What is Worship?
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What is Christian worship?
You may try to answer that question with how you worship. “I worship by singing with a praise band and lifting my arms high in the air.” “I worship by singing from a hymnal with an organ and choir.” I worship by listening to the sermon given by my pastor.” “I worship by…” fill in the blank. You may try to answer the question with where or when or with who, and I think all of these answers offer a piece of what Christian worship is—but only a piece.
How do you worship? So many people worship in so many different ways, and if I were to try to list them all this would be a very long and boring blog post. So I invite you to think of the worship service at your own church and how many different ways of worship there are in a single service—from singing to sermons to giving and everything in between. I believe each of these things are and aren’t worship at the same time. More specifically, I would call these things elements of worship, or methods of worship. The thing itself is not worship, but it allows us to worship. In other words, I can worship through song or through giving, but I can also sing and give without worshiping at all. The goal of these elements, and why they are present in so many worship services, is to act almost like a path to guide us into worship, an invitation to worship.
Where do you worship? You may immediately think of your church worship service, after all it has worship in the name! However, I think that limits the boundaries of worship. I believe worship can and should take place everywhere, simply because God is present everywhere. In our homes as we see God’s love in the faces and actions of those people we call family. At work as we see God’s provision not only in what we receive, but what we give to others. On vacation as we see God’s beauty in the natural wonders of creation, and the faces of the people we meet. In the hospital as we see God’s healing for the sick, and continual presence for those in mourning. God is everywhere, and so too is worship.
Who should we worship with? We can and should worship God alone. It is important to be able to worship through our own relationship with our creator. We should also worship in community, where we can bring our offerings of worship, whatever they may be, together as one combined voice. We should worship in diversity, where many different offerings of worship serve to make our worship song more beautiful and interesting. We should worship God both with those in and outside of the church, because God is present to us all.
So what then is Christian worship? Richard Foster calls it the “human response to the divine initiative.” God created each of us. God loves each of us. God strengthens, guides, supports, calls out to each of us. Worship is a response to what God did and does and will do. Worship is the response to what God did and does and will do. But I think worship is also more than that. In “Seeking the Face of God,” Dr. Daniel Day describes worship as both “seeking and responding.” Not only is worship the response to all that God has done and is doing, it is also actively seeking God. Relationships require both initiative and response, and seeking is our initiative. Worship is a relational act.
Put another way, I think the best way to describe worship is as an emotion—an emotion reserved for God alone. Think of how I have described worship. Worship is response. Worship is seeking. Worship involves action. Worship is relational in nature. All of these things also describe an emotion. Take love for example. Love can be described as a response, or as seeking, or as both. Often love involves action, and love is formed through relationship. The difference is I can love both God and people. I am expected to love both God and people. But I cannot worship both God and people, just God. So when I think of worship, I think of it as that one specific emotion I have for no one else but God.