Go and Worship

“You know Pastor if you would sing more old songs then the church would enjoy the service more” “I don’t know why but when you play the newer songs it just gets me in the mood to worship”

I could continue with quotes like these until Christ returns. Every one of us on some level can relate to statements such as these. Some of us have actually said them. But is there any biblical precedent for this thinking? Is there anything that will cause us to worship? I really don’t know when or how we began to get a deformed view of worship, but I do know that the minute worship became something we get or somewhere we go instead of something we do, we have moved out of the biblical model of corporate worship. Bob Kaulfin said the moment we believe that if we do “X” then it will produce worship we have become idolaters.

At times I have even found myself guilty of this. For example a certain set of songs seems to work really well. The congregation is joyously worshiping and engaged in the service as a whole, the band was clicking, the service flowed well, and overall liturgy seemed to really hit the mark in focusing us on the truth and enabling us to attach emotion to that truth, and it seems as if God showed up to listen. I wish that was the result every week, but it is not. However, there is always the temptation to do those same songs in that same order in hopes that it will reproduce what took place that particular Sunday. Don’t fall for it. It never works that way.

Worship is an action. It is not something we go to it is something we go do. In fact just a quick look at the word worship in the scripture will reveal that is rarely used as a noun. Thankfully we have scripture to tell us what that looks like. It tells us what we should do. So this Sunday instead of going to worship(noun) go and worship(verb).

When I get back next week I plan on answering Jason question on clapping.