Is God Ticky-tacky?

I read an article this week that reported the speech of a church consultant at a leadership conference. The title was "'Ticky-tacky' worship wars divert attention from God." Differing opinions about drums, choir robes, projections screens vs. hymnals, outdated organs, and the like, he said, hurt worship services. So far so good.

But unfortunately that's not all he said. "Not that drums or choir robes or hymnal or screens or projections systems or organs or any of these are evil. None are. People can get their feathers ruffled over ticky-tacky things . . . Did Jesus say, 'Those who worship the Father must use a two-inch thick hymnal or wear choir robes or have drums or unplug the organ in the corner'? Those things are not the issues, and when they are, don't you know that breaks the heart of Jesus? If it were so important, Jesus would have said more about it . . . A lot of people miss worship by 18 inches. Their worship is all in their minds."

That has the appearance of wisdom to a lot of people. It sounds spiritual and sensible. After all, we worship with our hearts and not with our minds, right? Worship shouldn't be about the externals but about the heart, right? All these externals are mere matters of preference, right?

Wrong. It ALL matters. Because the most fundamental characteristic of worship is that it is God-centered, and because God created us to worship Him with all of ourselves, soul and body, and because we live in a pervasively corrupt culture in which all of life is lived in the antithesis, we must constantly be aware of the forms and externals of our worship. God must be regarded as holy in worship. What we sing and the instruments that accompany us do matter because God's glory must be weighty. This speaker wanted to say, along with every church that has a contemporary service and a traditional service and "you choose which you like," that the "ticky-tacky" things like drums and hymnals and pulpits don't matter, so let's get on to worshiping in spirit and truth. But that's like saying that cooking doesn't matter, so let's just get on to eating.

It ALL matters in worship. The form of our worship will be biblically faithful and God-centered and spiritually powerful not when we just set aside externals but when we weigh everything against the glory and majesty of God.

Why do we at Providence sing hymns and psalms? Why do we confess the Apostle's Creed? Why do we devote 45 minutes to rather heavy preaching? Why use hymnals and use a very traditional instrument for accompaniment? Why stress the ideal of families worshiping together?

All of it is because God is holy, and He must be regarded as holy. Beloved, see the weightiness of the glory of Christ in your worship today. Your worship must not be ticky-tacky because the Lord God is not ticky-tacky. Glorify His mighty name.