I have been meaning to write a sequel to my last post on “True worship." After reading Donald Miller’s post about why he doesn’t attend church, I am finally ginning in.
First, I get Miller. We don’t need to sing songs as an act of worship. That was what my first post was about. We can worship God in a multitude of ways. We should be able to worship God in everything we do.
I specifically appreciate how Miller says that he experiences God the most through his business. At my first regional staff conference as a staff worker with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, which is approaching nine years ago, our main speaker, author Gordon Smith stated one quote that we bring up every year. “Our work is the primary place of our discipleship.” As a new staff worker, that was a necessary proverb for me as I though about this new vocation I was entering. But more importantly, I wanted to make sure that the artists and engineers I would be be ministering to for the next decade also knew this truth as well. What you spend a majority of your waking hours doing week to week is of spiritual importance and possibly the most significant way God wants to connect with you. It matters what you do.
But what about Sunday mornings? As someone like Miller who doesn’t always connect with God through song, I often wondered why we don’t just play a game of football instead of singing songs. Why not bake cookies? Why not take a walk in the park? Whatever we do is worship if we do it for God.
And we could do those things. If we are doing it for God, its worship. The main difference about how you worship all week compared to what you do on a Sunday morning is that you are worshipping in community. What is great about Sunday is that we hear the word of God together and we declare praises of him... together. The togetherness is the important part. We are worshipping as one church, one body. The rest of the week you get to worship by yourself any way you want to - as long as its true worship. But when we gather, it is not about you and how you personally connect to God but about the body, the people of God communicating with our Creator.
A lot of worship leaders get it wrong though. The lights are turned way down so we don’t see each other. We are then told, “Don’t pay attention to the person next to you.” "This is between you and God.” “Sing like you are the only one here.” “Pretend like its just you and God.”
But its not just you and God. Its not supposed to be just you and God. If it was just you and God, you could have stayed home and it would have been just you and God. Its about all of us, together, AND God. It is about how we approach God as one community.
Some scientists now say that when people sing together, both their brain waves and heart beats actually synchronize. Maybe that is why musical worship is our predominant chosen form of communal worship. We become one as we sing to God. We are one as we connect with God. That’s why we worship together. Its the togetherness in worship is what we do on Sunday mornings is all about.
