It’s very BIblical–and it was exactly what the Israelites did in Ezra’s day. They came back to worship. They came and worshiped God’s way. They came to the altar. They came with offerings and observations.  It’s very Biblical–but it’s rarely the substance of converstaions I have about worship.  Do you want to guess the main topic of most of my conversations on worship? I’ll give you a hint: Can you name that tune in 3 notes?

When I’m in a conversation about worship it’s usually about music, and I believe the heart of it is pretty simple–do I like or dislike the “worship” music.  Does it fit my personal musical tastes? Now I’ll be the first (please don’t make me the last) to confess that I sometimes express it with a little more piety. I’ll say the music was or wasn’t “worshipful.” Of course what’s worshipful is highly subjective to everyone except God Himself.  And as I’ve discovered lately, so is the distinction between “worship” and “performance.”  This last week, I heard two different people speaking about music in the same service. One felt that it was too “performance oriented” and the other said it was “most worshipful.”  Much of this has been discussed ad nauseum in what has come to be called the “worship wars.” Questions like, What kind(s) of music (and instruments) are appropriate for the worship of God?  Are certain styles of music “worldly” and others “sacred?” And especially, Who gets to decide which music we will have in our church and why?  I doubt those battles are over–and maybe they will never be (this side of glory).  But I am afraid if we are not careful, we can become casualties of the real “worship war.”

Here’s the struggle: God is after a life of worship for each of us. I read the passage on Sunday from Romans 12:1, where the apostle calls us to present ourselves to God a living sacrifice . . . which is our reasonable service or service of worship–giving ourselves continually to God as living sacrifices, transformed in our thinking and AWAKE to His will in the world (Romans 12:2).  Unfortunately we tend to turn this service of worship–which takes up our entire life, into a worship service–which takes up about an hour a week (depending on the preacher).  When we do that, it puts a lot of weight on that hour and the 20 minutes of music contained therein.  If that hour is a person’s sole worship experience for the week, no wonder we argue so much for “our music.”

The service of worship in our lives incorporates our minds in understanding, our strength in service, our souls in wonder and our spirits in praise; and it doesn’t even take a song to do this. It does take my mind on God and my whole being focused in His direction.  Maybe it’s even possible to do all this while doing everything else we normally do.  Could that be what it means to do everything we do to the glory of God (Colossians 3:17). 

It’s our life, a “service of worship,” and not a “worship service,” that defines what it means to come back to worship.  If we have truely come back to worship, we see our entire life as an act of worship.  That being the case, 20 minutes of worship music, though important, is probably not worth fighting over. (unless it’s bluegrass–I really don’t like that  

blessings,

greg