"All Christians need to cultivate a life with God that is growing and developing. If we are not growing, we will stagnate or die," writes Bob Godfrey in the 2nd chapter of Pleasing God in our Worship. Using Hebrews 10:19-22 as a backdrop, Godfrey shows how important "drawing near" to Christ is in both the individual and corporate sense. I particularly like this line: "Christianity is a religion in which individuals become an integral part of Christ's body. We are not just an association of individuals, but we are organically connected to one another." He goes on to show that we express this connection as the body most fully when we meet God together in public worship.

I think Americans, in particular, have suffered the effects of our "rugged individualism" for so long that it has just become part of the ethos of our brand of evangelicalism. Church for many is not necessarily about God, or even others, but instead self. The idols of personal preference and consumerism (particularly intellectual consumerism in reformed churches) will always be part of what worship leaders and pastors fight against in our worship. Godfrey calls upon Calvin's well worn phrase that our hearts are "idol factories". Is is possible that we can worship the true God falsely? Most definitely.

"The story of the golden calf (Exod. 32:5-6) reminds us that God's own people can fall into idolatry in their worship of him." What Godfrey is pointing out is that we can get overly creative and invent new forms of worship that can lead to idolatry, while all along thinking we are pleasing God. In the end, we are probably just pleasing ourselves when this happens, and it does happen. But then again, we can also worship him with very conservative forms, and also fall into a form of false worship if our hearts are not in it as Jesus states by restating Isaiah 29:

"These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men." (Matthew 15:6-8)

This chapter in Pleasing God in our Worship reminds us that the Bible alone is sufficient in directing our worship of God. We would do well to search the Scriptures to find out what it says about worship.