What is Worship?

I recently attended a Praise Team orientation at our local church.  We sang together, reviewed our corporate 'policy' of blended worship and what that means, and spent some time considering this post's title question.

What is worship? What is real worship?

One of my greatest concerns is the movement calling anything to do with music "worship," taking the offering and then having a 'time of worship', or participating in 'worship' and then listening to a message. I dreadfully fear we are missing the point sometimes. It may seem like a matter of semantics but I try to watch for this in my own life and ministry by referring to the group I work with as a "Praise Team" as opposed to a Worship Team.

Why bother? What's the big deal?

Jon playing the Harp as unto the Lord in the City of David

Well, I think we are missing out when we relegate worship to the sad few minutes of singing we do as a corporate body of believers. If this is all worship is, then the worship we are offering is unworthy of so great a God. Think about it, if this is how we define worship, we are giving God a sparse few minutes out of our week. Worship must be more.

So what is worship?

As we considered this question, here is my suggested definition of worship:

Worship is ascribing worth to something or someone 

and is expressed through thoughts, emotion, and willful acts and language 

affecting every resource at one's disposal.

One of the things I realized in this exercise was that I need to choose to worship God all the time! God has wired us and all of creation to worship (Psa. 19) all the time. Not a moment goes by when I am not worshiping something or someone. I need to make sure the focus of my worship remains where it belongs - on our Almighty, Creator-Redeemer God day-by-day and even moment-by-moment.

What are your thoughts about worship?

How would you define worship? Do you have anything to add to the definition above?

Please leave a comment and stay tuned for the next installment as I consider Real Worship exploring the practical, far-reaching implications of worship.

Jonathan Ward Copyright 2010. All Rights Reserved