I was watching an NFL playoff game earlier this year, and the room became so exuberantly loud that my friend checked the decibel level on his phone to see if our eardrums were in danger. Football fans instinctively raise their hands like goalposts when their team reaches the endzone. Soccer fans don’t think twice about screaming “GOAL!” Physical expressiveness is a natural way to celebrate what we love.
I’ve also attended many funerals this year. When we’re sorrowful, our bodies slump, our heads hang, and we may hide our faces and tears. Again, our emotions and bodily expressions are intrinsically intertwined.
But what about at church? Does what we do with our bodies matter when gathering with other believers to worship?
Embodied Corporate Worship
Of course, watching sports teams and worshiping our risen Savior are different experiences. Even so, Scripture’s songbook gives full permission for God’s people to express themselves loudly and bodily when coming before him in worship:
Shout for joy in the LORD, O you righteous!
Praise befits the upright.
Sing to him a new song;
play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts. (Ps. 33:1, 3)
Clap your hands, all peoples!
Shout to God with loud songs of joy! (Ps. 47:1)
Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the LORD! (Ps. 134:2)
When celebrating God and his salvation, loud decibel levels and joyous hand raising are encouraged. The Psalms teach us to praise God with the full spectrum of human emotion, from rejoicing to lamenting, sometimes even within the same passage. Psalm 95, for example, begins with a tone of joy:
Oh come, let us sing to the LORD;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! (Ps. 95:1–2)
But not long after, the worshiper is encouraged toward a humble posture:
Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!
For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture. (Ps. 95:6–7)
When remembering our creatureliness, confessing sin, or grieving loss, a lowly posture is in order.
All Christians agree the New Testament gives instructions for corporate worship. To what degree the Old Testament should influence our worship today is a matter of legitimate debate. Paul clearly instructs churches to gather for prayer, biblical teaching, and congregational singing, including psalms (Col. 3:16; Eph. 5:19).
And since singing and prayer in the Psalter weren’t stoic activities without emotion or expression, when the New Testament commands Christians to sing, and to sing psalms, it seems the early church would’ve expected singing to be expressive. Their pattern of worship was based on ancient Jewish worship—and surely involved even more joy, presumably expressive joy, because of the resurrection of Christ and the outpouring of the Spirit. Nonetheless, the New Testament writers didn’t precisely dictate what such expressions must look like.
Worshiping as Whole Persons
In C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, the experienced demon Screwtape is teaching his understudy how to discourage Christians from praying. The trick is to make prayer a mere mental exercise: “At the very least, they can be persuaded that the bodily position makes no difference to their prayers; for they constantly forget, what you must always remember, that they are animals and that whatever their bodies do affects their souls.”
Our bodies are as much part of us as our inward selves. When we pray and worship, it’s good to incorporate both body and soul. We may be able to better engage mentally when we engage bodily.
Fostering (Unforced) Expressiveness
Perhaps you’ve been in a worship gathering where the leader was so insistent people raise their hands that it felt forced, even legalistic. You may have been in other gatherings, though, where raising hands felt out of place.
We may be able to better engage mentally when we engage bodily.
So how do we cultivate appropriate physical expressions in worship without coercion? For our pastoral team, addressing such expressions has been intentional. Consider four different groups and what they may need.
1. Some need permission.
During the call to worship, we’ll occasionally read a psalm that encourages loud singing or hand raising as we give a brief reminder that we’re embodied creatures. Using the fullness of our vocal cords or raising our hands can help lift our hearts to God. During times of corporate confession of sin, we give people permission to sit or kneel in a posture of sorrow. And as I send people out with a benediction, I’ll often say, “It’s appropriate to raise your hand to receive a good word from God’s Word as we go into our week.” These are small ways we give our blessing for people to be embodied worshipers.
2. Some need encouragement.
We believe the congregation’s voice is the most important instrument as we worship God. Participating in worship—rather than merely observing it—is a value for our church. This isn’t limited to singing loudly; it also includes responsive Scripture readings, silent confessions of sin with heads bowed, invitations to voice praise and thanksgiving, and so on.
3. Some need examples.
During the sermon, the godly brother who shouts “Amen!” and the energetic sister who says “That’s good!” help others feel free to as well. I occasionally tell my congregation that it helps me know they’re with me if they give some sort of verbal response, or at least an affirmative (not sleepy) head nod once in a while.
It’s normal and authentic for many in our church to sing loudly and lift their hands. Many have told me they felt uncomfortable raising their hands at first, but the consistent permission and example have enriched their enjoyment of God in worship.
4. Some need to not feel forced.
No doubt our personalities, family, culture, and church backgrounds play a role in how expressive we are in corporate worship. When I attended churches in Malawi, Africa, I saw people dancing, clapping, laughing, and crying all in the same service—and nothing felt forced. But in my church in rural Ohio, where people aren’t naturally loud or expressive, it would feel inauthentic to try to recreate that exact experience.
Using the fullness of our vocal cords or raising our hands can help lift our hearts to God.
When it comes down to it, some people may never raise their hands or shout out, and that’s OK. After all, expressiveness doesn’t equal godliness. A saint can worship while still, or even silent. Especially in periods of deep grief, it can take everything out of you just to be present at church. Singing joyfully may be too difficult. Even still, the physically expressed faith of others can help feed the faith of those passing through a valley of lament.
Beware Hyper-Individualism
The very nature of corporate worship combats the expressive individualism of our age (and our own hearts) by singing together “with one voice” to glorify Christ (Rom. 15:6). A church worship gathering is not merely a group of individuals having personal experiences in the same room. So when physical expression draws attention to the individual, we should consider whether it’s an aid in glorifying God together—or an unhelpful distraction. That said, just as varied vocal ranges can harmonize, diverse physical expressions can meld into a unity that both edifies the body and magnifies the King.
As the prophet Samuel said when anointing young David, “Man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7). God knows and loves his children all the way to the depths of our hearts. He knows when we’re hand-raising hypocrites, and he knows when we raise them to engage our whole selves in honest worship. He wants our love for him—with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength—to show (Mark 12:30).
When the Lord gets our hearts, our bodies come too. Why wouldn’t we seek to cultivate biblical forms of embodied worship?
The Gospel Coalition