Random thoughts Related to Reverence

“Establish Your Word to Your servant as that which produces reverence for You.” (Psalm 119:38)

One of the objections that I have had in the past regarding worship services is that there seems to be a lack of reverence in the worshipers or in the place of worship. This idea may have come from the laid back atmosphere in many churches where every 3rd person seems to have a cup of starbucks or caribou coffee or is too busy tweeting something to really put all of one’s focus on God.

When I was in college, our choir toured in Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic and visited (and sang in) many cathedrals. It impressed me then, and still does today, that everything - from the design of the building itself to the interior art work - was done intentionally to communicate something about God, the parishioner, or something else important. Comparing that to the large multi-purpose facilities where the worship hall doubles for a basketball court makes for quite a stark contrast.

And while I think that it is a good idea, a very good idea, to ask the question of what our building (the actual structure), the layout of our services, the seating, or whatever says about God, about us, and about what we are doing, I don’t think that we need to burn down our current building and start over (well, not for this reason, anyway). I also don’t think that the answer is that we need to have Cathedral-ish buildings complete with statues and stained glass windows (although, those should make a comeback). Likewise, I don’t want to wholly dismiss or deride the idea of large multi-purpose facilities as houses of corporate worship. We need to be willing to both ask the question and then provide an answer to that question about what the building communicates about who we are, who God is, and what we’re doing. Because whether or not we intend to say anything by what we do or how we do it – we do.

As for reverence, well that is something that no building can instill in a person. A building may be able to the reverence that is already in a person, but I’m not sure how much it would truly detract from that same individual. True reverence comes from the Word as the Lord establishes it in us and to us. And it is that reverence that can transform any building - from a cramped and broken down barn in rural Russia or a Cathedral in the middle of Europe, to a multi-purpose building in the US – into a beautiful and reverential place of corporate worship.