SMELLY WORSHIP
What makes mJa member Chris Hunt boil with rage...

I felt sick the other day. Unfortunately, I felt sick when we were meant to be worshipping - and it was the "worship" that made me sick. I found myself feeling "performed at" and it sickened me.

I don't necessarily mean that the worship leading was disingenuous or faked, but it did bring home to me that worship must must must MUST be a thing of the heart. If you're not careful you can "do" all the right things and sound pretty, but it's just a performance. God's not really in it. And actually, you can smell the difference.

We talk (and sing!) about our worship being "a fragrance to God", but how often are we just mumbling along, with our heart not really in it, wondering what time dinner is - or, worse still, just admiring the performance.

If that's a fragrance, it's one of those nasty, cheap, imitation scents you can buy at the market. Frankly, it stinks (to high heaven).

What about real spontaneous, from-the-heart worship. Shouldn't we be crying out with worship to God? With gratitude, awe and and and and..? Yet there we were, with the lights turned down and music playing and the worship leader doing his bit. But when he stopped - we stopped. It was like we'd been switched off. It was like we had nothing further to say. It was like we'd had nothing to say in the first place. I smell empty religion and I don't like it.

Let's raise the roof, let's worship so hard and so deep that the programme is scrapped, that songs (or, even better, guitar solos!) are cut - and that God is worshipped. It's down to us!