Experiencing Worship and Worshiping Experience

Many Evangelicals are reacting against a mind/heart disconnect in worship, reaching for an experience of worship that transcends the merely intellectual. They desire to know God deeply by experiencing His presence as they worship. This desire has led to a subtle yet pervasive paradigm-shift in the philosophy and practice of worship. While worship was once understood as an enactment of praise, it is now viewed as a real, metaphysical “encounter” with God. The desire for experience as a kind of knowledge has driven this shift, and is a result of many changes associated with postmodernism. One critical feature of postmodernism is the exaltation of experience as an equally authoritative way of knowing. It suggests that we acquire knowledge through our experiences, and that these experiences convincingly illustrate reality for us in a manner that nothing else can. The result is the “postmodern worshiper,” who desires to know God by experiencing Him in worship.