Week Four (Worship) - Sunday

Worship

It almost seems ridiculous to include worship as a holy habit for one who is a Christian.  Yet, as we look at the statistics, the majority of Americans believe in God, but roughly only 20% attend worship one or more times a week.  What is really astounding is that here in the Bible Belt, we are no different. We, at best, only have roughly 21% of our population in worship during any given week.

Maybe the problem is that we really don’t understand what the purpose of worship is.  Let’s begin our exploration of worship first by having you answer this question: “What is worship?”    

What I have been taught, worship is to give adoration to something and show that it is worthy of our reverence.  Thus with this definition, worship is not limited to God alone.  After all, we adore many things, don’t we?  We adore family, friends, and sports teams.  So, there must be different in our adoration of God.  This assumption is what is called Christian worship and it is the responsibility of every Christian to participate in.  It is crucial to understand it for what it is.  Worship is our praise and service to God.  The focus of worship must always be on God and not on ourselves.  It is for God’s pleasure, not ours.  This needs to be repeated – worship is for God’s pleasure, not ours.  But we benefit from it as well because when we truly worship God, we are blessed by God’s presence.  Our attitude when we enter into worship is directly related to how blessed we feel when we leave a worship service.

When we worship is another aspect we must consider.  Most Protestant Christians have long regarded Sunday morning at 11:00 as the proper time for church.  The reason that this time slot is so prevalent does not rest on any theological basis, but rather goes back to our history as an agrarian culture.  As our ancestors came to this new country, they realized that they had to tend the land and livestock on a daily basis.  Sunday was no exception.  Cows had to be milked and other animals had to be fed each morning.  So, when churches began to spring up through the countryside, the time that most found it best to gather to worship was after their daily chores and before lunch.  Today, however, most people no longer have the same responsibilities to tend livestock, so many churches are beginning to offer several choices of worship times.  Some churches have found that some people like to rise and worship early, while others like to sleep in late and then worship.  Some churches are even experimenting with holding worship services on Saturday night.  The time of worship is not what is important – it is the regular practice of worship that is essential.  There is an old adage that says, “Worship begins when we begin to worship.”  In other words, worship should be a lifestyle.  It should be both public and private, since we should show our adoration for God at all times.  Each should compliment and strengthen the other.

The last characteristic that we should address about worship is style.  The variety of styles of worship runs the gamut.  Just like we here in North Carolina have difference in our taste for barbeque, so we also have differences in our taste of worship.  The problems with styles of worship arise when we forget that worship is for God’s pleasure and not ours.  When this happens, we begin to emphasize our way of worship being the only proper way to worship.  Yet, it is also important to recognize that since we are all different and certain things stimulates us while other things serve only as distraction, there will always be difference in opinion over worship styles.  However we choose to worship, we should always worship in a way that serves to direct our focus towards God.  For some, this may be singing the hymns that are rich with our theology and reciting ancient creeds.  For others, it may mean singing songs that fill us with the sense of God’s presence and having all of our senses flooded with different form of media.  All forms that point worshippers towards God are valid forms of worship and must never be relegated as improper or trivial.  Worship is for God’s pleasure, not yours and not mine.


JOURNAL QUESTIONS

1. Reflect on your sermon notes and journal reading from today.


GROUP EXERCISE

10 minutes - Community Building (informal time of gathering)
10 minutes - Sharing of Concerns and Praises
  5 minutes - Prayer for One Another
30 minutes - Discussion of Topic
                     - What journal entry would you like to share?
                     - How many ways have you experienced worship?
                     - What are some of the other ways you know some people worship? Though they may 
                    not be the way we like to worship, what are some positive comments you can make                           about those forms of worship? 
                    - How important is our attitude in worship?
                    - Which do you think is more important in worship: God getting the glory or us getting 
                       spiritually fed? 
  5 minutes - Wrap Up/Closing Prayer