When you hear the word worship, what comes to mind? When I hear the word worship, I automatically think of singing and praying. But worship is so much more. In his book Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster writes this about worship, "It is God who seeks, draws, persuades. Worship is the human response to the divine initiative. Forms and rituals do not produce worship, nor does the disuse of forms and rituals. We can use all the right techniques and methods, we can have the best possible liturgy, but we have not worshiped the Lord until spirit touches spirit."
In John 4, Jesus is in a conversation with a Samaritan woman about what is worship. She asks Jesus where the proper place is to worship. Listen to how Jesus responded.
“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know;we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” ~John 4:21-24
So what does it mean to worship in the Spirit and in truth? Worship is more than rituals and forms. It is more than singing and praying. Worship involves our whole being— body, mind, spirit, and emotion. So what does it look like to worship?
In order to better understand the discipline of worship, I decided this week to have a quiet Saturday evening. That meant I did not play any video games, go on facebook, or watch television. Instead I choose to read the Scripture passage that the sermon was going to be based on and went to bed on time. I also chose to cultivate a holy dependency which means that I was completely dependent upon God for anything significant to happen.
Practicing worship may seem like an easy discipline to do but I discovered that it wasn’t that easy. First having a quiet Saturday evening was very unique. Normally my Saturday nights are busy and noisy so to be intentional about not going on facebook or watching television or playing video games was difficult. It left me with a sense of emptiness. However, spending that time instead on reading Scripture replaced that emptiness with contentment and even joy. I looked forward to Sunday morning to see what God would teach me.
On Sunday morning, God taught me a unique lesson on what it means to be the body of Christ. Rather than sitting through the sermon, I walk out to get a drink of water fully intending to return to the service. But I notice one of my students from youth group who looked concerned and discouraged. So I walked over to him and we ended up having a great discussion on what it means to be the church and what is true worship. While I did miss the rest of the service, I knew in the deepest part of my being that what I was doing was worshiping God even though it wasn’t in the traditional setting.
