Beauty in Worship

Beauty in worship is a topic that is not often addressed these days. Based on worship services that you have recently attended, would you say that beauty in worship is important? What comes to mind when I mention this topic? I would venture to guess that you think “high church tradition,” “liturgy,” or even “Catholic.” There are three questions that I want to pose and answer regarding beauty in worship in this week’s Acceptable Worship blog post.

1. Who defines beauty?
   Since we have seen that corporate worship is a gathering of believers in Gathered for Worship, I will answer this question from the perspective of a believer (because the unbeliever would have a different response). Genesis 1 states that God formed man in his image (v. 21), and that it was good. The goodness here is not so much referring to a moral action, but rather an inherent goodness about his creation. The Bible often teaches implicitly the importance of beauty, as seen in the beauty of poetry in Psalms, or the narratives of the gospels, or the laments in many Old Testament books. In Revelation 4:2-3, however, John explicitly states that “At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it.  And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and ruby. A rainbow that shone like an emerald encircled the throne.” God surrounds himself with beauty in heaven, which was reflected in his creation, which we can still see around us today. In the glimpse of heavenly worship that John provides, it is apparent that God places value on beauty, as we should in our worship here on earth.

2. What is beautiful to God?
   As mentioned above, God’s Word is full of beauty, which helps shape our hearts toward him. Literary theologian Leland Ryken believes that because literature is an art form, it is also “characterized by beauty, craftsmanship, and technique.”1 He further states that artistry “intensifies the impact of an utterance and is pleasurable for its own sake.”2 As we read Scripture, our imaginations instantly become engaged through the different poetic devices utilized, such as imagery, metaphor, hyperbole, and narrative. A biblically literate imagination, then, is one that is “shaped structurally, hermeneutically, emotionally, and volitionally by the overall pattern and paradigm of the biblical plotline.”3 The beauty found in Scripture reflects the beauty of God. He did not give us a list of propositional statements full of didactic truths. Rather, he teaches us truth through the beauty of the written word, using multiple literary examples to help form our hearts to his definition of beauty. Further, God calls many people and things “beautiful” in his Word, and Kevin Vanhoozer provides us with a brief list: Nature (James 1:11), the Temple (1 Kings 6-7), Persons (Genesis 12:11), Jesus Christ (Colossians 1:15), and The body of Christ (Galatians 3:27).4

3. Is beauty in worship important?
   Now that we have seen how God’s Word is full of beauty, and the emphasis that God places on beauty, I want to specifically address beauty in worship. If we know that God surrounds himself with beauty in heaven, and that he created beauty on earth, then why would this not be important to us today? When our worship is bland and lackluster, how is this forming our hearts as disciples of Christ? Additionally, as we have seen how the imagination is engaged through reading God’s Word, so the imagination should be applied “to be alert, to be creative, and to be active in looking” in worship.5 When we include beauty in our worship practices, both visually and aurally, we aid the disciple-making process accurately because as God places importance on beauty, so do we. Beauty helps form our hearts into right-thinking.

Beauty is not some “extra” that can be added or taken away from worship. We were created for beauty, and God has provided beauty all around us. As Vanhoozer rightly states, “the aesthetic quality of our worship may well be an index of our appreciation of God’s beauty, and of our wisdom. Those who lack aesthetic sensibility are tone-deaf to God’s Word and colorblind to God’s glory.”6

In closing, take a moment to use the wonderful hymn “This is My Father’s World” to worship God in his beauty. Go ahead, sing out loud.

This is My Father’s World (Maltbie D. Babcock, 1901)
This is my Father’s world,
And to my listening ears
All nature sings, and round me rings
The music of the spheres.
This is my Father’s world:
I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas–
His hand the wonders wrought.

This is my Father’s world:
The birds their carols raise,
The morning light, the lily white,
Declare their Maker’s praise.
This is my Father’s world:
He shines in all that’s fair;
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass,
He speaks to me everywhere.

For further reading from Acceptable Worship, read Imagination in Hymnody.

For other additional reading, see Finding Beauty Where God Finds Beauty, published by T. David Gordon in the Artistic Theologian Journal.

1. Leland Ryken, Words of Delight: A Literary Introduction to the Bible (Ada, MI: Baker Academic, 1993), 16.
2. Ryken, Words, 16.
3. Alison Searle, ‘The Eyes of Your Heart’: Literary and Theological Trajectories of Imagining Biblically (Colorado Springs, CO: Patermoster, 2008), 46.
4. Kevin Vanhoozer, Pictures at a Theological Exhibition (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2016), 128-129.
5. Leland Ryken, The Liberated Imagination: Thinking Christianly About the Arts (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1989), 269.
6. Vanhoozer, Pictures, 139.