What is Worship?
What is worship? I took a class in college called worship and this was the first question posed to us on the first day. Each of us, being Bible college students, had this nailed down of course. After all we were all studying to be worship ministers so one would hope that we knew what worship was, right? Well after 15 minutes of discussion we soon realized that worship was a bigger topic than any of us imagined. One person said worship was music. One said being lead into the throne room of God. Another stated that it was an emotional response to God. Only one thing was agreed on. We all thought worship was something different. The rest of the semester we studied different types of worship. Worship from other denominations, worship from different time periods even different parts of worship we did that we may have not originally seen as worship were all looked at. We studied different passages of scripture relating to worship and even visited churches that worshiped differently than us. When it came time for the final we still had not officially defined worship. However, when it came time for our term paper the topic was simply, “What is worship?” Again the class came up with many different answers but I know they were vastly different than the original ones. No longer were we narrowly looking at just the few minutes of singing we participated in during the beginning of service. No longer were we focusing on just the service. Worship became more than just a part of the service we participate in on Sunday morning. Worship became a way of life.
Now after graduating Bible college and having been a minister at a church I from time and time still go back and asses, what worship is. To simply think of it as corporate singing is to ignore Romans 12:1-2, “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. 2And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” Worship simply put is sacrificing yourself. One of the derivatives of the word used for worship here is used in secular greek writing to talk about the service a slave performs for his master. To offer your body as a living sacrifice is to die to all your own wants and desires, to lay aside all that is you and to serve God as a slave. This is why I get so mad at the worship wars. People fighting over petty differences of how to worship because they feel that they feel like they worshiped more because they sang in the style of music they like is not worship. First and foremost I would like to say, “WORSHIP IS NOT ABOUT YOU!” Next I would like to point out that if you are singing praise to God and not getting anything in return perhaps you are sacrificing more than if you were worshiping within your preference. If this is true then worship becomes less and less limited to sunday morning. Not only is worship singing, taking communion, giving of offerings and tithes, and listening to a sermon. Worship is going home, mowing your neighbor’s yard passing out soup at a homeless shelter, holding your tongue when you want to explode at someone who is frustrating you and so much more.
What do you think? I want to leave this post open ended after all I’m still figuring out what worship is myself. So if you have ideas of what worship is, or you want to be held accountable for some way you want to sacrifice yourself this week don’t be afraid leave a comment.
Till next week, keep the fires burning. The Match
