Worship Theology

This is something I wrote almost a year ago. Enjoy


Humans were created to Worship God. I am a human, and therefore exist to give glory to my creator. Now the method of achieving this purpose changed somewhat over the course of my life. As a kid I thought that praise and worship was something we did in Sunday school. When I had grown a little older I began to realize that it was much more than that. It was a way of life. At some point before I entered middle school I started to think about how I worshiped God. In High school I thought I had figured it put, and when I entered college I began to question the effectiveness of my attempts at doing this. I realized that the ways in which Christians can praise God extends far beyond my own methods to worship.

For much of my life I frowned on liturgical styles of worship. I looked at churches that used liturgies and criticized them for using tradition and ceremony as a means of avoiding an encounter of God. I would look at the prayers they read and ask how they could possibly use words written by someone else as a means of telling God what they wanted or felt. Then at some point this last semester I realized that I used prayers written by people I would never meet to intensely worship and encounter God. I call them praise songs. My critiques of liturgy came from a lack of understanding of what it meant, and the assumption that my style of praise was the right one.

Until last fall I had never attended a liturgical service. When I did it was an Eastern Orthodox service, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I found that the icons, incense, chanting, and liturgies made it easy for me to focus on the holiness of God. My mind that is so easily distracted could find no means of avoiding the message of God’s sanctity. This last semester I was able to learn the symbolism and meaning beyond some of the specific acts that are performed at these services. Understanding what was going on made the impact of the service so much deeper. I realized that I am not comfortable with things I am not familiar with with, and so I made false assumptions about the forms of worship I was not used to.

I have realized over these past months how important it is for us to understand what we do in church. Many of the songs my generation is familiar with are easy enough to comprehend, but they become so much sweeter on my lips when I realize what is behind the words. The stories of why an author wrote the words they did give the songs meaning beyond what the average worshipper may perceive. The song Amazing Grace was written by a man who dealt in the slave trade. When I learned his story I began to see how deeply he must have felt about the words he wrote. Liturgy can be the same way.

Communion is a form of liturgy, at least to me. Most Christians that have been attending church on a regular basis know the meaning behind it. At the last supper Jesus explained to his disciples that he was about to die for the sins of all mankind. Then he told how the bread represents his body and the wine his blood, then Christ gives the instruction for us to take the communion meal as a means of remember his life and the sacrifice he paid for us. Without this understanding, communion is just grape juice and stale crackers. Once I began to understand that most liturgies have a deep and powerful meaning behind them I started to like them and appreciate them for what they were; Acts of worship and expression of our lo0ve for God.

Much of what I have come to believe about worship and how we should do it comes from my belief that it is not how we worship God that matters, but why. The ways in which individual believers give God praise varies depending on the person. Everyone is created uniquely to reflect God’s perfection. No two people are the same. It then stands to reason that the ways in which we worship God are as also diverse. The circumstances someone is in can also affect how they choose to praise God. Where a believer is, how old they are, how they are feeling, and who they are with someone all influence what style of worship is most appropriate for their situation. Not all worship is done through ceremony, corporate praise, or within the church walls. In fact I would make the case that most of our offerings to God should take place away from church buildings during everyday life.

Within Christian culture there are disagreements on how we should glorify God. Some denominations insist that a capella songs are appropriate since the New Testament church sang that way. Others claim that the Holy Spirit must show up and manifest itself in the church through spiritual gifts, specifically the gift of tongues. some want loud, care free singing that uses multiple instruments and closely resembles a rock concert. And there are many other forms of praise and worship that a denomination or congregation may feel is more holy than other forms. My opinion is that the best way to worship God is the one that allows for a Christian to express themselves with honesty . If liturgy allows me to tell God how great He is, I should praise him with liturgy. If singing classical hymns enables a believer to see God’s glory, they should sing Him a Hymn. If silent meditation, thinking on what God is doing in your life or how awesome He is, draws your focus to Him, then do that. True worship is less about the method and more about the meaning.

Throughout the course of my life I have gotten the opportunity to participate in prayer meetings, Bible studies, Christian rock concerts, revival tent meetings, personnel struggles, played on sports team, and had many relationships with close friends and family. All of these were opportunities to give God glory. In some of these situations I was more successful at accomplishing this than others, but all of them gave equal opportunity to glorify God. We were not made to praise Jesus only when at church or while around other Christians. I believe that God desires for us to be praising him every second of our lives. However we are all sinners and do not follow His will perfectly, because of this some of our worship is repentance. Admitting that we have sinned and asking forgiveness invites God to begin to heal us, and restore us to where we are supposed to be. There exists no circumstance in which the opportunity to worship is completely removed from us.

Worship is not meant to be kept behind church doors. If a Christian’s praise is limited to only their time spent at Christian gathering, they do God a great injustice. He wants all of us. When I look at everything that he has done for man, from creation and the Garden of Eden, to His covenant with Abraham, to the laws given to Moses, His shepherding over the nation of Israel, up to the coming of Jesus I see the action of a God that wants to be involved in our daily lives. IN the time of the Tabernacle and the temple it may be true that God’s presence was most seen when he appeared in the Mercy Seat at the time of sacrifices, but the offerings themselves were in response to the sins of he Hebrews done outside of the temple in their daily lives. He is concerned about what we do with every moment of our time, so every moment of our time we should be concerned about pleasing Him. Which is another way of say giving Him praise.

Most of the time we hear someone talking about praise and worship, we Christians tend to refer back to pleasant experiences, or something that God has done which makes us happy. Jesus loves to share in our joys, but I am left wondering what happens to our opinions on praise when things go to hell in a hand basket. Some of the times on my life when I have most honesty expressed my love and appreciation for God have been some of the lowest points in my life. When things get hard or are situations are far beyond our ability to control, it is not easy to sit down and tell God how thankful we are for Him allowing us to be where we are. When we are honest with Him about what we are feeling, expressing our confusion and pain we are admitting our own weakness and need for His strength. Troubled times give us the ability to tell God how great He is despite our circumstances. Like in the book of Job, or when Jesus was praying in the garden of Gethsemane. God made us. He knows that we will not always feel like telling Him how wonderful He is, but He still wants us to acknowledge Him as lord over our lives.

Christian worship is so much more than Sunday mornings singing and sermons. It is our call to live our lives in ways that are pleasing to God. Acts of evangelism, helping the poor, forgiving those who hurt us, denying ourselves and refusing sin, hurting with those among us who hurt, celebrate our individual gifts, follow God’s commands, caring for our family, and anything done as an act of love is what we are called to do. If what we do is centered on and driven by love for our father it is a form of worship. We can be misguided and wrong in what we do, but He is capable of correcting us and moving us closer to Him and within his will. That’s why we call Him God. Proverbs 3:5-6 says “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.(NRSV)” I understand these words to say that if our goal is to honor God in what we do, even if we don’t do it right, he can and will use and accept it as worship.



More to Come,
Jed