Today I posted on Twitter “Thank you for leading me in worship but please don’t tell me what posture I need to take while worshipping Jesus.” I just wanted to take a bit to explain what I meant. I love worshipping Jesus, I am a follower of Him and it is a part of my lifestyle.

On Sunday mornings our church gathers to worship Jesus together. I love those gatherings where we hear from the Word and take time to respond through worship, communion and the giving of tithes. Today I found myself a bit frustrated in our weekly gathering. The worship team was leading us and at one point one of them asked all of us to raise our hands and not just stand there passively. He told us that we need to respond to the words that they were singing “I’ll stand with arms high and heart abandoned In awe of the one who gave it all, I’ll stand my soul Lord to you surrender all I am is yours.” I love this song and I fully agree with the theology and the words, but I don’t take in literally that I have to stand up and raise my hands while I am singing. Today when the leader told us to do this I kind of felt bullied.

I stood there thinking “I need to do this so that people won’t think that I am being rebellious. I need to do this cause he told me to and if I don’t then he may feel bad, or even worse call me out on it.” All I wanted to do was worship God with the posture that I felt like being in, hands in my pockets, eyes closed and confessing with my mouth and believing in heart that Jesus is good and God. I realized today my own sin and rebelliousness, but also that in the church we sometimes lead people to respond in a way that works with us, not necessarily in a way that God commands.

I don’t mean to be harsh, I was just thinking about it and didn’t want to tweet something random and out there without explanation. Thoughts?