Sunday Worship is Practice

What is the worship part of the Sunday morning service all about?  The songs, the music, the praises; why do we do that?  For many churches, it’s getting prepared for the service, the message, the word that will be spoken.  Worship is designed to prepare our hearts; open ourselves to God.  I don’t disagree with that, and I think there’s more.  As usual, let me disclose that while I very actively seek understanding and relationship with God and Christ, I’m far from a perfect, or even a very good Christian.  I do my best, but most of the time I screw up.  That said, I have tremendous curiosity, ponder with regularity, and occasionally share perspectives that others find useful.  Maybe this is one of them…

The purpose of worship is to create closeness to God.  It’s more difficult and more useful to be able to do that outside the church than inside.

As it turns out, there are many times in life when being close to God can be a really really good thing.  One of those times is certainly when we’re in church, preparing ourselves to hear a message from the Word of God.  But I think getting close to God when we’re in church is not all that difficult.  We’re surrounded by a bunch of other people doing the same thing, reinforcing our odd behavior, and we’ve come prepared.  It’s a pretty safe place to let it go (in the wise words of Queen Elsa).  It’s when we’re out in the world, going through life that closeness to God can be difficult, and really come in handy.  For this, I believe that Sunday morning worship is merely practice for when we’re really going to need to know how to worship. 

On any given week, or any given day, we’re going to go through some nonsense.  We’re going to have hard times, get bad news, feel betrayed, depressed, anxious, nervous, sad, ripped off, shut out, cut-off on the freeway, and who knows how many other bad feelings.  These are the times when knowing how to worship can make all the difference.  Being able to let lose in song, praising a mighty living God, singing out to a heavenly Dad will provide that peace that defies understanding. 

Worship and praise is an act of magnifying God.  Magnification makes things bigger.  A big God can solve problems.  When we get stressed out, anxious, worried, it’s usually because we’ve lost perspective on the size and ability of our God.  Big problems, little God; might as well not have him around.  When we realize that God is big, when we magnify Him, put Him into perspective, we realize the insignificance of our problems relative to His capabilities.  We’re taking about a God that has power to heal sick people, raise people from the dead, not to mention create this universe and all of its infinitely perfect mystery.  Do you really think this God can’t solve any one of our issues? 

He can; He already has.  

What’s your go-to worship song?  I always have a few spinning in my head – some upbeat, some more lamenting.  Tomorrow, driving in your car, give it a shot.  If you’re just stoked on life and everything around you, sing a praise song.  Thank God for blessing you.  If you’re facing challenges, beat down, tired, sing a praise song.  Get close to God, open up your soul a bit.  If there’s a void, He’ll fill it.  And believe me, it’s far better to have Him fill in than whatever the world will put inside you. 

This Sunday, make your worship service about practice.  Practice getting close to God so that next week when you’re out there on your own, you’ll be able to recreate the experience.  You’ll be happy you did.