Let's Talk About Worship (pt. 1)

This is probably going to be a several part post… I’m not sure what you call that… not sure what the plural for blog post is… Maybe “posts” or “posti”….  In any case, there’s more than just one post in all this.

So, Let’s talk about Worship…

What is this thing we call worship? This thing we “do” called worship? This thing that people seem to keep passing articles around my Facebook feed about?

Worship…

It seems like a simple word. It seems like it should be a simple answer. And really, it kinda is.

There is something innate inside everyone of us to respond to things we sense or feel are greater than we are. We naturally respond to the things that excite us, that we feel are worthy of our attention, or our affection, or our admiration. We continually pour out our feelings and joys and express our emotions toward ideas, or philosophies, or theories. And I would argue, that if we didn’t do this we wouldn’t be human… So, this natural response is something that makes us human…  Because we’re human, we are wired to respond…

Much like a dog naturally barks, and a cat naturally meows, and a camel naturally chews cud and spits, and an elephant…. does whatever an elephant does… So too, we as humans naturally respond to the things that we find worthy of our response. And this response is what we call worship… 

A guy named Louie Giglio has taught about worship pretty extensively for the past couple of decades. Louie is the founder of an organization, known as the Passion Movement, and more recently started a church in Atlanta, GA called Passion City Church. Louie defines worship as: 

“Worship is my response to God 

for who He is and what He has done; 

expressed in and by the things I say 

and the way I live.”

If we use this definition as our basis for discussion, then the first thing we see is that worship is, in fact, a response. We’ll discuss a little more about that in a bit, but I want to jump ahead to point 2 and then we’ll come back to 1.  If the first thing we see about worship is that it is a response, it begs the question: Response to what? Well, that leads us to point #2… it’s a response to God. So, the first 2 things we learn about worship is that it is 1) a response and 2) it is about GOD. Giglio says it is “my response to God for who He is and what He has done…” So ultimately, Worship is my response to God. And that response is all about Him… It is my response to all that He has done, and will do. It is my response to how I see Him, what I learn about Him, and all I know of Him. It’s a response about Him, GOD.

You may be reading all this and asking, “Well that all sounds good, but does the Bible back this up?” Well, I’m glad you asked… 

I want you to take a minute to read Acts 17:16-34…

Did you see what happened? Paul went into Athens and saw all this great response of worship… Apparently, the Athenians were great worshippers. It’s said that in Athens there was this great hall known as the Parthenon. Originally build to honor the Greek god Athena, over time it came to be known for all gods to whom people worshipped. The people of Athens were great responders. In fact, they had gods for just about everything you can think of: A god of weather, a god of the sky, a god of the water, a god of fertility, a god of wealth, a god of health, etc… They worshipped just about anything and everything. In fact, they had so many gods, they even had a god for the unknown… Just in case you didn’t have a god to worship, you could worship this god.

So, Paul seeing all this, tells the Athenians how good they are at worship… He tells them they respond well. They understood they had to respond to the gods they viewed as bigger than themselves. The only problem is, they are responding to the WRONG gods… The one, and only One they should be responding to and worshipping is Almighty God, Yahweh - the One who created it all…everything we see and have.

So we learn from this passage, again, that worship is a response and it is about God.

Now let’s go back and talk about point 1, real quick… We naturally respond to the things that we sense are worthy of our attention and our affection. We are wired to respond… Much like the Athenians responded to so many gods, we too respond to many things… But take note, just as the Athenians worshipped the wrong gods, we too can worship the wrong gods when we give our attention and our affections to things that are not the One True GOD, Yahweh. Because true worship is a Response to GOD, if my response is to anything else, it can still be worship, it’s just not the right god. We call this worshipping a false God. The response is true, but the god is not (but that is a discussion for next time).

So, the first things we learn when we start talking about worship is that worship is 1) a response and 2) it is about GOD.

Well…  if worship is a response, what’s yours?

Stay Tuned... 

J.

Stay Tuned for More…

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged…. well… anything. I’m not sure why. Just busy I guess…. and to be honest, there’s so much I’d like to say, but it’s hard to figure out just what will be a good topic to discuss and what not. You know I like to write things that really make me think… things that (I hope) will make others think. So, with that, I think I’ve found something to discuss a point of view and hopefully it will make you think too…

As of late, I’ve seen a lot of talk about worship over social media. Whether on Facebook or Twitter or blogs or online articles. Everyone I’ve seen tries to explain why worship in churches is changing or declining, or Why people should use one style of worship verses another, or why people don’t sing anymore or Why you should or shouldn’t do music that is “too churchy” versus only good, deep theological songs, or should you allow children in worship or not?…. and the list goes on and on and on…

While, I enjoy reading the various opinions and views of those who write these posts, I try not to engage with them too much. You’d think as one in the worship leading line of work, I would enjoy or even welcome the exchange of thought. But usually I just try to remain quiet on it all. I find that too many opinions seem to bog us down as people… Then it all becomes camps… If you believe this, then you’ll be in this camp. But if you believe this, then you have to be in this camp… And well… It just all gets old real quick for me.

Well, I guess you can say, I feel like I’ve remained silent long enough. So, I thought I would throw my voice out there with the masses. And maybe you won’t agree or you see things a different way, and I suppose you’re entitled to that. I mean, if we can’t have a little healthy discourse, then we’ll never grow as people. I will do my best to share with you my view and limited understanding of this grand subject… And while I can’t promise I will have all the answers wrapped up in pretty bows, I will share with you the best I can what I’ve learned, what I see, and what I understand from God’s Word about this thing we call worship…

So,  Stay tuned for more…

J.