During the application section of my Memorial Day sermon “I just died in your arms tonight,” I shared a picture of a God-centered life by letting folks in on my personal idolatry and how it was exposed, dealt with, forgiven, and redeemed.

The idol was something I never thought about being an idol. Now of course, as Tim Keller reminds us in Counterfeit Gods, it was only a surface idol (such as money, sex, relationships, family which we use to get what the heart really wants like power, fame, respect, approval, comfort, meaning, hope, etc…..). But surface or not, I never thought that my yard could become an idol. I just have never cared about my yard before. At my first house, there just wasn’t any grass, so I couldn’t do too much about it. But now its different. The grass is literally greener on this side. At least most of it. The sprinklers became overtaken by the St Augustine grass and stopped popping up. By the time I got around to do anything about it, the luscious green turned to brown on my side yard.

But to me what is so surprising is not that I had fallen prey to a suburban idol (after all, we chose this area because we are more suburban than urban), but that something I put so little time into, had become an idol. Sometimes you can identify your idols by looking at how much time you spend on them (when it becomes inordinate or causes you to cut corners or sacrifice more important things/relationships), but simply looking at the amount of time spent doesn’t reveal one’s heart. One could spend much time on his yard and it not be a surface idol, a means to gain approval from others and so justifiy himself/herself. It could be a good passion. It could be way to love the neighbors. It could be a good stress reliever.

Idolatry isn’t always that easy to spot.

I had no idea that I cared so much about my yard. Remember I’d done nothing but have it treated, mow it, run sprinklers, and try to edge it every so often. After a stressful evening, I completely blew a gasket. Not pretty. My wife Amy asked me, “What are you really mad/worried about?” Several hours later the Spirit revealed to me that I was relying upon my yard for approval. Now that it didn’t look good, I could no longer neighborly approval as a means of justification. It was my anger (not the amount of time) that revealed the presence of the surface idol (yard), and then the Spirit via some reflection and prayer which  revealed the real and deeper idolatry (approval).

Now I’m still going to try and fix the sprinklers. I’m going to try to edge more often. So I will (I hope) spend more time in the yard than before. But the motivation now is to love my neighbors by doing the best I can to have a decent looking yard. But when the sprinklers go out, or a new chinch bug invasion happens, and it doesn’t look its best, I’ll know if the yard has become a way to serve and love others or if it is just a means to gain approval from others.  My reaction or rather over-reaction will reveal what I truly cherish.

Yet the trickiness of idolatry also reminds me of the beauty of the gospel. Not only is my sin covered, but I no longer have to operate in such a legalistic fashion based upon time but instead upon the heart. There is no magic rule for how much time I spend doing X. I really love the freedom in that.

Harbor Community Church had its first official service on Easter Sunday this year. It was an exciting time for a number of reasons. First of all, Easter is like the Super Bowl for the Christian; and each year we win. So that’s cool. And it was our first official service, so that was cool as well. And we had a number of folks there. We prayed for 100 and we got close to 90, with a 4 or 5 from our core group who couldn’t make it. So not too bad!

Providentially I happened upon Jeremy Vanderloop, a touring and performing Christian musician. Since another church planter vouched for the guy, I pretty much secured his services sight unseen. We were not disappointed. But it wasn’t about his performance or skills as it was his humility, and you could say “ability” to lead us to Jesus’ throne.

I don’t believe that Sunday worship is a performance. That’s a loaded word. I know it. But I just mean that the attention of the congregation is intentionally and regularly diverted away from an individual or individuals and to The Individual. Folks who are musically gifted can sometimes respond with, “Are you judging me because I’m talented and want to play well?” You know, the kind of “don’t hate me because I’m beautiful” mentality. But the skills of the leader don’t need to clash (and often don’t) with the leading of the congregation. Now they can, when the stage becomes a chance to showcase ones mad skills on the organ, or drum. Or the triangle or cazoo.

I probably haven’t been in the presence of a too many worship leaders as talented as Jeremy. And yet he did everything he could to point us to Jesus. He didn’t sacrifice skill or strumming patterns-I enjoyed those. And you could tell he practiced. But he intentionally did some things to put our attention on Jesus. Sometimes he would back away from the mic and go a capella for a bit. Sometimes he would just remind us to that we were singing to Jesus. Sometimes he would sing louder to raise our voices and then sometimes go quieter so we could better hear ourselves singing to the Lord. If there were 4 stanzas, they weren’t all done the same. And that helped grab my heart.

What would that look like for a full band? Don’t know. Not really my problem since we don’t have one. But it goes to show that the performance mindset has nothing essentially to do with talent or lack thereof, or lack of practice in perfecting one’s craft.

Now onto someone who can make a difference in the performance/consumer mentality. You. Me. Not just the heart of the musician but the heart of the congregation. Whether traditional or contemporary or whatever the heck the style of service a church has, the default mentality of the worshiper is that of a consumer. Do I like it?

Here are some thoughts which might help you move from consumer to worshiper.

When you leave, do you primarily reflect back upon how good or how bad the music was? Or do you reflect back on how you did?  I’m not intimating you shouldn’t declare,”Man that dude was off key” or “Wow that the guitar was out of tune.” But how much more of a worshipful environment would we see if people were to think, “You know what, I wasn’t engaged in the sermon or the singing or the confession” What if we graded ourselves?

Do you check your heart and mind throughout the service or put it on cruise control? I think we probably need to do all we can to put attention onto Christ instead of the Rays’ bad pitching match-up (which nowadays would be most everyday), or getting to lunch before “the others.”

Even though the song selection didn’t come from your personal I-pod playlist, could you think, or feel, or remember the love of Christ in the midst of it? Or did you just think that you’d wait till next week?

I honestly don’t do this very much. I need to though. And now that I preach each week, I do find myself paying even better attention during sermons. 🙂

If you have any other things that can help move us from consumers to engaged worshiper, please share. I need them too!