Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Worship

Studying for our new series (worship [re]defined) coming up at Quest Church is wearing me out. The reason is I'm realizing I have a warped view of what "worship" really is. I think most of us probably do. Let's be honest - for most of us - worship is an "event" we go to. We go to a "worship service" or "worship gathering" (as we call it at our church). But is that what it is? Because when it's that, we tend to focus on the "externals" of it - the setting, the music (loud or soft, organ or guitars, hymns or contemporary praise stuff, good preaching or bad, etc.). I've been checking out the Bible this week as it pertains to worship - and do you know that there is NO PRESCRIBED WAY of doing the "external" stuff I just mentioned? None that I can find. All you'll find is the word "worship" being used to convey the idea that WE as humans are to ASCRIBE WORTH ("worship" comes from the old English "worth -ship") to GOD. It's about having an OBJECT of our affections - God. This means worship is not really an event - it's an attitude of the heart. It's love for God. It's surrender to Him.

Thank God He gets ahold of me sometimes and rocks my world. It's what I need.

2 comments:

Nathan said...

I know what you mean. Although I missed out last week, I've been doing alot of thinking about this
"new" perspective of worship. It's really flipped my idea of worship upside down. It's so cool to me to think that God is much bigger than we make Him. Not only can I worship Him at church, but I can worship Him on my drive to work, or by writing my feelings out on paper, or even a blog. Anything I can do to ascribe worth to our worthy God is worship.

joy said...

Let me worship You in the quiet of my heart,
In the stillness of my thoughts,
In the visions within my art.
Your spirit is my strength and shelter,
I’m kept safe within your grace,
Let me worship You always,
All the time, every hour, in any place.