Freedom of Expression: My Worship Journey

During last night’s service, my church’s worship pastor knelt to the ground on both knees and prayed silently. In the middle of a congregational song, Todd just checked out of us and into a moment with Jesus. He didn’t announce that he was going to do it, and he didn’t talk about it after he rejoined us. He never does.
In a very public place—on stage in front of hundreds—Todd had a private conversation with God.
This wouldn’t have happened at the first seven churches I attended in life. I grew up in a faith system in which conformity was a foundational value. The music part of a corporate service was directed, usually by someone in a coat and tie. This congregational music was a looser version of choir numbers with the man’s square-like arm motions dictating the tempo to sing and the notes to hold. The talented among us focused on their fourth of harmony, and the rest of us wondered if the conductor would make us sing the chorus an extra time.
In twenty years in that ecosystem, I don’t know that I really worshipped very often. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen or can’t happen in that liturgical style. It just didn’t work for me. It was more performing than being present, especially with the “special” music. It functioned the same at the small churches as it did at the ones that had TV or radio broadcasts.
Worship has changed for me over the past decade, informed by others (like Todd) who see worship as a lifestyle instead of as the standing song, the sitting song, and the standing song before a sermon. 
Worship became personal for me next to a glacier in Patagonia, as I shouted attributes of God into the wind. It became real to me, when I wept trying to authentically say the lyrics on our auditorium’s screens. Worship has been enriched as I listened to my Bible app, pensive music, or my buddies’ prayers & devotionals out in nature. Worship has leaked into the grass, gravel, and asphalt of my church’s parking lots, as the joy of sovereign stories and spirit-filled moments got me excited to welcome guests. Worship has overcome me while praying with my wife, intertwined in lover’s embrace.
Todd has modeled for me and my fellow congregants that—while we gather collectively to hear from God, to experience him, and to express our hearts to him—there is a lot of freedom for what that looks like on an individual level. Rather than controlling the experience, he has modeled the encounter. By his example, he has given us permission to interact with God how we feel prompted.
That might be laying prostrate on the ground, bowing with our face in our hands, or kneeling. That might look like standing, jumping, or dancing. That might mean a hand over our heart, hands in the air, or fist pumps. That might include listening, singing, or shouting. That might express itself by affirming someone with physical touch or pulling them aside to confess a wrong. You might be prompted to remove your shoes or place a prayer cloth on your head in reverence—or neither. It might be pausing to pray for our enemies, like we did in this weekend’s services.
Worship might be joining the throng or acting alone—or both at the same time, when your eyes are closed.
One of the knocks on foreign missions is that Americans often try to adapt other cultures to look like ours, especially in the church context. Over the last few years, Todd has traveled abroad often to work with the next generation of the persecuted church. His mission has been to mentor young believers there how to lead worship—not just music or church services. Todd and his wife have modeled the wholistic pursuit of God and the proper response to his revelations. Their disciples aren’t learning how to do it an American way. Instead, like me, they’re exploring the freedom of what that looks like in their context for them personally.
If those sequestered Christians glean only what I have learned from Todd over the past decade, exciting days lie ahead for the gospel in their country.