A modern definition

The term "worship" is so often used to describe the church service or music. How many times we have said, "that was amazing worship". But it is more than the service, music, or even the feeling we experience. 

Dictionary definition

In English it is defined as giving something or someone higher regard, dignity and honour. Yes! We do that in Church services. Our songs and focus are full of words that reflect that sentiment. But that is not the central focus of the idea.

Biblical definition

Worship in the bible is about how you live your life as a response to honouring God, not how well you sing, or how much you feel God in a church service. In short, it's not about having services to get closer to God but about service to God through our lives. We need to keep in mind that what we are doing on the stage musically or technically on AV is to help people connect with God in a way that will impact their lives. And it should be happening to us first.

Worship -  Horizontal as well as Vertical

Giving honour to God cannot be divorced from giving honour to each-other. It's a vertical and horizontal thing! Loving God and loving your neighbour as yourself is the key idea to true worship in the bible. That's why the 10 "commandments" begin with how we worship God, then it goes on to describe how we treat each other in community.

What God hates most 

God hates bad worship! In the ancient times Israel ended up missing the bulls-eye in worship. They had forgotten the horizontal part of worship! Isaiah 1v15 describes the primary problem, "your hands are full of blood", murder! Jesus interprets murder in Matthew 5 as being angry with each-other, and calling each-other worthless, looking down on another. Isaiah goes on to describe how Israel had forgotten the vulnerable among them. Israel, who followed a temple worship culture were so focussed on the ritual and in making worship a "thing" that they had forgotten each other.

Our job as worship leaders

We can miss it today. We are leading worship in the church. As we lead the congregation in musical worship we must be aware that we are also leading the silent sentiment of Honouring God AND each other. We need to encourage an  atmosphere that honours and respects each other. We must be accountable to that, just like an out of tune guitar will affect the musical harmony, so lack of love and respect in the team will be heard.

 

Some Hebrew words

We can learn from our old testament brothers and sisters what worship had become for them! They were blind to each-other. This idea is found when we look at the Hebrew word for worship... "Shakah" A word that means "bowing down", an act representing the honour you are giving. When the translators saw Shakah describing someone bowing down to God they translated it as "worship", But when they saw Shakah in an interaction with another person they translated it as "bowed down". Peel away that distinction and we see that honouring God is the same as honouring another man. If you are not honouring your neighbour you are not honouring God. And how did they become hard like this? Because they were also "worshipping" or honouring and bowing down to idols, and Psalm 115 describes how idol worshippers become like their idols, mouths that can't speak, eyes but can't see, ears that can't hear, hands that cannot feel. Those who trust in them will be like them. Callous, hard in their hearts not seeing, hearing, feeling your brother, and not feeling seeing hearing God either. Idols are the works of our hands! And that can be many things today, including our musical playing ability, or perfection of service, the building, your instrument, programmes. These things can take us further away from each-other and God. To have healthy relationships with others we need to learn how to honour the only true God, the God of Israel, the God of the bible, and to have a healthy relationship with our God we need to learn how to honour each-other. This is the main teaching that Jesus came to teach us, both by his life, at His last supper where the master became the servant, and ultimately by his death.

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This is the spirit that we must keep central to anything we are and do. And as people in a place of leading a congregation this is the atmosphere encouraged on the stage. 

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