Itsara

I have some more thoughts on worship that will probably take up a couple of posts, though I don’t expect these to be consecutive. This first one is from some thoughts I wrote down a while ago while I was still worship pastor at Coast.

What is worship? Technically, it is the love, honor, adoration, devotion, and esteem that we apply to something. And it is the physical acts that prove these feelings towards that focus.

But what does that mean practically? For example, when someone worships a celebrity, what do they do? They watch everything the celebrity does. They learn as much as they can about them. If the celebrity actually asked them to do something, they would do it gratefully and without question.

A better example is how I worship my wife. I will follow her wherever she goes. I will learn as much as I can about her by spending time with her and talking with her. I will try to be with her as much as possible. I will serve her when she asks, and I will serve her when she doesn’t ask. I will constantly tell her how beautiful she is and how much I love her.

It’s relatively easy to see how this applies to our worship of God. In order to worship God, we spend time with Him in prayer. We learn as much about Him as possible by reading the Bible and listening to others who also worship Him and have perhaps learned things that we haven’t. When He calls us to do something, we do it immediately and without question. We do other things for Him that we know He likes, even if He doesn’t specifically ask us to - like give to the poor, love and pray for the sick, care for those who are hurting around us, and so on. We constantly tell Him how beautiful and wonderful and awesome He is and how much we love Him and are thankful for Him. We can do this last one in music, but we do it in many other forms as well. This is what it means to worship God.

So where does musical worship come into all of this? I thought it was interesting that the dictionary definitions of worship did not mention music anywhere and yet we often use the word “worship” to mean solely the musical part of our church service. Music is a part of what worship can be, but it is not the whole and it is certainly not the most important part. Foundationally, worship occurs when an individual’s heart is turned towards God and focused on Him alone, and music is but one expression of that.

And yet there’s something about music. Songs of praise have been around since the beginning of history. Music is somehow universal. It moves us and touches us in ways that mere words cannot. Poetry, painting, dancing, and other art forms also do this in different ways. Even in Thailand, where I do not yet speak the language, I’ve found it is easy to attract people when I’m singing or playing guitar or drawing. There is something universally attractive about art, and music in particular.

But when we worship musically, it should be something that is overflowing from our heart to our lips and into the air, where it can be heard by all that we worship, love, and adore our God. It should not be something that we have to do because it is demanded of us, nor should it be something that we do to entertain ourselves. Musical worship can be entertaining, but that is not the focus nor should it be. In the next post on this topic, I’ll continue to talk about how this applies to leading musical worship.