yeah, everybody’s nodding, “Yeah, yeah.” So I said, “Okay, well, what was the difference?” So a gentleman in the front row lifted his hand and said, “Yeah.” I said, “Yes, sir”. He said, “Yeah, the first time, like I could worship and the second time you were distracting me, kept saying things and it was really hard to worship when you’re doing that.” I said, “Okay.” Well, that’s not the response I was looking for but… [chuckle]
DZ: I can go with it.
BK: I said, “Do they do this in your church at all?” He said, “No, no, we don’t do it.” I said, “Okay, well, that helps me.”
DZ: Yes.
BK: So I asked everybody else, “Can anybody else give me a reason why it was different?” And they said, “Yeah, we thought more about the words.” I said, “Okay, great. That’s what I was looking for. Thank you.” And we had a conversation, and he said, “Hey, we do Sovereign Grace Music in our church and… ” It was great but he wasn’t used to it. And so it sounded odd, it sounded distracting, it sounded like, “Why is he doing that? Why is he interrupting my worship?”
DZ: Yes.
BK: No, it certainly can be over-done, but saying something that directs our attention or doing something that directs our attention to the words we’re singing is not automatically distracting.
DZ: And isn’t there something just inherently misguided in the, “You’re distracting my worship?”
BK: Yes, very much so, ’cause we’re worshipping together through Christ, through his Spirit, it’s not my worship. And so, I wanna be conscious of those around me.
DZ: Yeah. Yeah.
BK: And when I was at The Trails Church, I was standing in front, but numerous times, I looked around, just turned around and people might think you’re weird, but I just so enjoy being a part of this and seeing, reminding myself, “We’re doing this together.”
DZ: Yes. Well, and it’s helpful that you have led in a way that are teaching people how to sing songs to one another.
BK: Yes, it’s we’re…
DZ: I think that’s been helpful.
BK: We’re speaking to one another, addressing one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. That’s what we’re doing. So why don’t we ever look at each other? Not all the time, but sometimes. [chuckle]
DZ: Amen.
BK: All right. Next, people can fear being emotion-driven, and I think the fear here is emotionalism, not emotion, not being emotional. So emotionalism is being emotional without a concern for the root or the goal of the emotion, where it comes from, where it derives from, and what its aim is, that’s emotionalism. What you mentioned… I don’t know if it was this podcast or the earlier one, where people, they come into a meeting and just their hands go up. Well, okay, maybe that’s for the Lord or… But maybe not, maybe it’s just, here’s what I do, it’s what I do.
DZ: Yes.
BK: God-honoring worship is rooted in biblical truth, in biblical realities, and expressed in appropriate ways that point back to that truth. So if physical expressiveness is emotional but never points back to the truth, if it just… Well, I always do the same thing, and I think there’s a legitimate critique that some of… Harold Best one time, I was doing a conference with him and he said, “Yeah, people’s hands just go up on the chorus, they just go up on the chorus.” He’s got a point. Your hands just go up on the chorus, they don’t go up any other time? That’s worth asking. Maybe that’s more emotion-driven than truth-driven.
DZ: That’s very good. Yeah.
BK: So yeah, emotionalism is just a big crowd or just doing something because I like to feel something. And we’ve talked about the difference between the affections and feelings. Feelings are what we feel, affections are why we feel them, and what we’re really aiming at is the affections when we sing. I wanna be able to sing loudly, to move my hands, to be engaged bodily because my affections say, “This is good and this is right.”
DZ: Right, right.
BK: Not just because it’s the kind of song I like, or I like the leader’s voice, or that was a great riff on the guitar, or whatever… That’s emotion-driven. Affections are much deeper than that.
DZ: I know we don’t have a ton of time but it’s like the… It’s the same thing with amening. We were just talking about that.
BK: Amen. [chuckle]
DZ: It’s like…
BK: Sorry.
DZ: There’s an amen that, “Wow, I’m tracking with this.”
BK: Yes. Great one, yeah.
DZ: And there’s a, “Amen. Amen brother,” that’s just sort of throw in because it’s what’s familiar to you.
BK: Right, and you can create a culture in a church where that kind of response becomes the focus. “Oh, it wasn’t a good sermon because no one was really saying amen. We only had a couple of amens.” No, maybe people were so sobered by the word of God that they didn’t even think to respond at that moment. That’s a possibility. And maybe you’ve created a culture where you’re more focused on how many amens there are…
DZ: Totally.
BK: Than the truth of what’s actually being said.
DZ: Same with hands.
BK: Yeah, absolutely.
DZ: “Well, hands weren’t going up. So, we’re doing something wrong.”
BK: “Must not be getting through.”
DZ: [chuckle] Right.
BK: All right. Man, we gotta keep going. But we’re almost done. We got four more. Where do you draw the line?
DZ: Yeah.
BK: Huh?
DZ: Chaos.
BK: Yeah.
DZ: Gold dust.
BK: [chuckle] I think that question is born more out of fear than faith. It wasn’t the question the woman who poured the oil on Jesus’s feet in Mark 14 was asking, nor the woman, I think it’s in Luke 7, who was forgiven of all of her sins. She wasn’t saying, “Oh, I wanna be careful about being too extravagant in my expression of devotion to Jesus.” It was filled with faith. They were just saying, “How could I not wanna respond with all that I am?” And I think too often, we let ourselves off the hook. We just think, “Well, I don’t feel it. I don’t know, I’m not gonna do it.” The question is not whether we feel it, the question is whether Jesus is worthy of it, and what can we do with our bodies to make him look glorious and him look great, and him look satisfying, and him look like he’s the Lord, that he’s the one who saved our souls. So, yeah there is a line to be drawn, and that line is edification. When it becomes distracting, when it becomes something that becomes the focus, yeah, you’ve crossed the line.
DZ: Okay, devil’s advocate.
BK: Okay.
DZ: If there’s a person in your church that this is the only way that I can truly… This is my…
BK: My way of worshiping the Lord.
DZ: This is my way of worshiping the Lord, and I know it doesn’t work in your context, but this is how I do it, and how can you put restrictions and boundaries on me?
BK: Yeah, yeah. I’d say that God puts restrictions and boundaries on you, because his concern is just as much for how you treat the people around you as it is how you relate to him. And he spells that out in 1 Corinthians 14, “You must do what edifies others.”
DZ: Yes.
BK: So if you say your way of worshiping, people just have to get used to it, that’s not preferring others over yourself. Philippians 2, “Look not only to your own interest, but also to the interest of others.”
DZ: Yes, yes, yes.
BK: So it’s just you’re saying you wanna please the Lord. Great! You can’t contradict his word and please him. So you gotta pick one or the other. You just can’t do both. I wanna do whatever I want, and I wanna please the Lord. No, if we please the Lord he’s… If we wanna please the Lord, he’s told us in his Word what pleases him.
DZ: Amen.
BK: And so that’s what we go by.
DZ: Right.
BK: Next one, culture. I love this one. It’s just not a part of my culture. I just happily point out that in every culture, in every strict, withdrawn, introverted culture…
DZ: I’ve heard the Frozen Chosen.
BK: The Frozen Chosen, yes, wherever they are, in that culture, you have Christians who defy it. So the Sydney Anglicans, they’re right down the street from Hillsong, literally right down the street from Hillsong. CityAlight’s, right down the street from Hillsong. There are times when Christians are called to be countercultural. Oh, I was gonna say in the UK, there are lots of congregations in the UK that are very expressive. What do they say? “Well, our culture teaches us to be this way.” It’s not our culture that rules our understanding of how we’re to respond to God when we gather, it is the Lord. He’s the one who is to say, “This… ” He is the only one who has the right to say, “This is what pleases me.” Hypocrisy doesn’t please him, but neither does deadness. Dead orthodoxy does not please him. Neither does, I think, and I could say with scriptural backing, a gathering where people want to respond with their bodies, but they feel restrained for one of the 10 reasons we’ve talked about.
DZ: Yes.
BK: So another one is personality. The good news is God saves all kind of people, flamboyant, extroverts, introverts, shy, leaders, followers, type A, not type A. He gives each of them their personalities, and God wants to receive glory through your personality because that’s the one he gave you. So looking at the two extremes, for those on the shy side, introverted side, the question is, what do my deepest, strongest affections look like outside of Sunday morning? God’s bigger than that. Whatever it is. So you have people who are very quiet in the church, very reserved in the gathering, but outside they’re just all body.
DZ: Oh, yeah.
BK: Everything’s expressive and this, but when they get in… Okay. God’s worthy of our deepest, strongest, highest, purest affections, and that’s what we wanna show with our bodies. For those on the extroverted side, the question would be, how can I express my personality in ways that honor God and don’t distract others? So we have to look at it from both sides.
DZ: That’s so good.
BK: Then finally, fear of man versus fear of God. This is one we all deal with. I remember the first time that I raised my hands, it was in the mid ’70s, I was at a festival, an outdoor festival, Jesus Festival, we called them, and I remember thinking, people around me were raising their hands. So already I was fearing man more than God. I wasn’t thinking, “Jesus, you’re worthy of everything I have.” It was, “Oh, wow. People around me are raising their hands. I should do this.” And really, a very godly motivation.
DZ: Was that in the ’70s?
BK: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
DZ: People were doing a lot in the ’70s, Bob.
BK: They were. They did a lot of funny stuff in the ’70s. [laughter] So I’m trying to raise my hands and it really felt like there was… Like I was carrying 100 pound bags on either hand, and it was so hard. I don’t think I got it past just above my navel. It was so hard, and it just took time. It just took time before I realized, “You know what, your problem is not how worthy God is, your problem is that you’re thinking more of other people than God and how worthy he is.” I wanna be asking the question, “Lord, what have you done for me? What have you done?” Not, “What have you done for me?” But, “Look at what you’ve done for me.”
DZ: Yes.
BK: “I was condemned. I was under your wrath. I was under your judgment. You sent Jesus, Jesus came, he took on my flesh, lived a perfect life of obedience so he could take the punishment from my disobedience and rose from the dead. And I will never ever be punished for the sins that I’ve committed every single day because Jesus bore the wrath for me. How can I not wanna respond to that? How can I not think, “This is amazing”? How can I want to not wanna communicate to others with my body and my voice and everything about me that Jesus is so good, God is so great. He’s so glorious.”
DZ: Yeah.
BK: How can I not wanna do that?
DZ: Get in on this.
BK: Yes. That’s right, that’s right. You should be doing this. [laughter] And it’s fearing God more than fearing man, being more concerned about who God is, what he’s done, what he’s said, and then responding in natural ways to all that. So that’s what we’re aiming for.
DZ: That’s so excellent.
BK: So
DZ: Yeah.
BK: All right. So this is the end of this podcast, I think this longest podcast we’ve ever done.
DZ: I think it needed the time.
BK: I hope so. And I’m sure we left stuff out, and I’m sure there are things that were unclear.
DZ: But I think if you are in a church where you are wanting to grow in this area, or maybe you’ve listened to both these podcasts and you go, “Nope, we would never do that.”
BK: Email us, send us…
DZ: I would encourage you to listen to this next podcast that we’re gonna do.
BK: Oh, good.
DZ: That just talks about how do we grow in this area, and how do we kind of expand our understanding of what we’re talking about?
BK: Yes.
DZ: Maybe I’ve been thinking about it for a really, really long time without really thinking about the main reason why.
BK: Yes. That’s good. Yeah. So I think we want to focus on, for leaders, how to lead people through change, how to lead people, again, not to be more expressive, but how to engage more meaningfully, and how to let that naturally show in their speech, their singing. Singing can be affected as well. Singing can be halfhearted and it shouldn’t be. It contradicts why God gave us singing.
DZ: Right.
BK: So how to lead people through change. But those thoughts should also encourage anyone who’s asking for themselves. I mean, hopefully these two podcasts will encourage you. But I think the next podcast will help you as well.
DZ: Great.
BK: So, thanks for joining us for this one, and we look forward to the next time.
DZ: Yep. Thanks.
