be corporate and take place as a group of believers together seek Him in joy.
Second, worship is a wholistic response in which our entire being reaches out. Matthew 22:37–38 calls on us to love God with all our heart and soul and mind. When that happens, the body is involved as well. Worship, then, includes more than just the cognitive, intellectual reasoning processes. All we are—including body, mind, emotions, will, and spirit—is involved.
Third, worship assumes real divine-human interchange. God sees and responds to worship, and the worshiper knows that God is there and basks in His presence. Just as we delight in being in a place where others cherish and love us, so God joyfully shows up where He is worshiped. True worship then feeds itself. As praise begins and the interchange commences, God’s presence enters that worship, which in turn intensifies the presence and the worship. It is a far cry from the formal “worship” found in many churches.
One of the problems with worship is that it has become a word used for many things that are not really worship. I see at least four common false models of worship. The first three can operate either corporately or individually.
The first false model is that of the classroom. It views worship as learning. In either our private devotions or church gathering we evaluate what goes on by how much knowledge we acquire. Church becomes a lecture hall, and personal study becomes God’s homework. Study is vital, but it is not worship. What study should be is a prelude to worship. Knowledge of God leads to worship, and further study should give birth to even more fervent and meaningful worship.
The second false model is that of the evangelistic tent. It regards the corporate religious services as a place of proclamation that invites sinners to accept Jesus. Private devotions are to convert or perhaps prepare one to share their faith with others. Again, evangelism itself is not wrong, but it is not worship. Rather, evangelism should be the result of worship. Meeting God in worship should inspire and empower us to invite others into the joy of worship.
The third false model is that of the psychologist’s couch. This approach uses worship or private adoration as an occasion in which God meets emotional and psychological needs. The sermon is kind of a mass counseling and private prayer is do-it-yourself therapy. One cannot doubt that true religion helps heal people emotionally. But if worship sets out initially to do that, something is not right. I believe that inner emotional healing often takes place as a result of worship. As we admit our unworthiness and celebrate God’s grace to us in worship, we are blessed, but it is a derived serendipitous fruit of worship, not the essence of what worship is.
The fourth false model is that of a spectator sport. For many, corporate worship is watching the professionals perform. We evaluate them. If they do well, we cheer, and if they do poorly, we criticize. We in the pew “pay” them to perform and want them to do the worship well. Such a model is tragically wrong. Our place in the corporate worship is to be a participant, not a spectator.
For me, worship happens only as I join in and actively participate in the worship itself. God is calling us today to return both privately and corporately to real worship. It must become our priority. Next I will outline some biblical teachings on worship and then seek to make some practical suggestions as to how we might revolutionize our own private worship and then be agents of God’s renewal or worship in His corporate body, the church.
Bible Words for Worship
The Bible has a rich vocabulary in regard to worship, probably fuller than that concerning any other concept. English stretches to do it justice. Words include: reverence, glorify, honor, praise (four different Hebrew words), magnify, bow down, fear, bless, extol, adore, give thanks, and we could go on. Human language and concepts find themselves taxed to the limit when the worthiness of God is the subject of expression.
In the Old Testament the most common word for worship is the verb šachah. Used more than 150 times, it has as its basic meaning “to prostrate oneself, bow down deeply, or do homage.” The Greek equivalent is proskuneo, which comes from the word that means literally “to kiss toward.” Often when people sought to show reverence to someone higher, they would stoop and/or prostrate themselves and kiss the ground or a proffered foot or hand, ring or scepter. By the time of the New Testament, the word was used exclusively with its object being or supposedly being divine.11
The significance of this lies in the fact that for the Bible the root meaning of worship is physical action. For the Hebrew, whose worldview closely connected mental processes with physical ones, worship included a mental awe of God and an appropriate physical response. The body and mind go together in worship and each influences the other.
In fact, Scripture (in particular the Psalms) connects many physical actions directly with worship. They include singing, shouting, dancing, uplifted hands, lifting of the head, kneeling, standing, bowing, prostrating, clapping of hands, bringing offerings, and playing musical instruments. Worship is clearly not intended to be a spectator sport that uses the mind only, but is meant to include the whole person in an active response to God.
When I first began to study this topic, it struck me that I had never prostrated myself before anyone in my life. Early one morning alone in my study I fell on my face and stretched out in awe before God. Something inside of me changed. I felt myself break inside in a way that I had never done before. Since then I have never been the same, and almost every morning now at the start of my devotional time I bow to the ground before the King of kings. I find it puts my life in perspective—I somehow sense who God is and simply maintain that bodily position for a while to let my mind begin to grasp what my body is saying about worship and who God is.
What needs to happen for many Christians—especially conservative, doctrinally oriented ones—is for them to move worship out of the purely rational, cognitive realm. Many such individuals approach worship as a doctrine to accept or believe, not an encounter to experience. Certainly the mind must be part of the worship experience, and people need to know who they are worshiping and why they seek God. However, if it stops there, we miss something essential. Feeling, passion, zeal, and emotion are all part of worship because the whole person must be part of the worship. In John 4:22–24, Jesus calls for true worshipers to worship in spirit and in truth. Some Christian traditions are strong on the truth part but seem to lack spirit. Others may have much spirit and emotion but forget or ignore the value of truth. Jesus wants us to find both as we express our love and adoration to Him.
Not only should worship involve the whole person, it must be participatory. Corporate worship oriented toward performance misses the mark. The congregation is not the audience for worship—God is. As such, all people should be a part of worship and actively involved. Worship and music leaders are not so much worship leaders but lead worshipers. To truly be lead worshipers, musicians must have a heart for worshiping God, not simply musical ability. They both model worship and invite the gathered people of God to join fully in their worship.
Recognizing the wholistic nature of worship and its participatory nature clarifies the key place of music. Since music directly touches more parts of us than the spoken word, it is important. Properly done, music is participatory.
Many Christian churches have in recent years been involved in music and worship wars. Congregations have debated the appropriateness of certain types of music with great heat. Often reactions split along generational lines.
I do not claim to have all the answers, but several observations may be helpful. It is tragic when battles over music keep people from worship itself. We should always ask the question: Is real worship taking place here? Are people meeting God? If the answers seem to be ‘yes,’ then the music is playing the role it should.
Musical tastes and preferences are always culturally and generationally influenced. What moves my children may not touch me and vice versa. Or what leads a Chinese toward God may not affect me and vice versa. We
