Worship
There is quite a conversation going on over at the G Sides about the Church, politics and how much the Church (along with Christian organizations) should be involved
Rowland (former worship pastor at our church) made a good point about churches returning to and focusing on what is important. In it he said:
You wonder if so many churches are just spinning their wheels doing all the programs and even praying so hard for “the Spirit to come down”, but it never happens because they forget the basics….the poor, the destitute, the lost. Makes me think we just need to return to the basics of preaching the Gospel, Worshipping, feeding the poor, visiting prisons, etc…
Why do we separate out “worship” from those other things. “Worship” has become a euphemism for singing songs. I’m not picking on Rowland here, I do the same thing and most other people do too. I typed “worship” into the search on BibleGateway.com, only one verse actually mentioned music along with worship.
The whole assembly bowed in worship, while the singers sang and the trumpeters played. All this continued until the sacrifice of the burnt offering was completed. 2 Chronicles 29:28
A good majority of verses use some variation of the therm “bowed down and worshiped.” Several also talk about serving along with worshiping, that is, putting actions to our worship. I love music and singing praises to God and it is definitely part of worship but worship is so much more.
So Rowland wasn’t wrong but all of the things he listed are worship, not just music. We worship God by humbling ourselves before him (bowing down), and making ourselves available to be used by him, to put actions to our worship.
- Atom Feed
July 20th, 2006 at 6:56 am
I think that you’re correct about “music/singing” becoming synonymous with “worship.” I suspect it’s at least in part due to the explosion of “praise and worship music” as an industry over the last 10-15 years. Also, in part due to our description of Sunday gatherings as “worship” or “worship services”. People say “come worship with us” and they mean come to our building on Sunday.
I remember a guy at our church in Alabama a few years ago who left and came back about a year later. He came back, he said, because we “knew how to worship.” But it was clear he meant we had good “worship services”. He was a singer and I believe he was mainly speaking of the singing.
When I read Romans 12:1 - “offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God — this is your spiritual act of worship”, I don’t think of just “praise and worship music.” Like you said, there’s much more to it than that.