Is Your Worship Out of Tune?
A tuning fork is a u-shaped acoustic resonator made from an elastic metal. Its tines vibrate at a constant pitch by striking them against a hard surface. Once struck, a tuning fork emits a pure musical tone that is used as a standard to tune a variety of instruments.
A standard is the basis or model to which something else should be compared. It is determined by those in authority as a rule for measuring the quality or value of something.
A. W. Tozer wrote, “Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow.”[1] What is the standard to which your worship is tuned?
Your worship is out of tune . . .
If what’s in it for me is your standard.
If coat and tie or untucked shirt and jeans is your standard.
If hymns or modern worship songs are your standard.
If imitating the practices of another congregation or artist is your standard.
If musical excellence alone is your standard.
If worship band, orchestra, choir, or worship team is your standard.
If when and where you worship is your standard.
If fixed or free liturgy is your standard.
If the creativity of novelty or the comfort of nostalgia is your standard.
But if your standard is instead who, why, and in what power we worship—the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—then your worship will always be perfectly tuned.[2] According to Paul, our standard is living our lives worthy of the gospel of Christ (Phil 1:27). We can exercise a variety of different worship gifts, callings, and styles and our worship will still be in tune as long as our standard is not those various worship expressions but the gospel.[3]
[1] A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God (Vancouver, BC: Eremitical Press, 2009), 90.
[2] Tozer, The Pursuit of God, 90.
[3] This article is adapted from David W. Manner, Better Sundays Begin on Monday: 52 Exercises for Evaluating Weekly Worship (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2020).