Faithful Worship: Impractical Worship

There have been many times that I attended a church worship service and gotten just what I needed. The stresses and challenges of the preceding week had been just about overwhelming. I went to church, expressed my worries to God during the worship service, and walked away feeling refreshed.

Other times, I have attended a church worship service and gotten more than what I needed. The preceding week had been uplifting and encouraging. Life was enjoyable and I felt like things were under control. I went to church, expressed gratitude to God during the worship service, and walked away on a spiritual “high.”

With that said, there have been other times when I worshiped and felt nothing. There was no spiritual pick-me-up to get me through the coming challenges. I left church having to trust that God would see me through the difficulties even though I didn’t get a warm-fuzzy feeling in the church service. Other times, I knew I had been blessed, expressed heartfelt gratitude to God through worship, and felt nothing in return. I left the worship service feeling as if I had put a lot of energy into a heartfelt “thank you” and God didn’t have the courtesy to say the obligatory, “You’re welcome.”

So what do we do with that? What do we do when we worship and walk away feeling nothing spiritually? Well, I want to propose that we keep doing it anyway. My opinion: I think it is important to worship God through the best of times and the worst of times, through sickness and health, when we feel spiritually high and when we feel spiritually low. My reason: Christian worship is an issue of faithfulness and not practicality.

Christians worship God because it is part of the faithful life. We do not worship because we get something out of the action. We worship God because God is the ultimate “end-all-be-all” and it is totally appropriate to declare the ultimate worth of that “end-all-be-all.” Christians worship God because worshiping God is right and good. Again, we do it to be faithful.

This might be hard to understand in our hyper-consumerist world. Everywhere we go and everything we do is built to give us something. We go to work to get paid and, hopefully, some fulfillment out of the job. We watch movies to be entertained, get our mind off of work, and relax. We go to the grocery store to…well…get groceries. The list goes on and on. All of these activities are fine and dandy, but they are practical activities. We do such activities with our desired end in mind. In other words, we do them in order to get what we need or want out of the action.

Christian worship, in contrast, does not begin with our desired end in mind. It is not practical. We worship God as an end in and of itself. Warm fuzzy feelings are not a commodity that we “get” out of the God dispenser. Therefore, we worship in order to be faithful.

So let me challenge you today. Regardless if you feel a spiritual “high” or not, be faithful in your worship. Let your worship be an expression of your gratitude simply because you are grateful. Let your worship be an expression of your obedience, simply because you are obedient. Let your worship be an expression of your discipleship simply because you are one of Jesus’ disciples. If I know anything, I know this: Jesus is worth it.

Expressions of Worship

Every weekend our church sings songs to begin our worship services. Many times we clap along to the music. Some raise their hands. Every week we close our worship services with a song and people come to the front of the sanctuary to take communion. Many people get on their knees during this time. To some folks such actions might appear odd or they might wonder, “Why are they doing that in church?” Well, I would respond in suggesting that such physical expressions are actually a part of Christian worship. Physical expressions are actually intricately connected to the ideas or beliefs we communicate in a worship service.

I think that, sometimes, people understand Christian worship as an entirely intellectual exercise. As the church sings songs, we reflect on the spiritual implications of the lyrics. As the church recites scripture, we mentally wrestle with the intellectual ideas being proposed. As we listen to the sermon, we try to cognitively grasp the idea being presented and “understand” it. This is all wonderful and I would argue that such activities are a vital part of experiencing Christian worship. But I would also suggest that they are not the only part of our worship experience.

Psalm 95 begins by saying, “Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation…” Six verses later, it continues, “come let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our maker.” I find it interesting that the author of this Psalm encourages the faith community to sing as well as kneel before the Lord. Now, I am sure the writer is not suggesting that the only correct way to sing praise to the Lord is by getting on one’s knees. But the writer might be suggesting that the worshiper’s physical posture is connected to the worshiper’s spiritual posture. In other words, a good way to better understand and express humility is to physically express humility by kneeling. The author of this Psalm might be hard pressed to find an audience if writing, “Come let us worship in humility, look angry and shake your fist in the air defiantly.” It seems that what we do physically is interwoven with our ideas and beliefs.

So, when we clap our hands or raise our hands in our worship service, those gestures can actually be a part of our reflection on the words. Kneeling when taking communion may actually be THE reflection OF the words. If we really, truly feel that “the joy of the Lord is our strength,” hearty hand clapping might be warranted. If we really, truly believed that our Lord’s body was broken and His blood was spilt for us, wouldn’t kneeling at least be an option? Why in the world would our reflections on the joy, hope, humility, grace, love, forgiveness, and mercy of God Almighty be divorced from physical expression? It is hard to believe a person who says that the joy of the Lord is their strength when they have an angry scowl on their face!

As we worship together as a community and people clap their hands, raise their hands, or get on their knees in prayer, may we understand that their physical expressions are one way of reflecting their attitude of worship. Let me borrow from the lyric of “Holy is the Lord.” When we sing “we stand and lift up our hands,” may our raised hands proclaim an attitude of surrender to the Lord. When we sing, “we bow down and worship Him now,” may our knees bend in awe of our Infinite Creator. When we sing, “for the joy of the Lord is our strength,” may the clapping of hands be an authentic overflow of our joy in Christ!

A Case for Going to Church

The last post spent a little time discussing the importance of living a lifestyle of worship. I tried to emphasize that a Christian can worship Jesus Christ in acts of service and faithfulness everyday – whether that is caring for the poor, the beauty of creation, et cetera. After reflecting on that you might be wondering, “So what is the point of going to church?” I mean, our church family did a lot of “going to church” during the last week (Easter Week). We had eight different worship services over the course of nine days. This might lead you to ask, “What’s all the fuss about. We can do that all the time!” Well, let me make a case for the importance of worshiping God in church.

First, worship in church communicates that God is worthy of praise just because God is God. When we come together as a community for weekend worship services, those worship times have one (and only one) purpose: communicating the end-all-be-all worth of God. There is no other goal, no other agenda. God is told through every activity that God is the most valuable (worthy) thing in our lives. Where caring for the poor glorifies God because God is in the midst of the poor (Matthew 25), the Christian worship service worships God because God is. There is no other agenda. God is not worshiped because acts of service are taking place. God is not honored because wonderful things are being accomplished. God is worshiped because God deserves it. This activity is good in and of itself.

Second, worship in church gives us the opportunity to glorify God together. Much of our world emphasizes our individualism. We can customize just about everything to fit our personal wants, needs, dreams, desires, et cetera. We can put together a paragraph just to order a coffee: vente, non-fat, half-calf, 200 hundred degree, one pump, sugar free, vanilla latte. Even in our devotional lives, we use terms like “personal devotions” or “prayer closet.” Such phrases might be undergirded with the assumption that connecting with God involves some type of withdrawal from other people. This is not the case with worship in church. In church we get the chance to worship together. Once a week we have the opportunity to say, “For this hour or two, we as a community are going to center ourselves on God in Jesus Christ. We are going to tell God that God is of the highest, end-all-be-all value in our lives.” We can do this all the time as individuals (as stated in the previous blog), but we only get to worship once a week together!

Third and finally, worshiping God (1) as an end, (2) in community, empowers us to live a lifestyle of worship. Because we weekly join together as a community to place worth where worth is due (God), we have the right focus for the rest of our lives. Christians have worshiped on the first day of the week for centuries. This practice allows us to keep “first things first.” We proclaim God’s ultimate worth on the first day of the week. This then gives us the correct perspective for the rest of the week. So when we care for the poor on Tuesday, we are drawing on the resources of Sunday (worship). When we are gracious with the rude waiter on Friday, we are drawing on the resources of Sunday (worship). The lifestyle of Christian worship that I described in my first blog always needs, and draws upon, Christian worship in church.

A Lifestyle of Worship

If you are involved in music at the Cathedral, you have heard me promote “a lifestyle of worship” several times. I want to be clear about what I mean when I use such a phrase. So, I thought I would write some brief thoughts about the phrase in order to avoid any confusion.

Anglican Bishop Tom Wright describes worship as “acknowledging the worth of something or someone,” (Simply Christian, pg. 144). I think most Christians would agree that Christian worship is the acknowledgment of the ultimate worth of God in and through Jesus Christ. God is of ultimate, highest, undivided value.

So, when we gather in weekend worship services as a church, we sing songs to express the end-all-be-all value of God. The scriptures that we read and recite point to the end-all-be-all value of God. The words that are preached proclaim the end-all-be-all value of God. The Christian community gives its highest honor to God through various activities of worship. So, how do we make this a lifestyle when we are only in the church building a few hours a week? Should we sing a song of praise at the DMV? Should recite scripture while we mow the lawn? Maybe. The DMV offices that I have been in could certainly use it! But these are only a couple of options.

When we recognize God’s worth above all else, God’s worth can be found in many forms of our daily lives. You might call this “derivative worth.” We can worship God by delighting in, and caring for, creation. When we do so, we recognize where Creation’s worth comes from. Creation is not of ultimate worth, but creation has value because it reflects the end-all-be-all value of a marvelous Creator. Also, we can worship God by caring for the downtrodden. As Christians, we recognize that all peoples have worth regardless of what society makes of them. They are created in the image of God, right? So, we worship Christ when we care for the downtrodden because we serve the image of God in them (Read Matthew 25).

When you stop to pick up litter that is scarring a beautiful landscape, you are worshiping the Creator of the heavens and the earth. Our environment is valuable because it reflects the worth of our God. Caring for it is a way to worship. When you serve a person in need, know that you are worshiping. You are recognizing that, in spite of their circumstance, they have worth because they bear the image of God. As a result, loving that person is a way to worship God.

So today, worship like you have never worshiped before. Proclaim the worth of Christ and His character in everything you do. It is my prayer that the people in your life today (insurance agents, grocery baggers, mechanics, et cetera) will take notice and join in. Glory to God in the highest!