I am an alum of a Christian college famous for creating what the evangelical world calls "anointed worship". IHOP in Kansas City has what they call "presence worship". Presence worship is chiefly concerned with invoking a spiritual move of God in a room or physical place. It is The Drive in most worship services today to have an experience with God like in the Holy of Holies in the days of the great Jerusalem temple. When God is worshipped correctly and His Spirit resides in a building where presence worship is happening, a sort of climax is reached and the worshippers experience a piece of Heaven. So the point is to have Heaven now before we die and are glorified in Heaven with God.
Perhaps the proponents of these worship philosophies forget the transcendence of their God. Does the Spirit of God manifest in a local place? Absolutely. We see this specifically in Acts 2. But when He is not felt, is He still just as present? Absolutely. How else do the elements of our world continue in relationship with one another. It is God's hand that sustains all His creation. God is not just Creator like the deists believed, but He is Sustainer as well. Not even Hell is without the presence of God. In Hell God will forever be the Judge and Punisher of sin. He is Creator and Sustainer.
For those who want to imagine God like a temple with a inner room of holiness... please don't. You must have forgotten that at the death of Christ the vail in the temple was torn. And at his resurrection He became the High Priest of a new covenant as the book of Hebrews says. Peter writes that Christians are a holy priesthood. Do you understand what that means? The presence of God is no longer something that we have to come into or as in other religions, strive for. As Christians, we are in the presence of God whether it manifest or not. In fact, most of the recorded manifestations of God have been in times of judgement. What that means is that we Christians should live lives according to the teachings of Christ so that God doesn't have to manifest and show himself. If He does its probably because we were too busy with third heaven trances that we forgot to stay faithful to our wife.
A Biblical Philosophy of worship is concerned singularly with Truth in the Bible. Our lives are supposed to be lived as worship to God, not just the songs we sing, though songs do have their place. I am worried that some worship song writers don't have enough faith in God. There are songs we sing in church that are weak theologically and sometimes sadly to say doctrinally wrong. It is scary.
When our favorite psalmist was a boy, he sang songs to the Lord amongst his sheep. They probably were simple songs, but they were real worship songs nonetheless. Today we don't feel the need to write long verses about God. We can sing our anthems a lot quicker, but for some reason we sing a lot less, and mean even lesser. King David didn't always write long psalms, but he did communicate a lot of meaning. Each verse became biblical truth.
Rules for worship song writers
1. Worship songs must be about the identity of God. His Attributes. Who He is. What He has
done. We must give the singers of these songs a clear theologically true identity of God.
2. If one can take out the words "God" or "Father" or "Jesus" or "Christ" or "Spirit" and insert a
woman's name and turn it into a love song, then it is not a worship song.
3. The Goals of worship must be:
a. to thank God for being and for doing.
b. to fill the listener with theological truth and understanding.
4. If a writer wishes to be autobiographical in their worship song, he/she should communicate
reverently and theologically.
5. God inhabits the praises of his people. This true. If you fail to fill your song with Biblical
Truth, it is not praising to God, and it can no longer be true that God is in your song.
6. In an age where our Bible is under fire, it is increasingly important to use the exact phrases
and wording of the Bible. The Bible is Truth.
