The Religious Nerd

What is worship?:

What comes to your mind when you hear the word “worship” ?  I bet most of you immediately think of musical worship that starts off the Sunday morning service at the church you call home.  Depending on what type of church you attend (Pentecostal, Lutheran, Baptist, Non Denominational, etc) the geographic region you attend church in (Seattle, Everett, Texas, China, Russia) and the culture you are from (Slavic, American, Korean,etc) you will likely have differing perspectives of how worship should be done.

Emotion:

Some churches offer a highly emotionally themed worship session where people are dancing around, jumping, with their hands held high in the air.  Other churches are the exact opposite where the worship portion of the service is highly liturgical and somber with theologically rich hymns read uniformly and in a monotone voice. If you are like me you attend a church that has a worship style that is somewhere in between these two ends of the spectrum. Half the people have their hands raised into the air and proudly sing the songs with all their might, while the other half stand in silence with their arms dangling down motionless.

Culture:

If you attend an American church in the Seattle area you will likely discover a worship team dressed in jeans and t-shirts playing guitars, drums, and a variety of other instruments.  The lights will be dimmed, and depending on the churches budget there will likely be a variety of other media devices used to create a concert like atmosphere. The “band” will usually play 4-5 songs, most of which you have heard at one point or another on the local Christian radio station.  Once the band is done leading worship, the lights will be turned up, and the pastor will come onto the stage to present his sermon. The musical portion lasts for around 20 minutes, and the entire service lasts for around 1 hour total.

If you attend a traditional Slavic church in the Seattle area you will likely see a choir consisting of both men and women, ages varying from early teens the upper 60’s, who are dressed conservatively in black and white and sit on the stage the entire length of the church service. They usually sing a hymn or two, followed by a sermon, or a prayer session, followed by another hymn sung by the choir and another sermon given by a different preacher on a different topic.  The process repeats itself several times throughout the length of the service. The musical portion of the service lasts for upwards of 1 hour, and the entire service lasts for upwards of three hours depending on the church.

To many, culture plays an important part in worship, and people often find themselves distracted with this perspective.

Nit picking:

If you are like me, you have gone to church and analyzed the heck out of the Sunday morning process.  Is the music too loud? Are the songs too mainstream?  Are there too many songs? Is it too dark in the room? Is the worship team wearing appropriate clothes? Is it Too hot in the building? Too cold? Too long? Too short? Not a good greeting when entering the building? Pastor wasn’t funny? Pastor was too funny? Pastor wore a suit? Pastor wore a t-shirt (blasphemy!) And on, and on, and on it goes.

To be frank, most of the time people can’t look past this issue.  If the music is too loud, they don’t go to the church anymore.  They end up watching sermons in their pajamas at home. If the sermon is too long, they leave church early.  If the pastor didn’t wear a suit, they send him a nasty email telling him he needs to. Their entire worship experience is destroyed by trivial aesthetic and acoustic grievances   They are so focused on their own personal experience that they forget what Worship is really about: God.

What the bible says:

Forget about music for a minute and consider this: worship is not an event that only occurs once a week on a Sunday morning musically.  Worship is to be done every single moment of our lives until we are called home to be with the Lord. Consider these wise words from one of my churches pastors, Rev.Mark Barrett:

The New Testament word for worship is proskuneo, which simply means “to kiss toward or in the direction of, to prostrate oneself, to kiss the hand of”.  The idea of worship is that one prostrates himself before a superior being with a sense of awe, reverence, homage and respect.  In a Christian context, simply apply this to God and prostrate ourselves before Him in respect and honor, paying Him the glory due his superior character and nature… If you attend church for what you can get, you’ve missed the point of church.  When we gather together to worship the Lord, our focus is to be on Him, rendering to Him that which is His due.  Worship is a consuming desire to give to God, and it involves the giving of ourselves, our heart attitudes,  and our resources and possessions.

Get Your Priorities Right:

We need to get over ourselves! Worship isn’t about what God and the local church has to offer us.We need to stop obsessing about how loud the music is, or what clothes the people on the stage are wearing. We have to start thinking about how we can live in a way that worships Him every moment of the day! (Psalm 29:2, Psalm 95:6-7, John 4:23-24, Heb 12:28-29, 1 Cor 10:31).

I encourage you to look up all of these verses and think about whether or not you have been worshiping God in a Biblical way and where your mind was today at Church.