The Worship Experience

Worship.

Say this word in another culture and it means something completely different.

Say this word in another era and it may not make sense.

Say this word in the church next door to yours and you'll get heated opinions and disagreements.

I can't define it to you--I'm not God's dictionary. Even if I was, He has a different dictionary for each person; hence why we're not all clones. 

Just like everything else in America, we're becoming numb to worship. Pastor's and straight-shooting worship leaders anxiously remind the Americanized church  that worship is supposed to be from us to God--it's not about how a song makes us feel or "enjoying our worship experience" as one church announces every Sunday morning. 

"Even when my eyes are dry, even when my soul is tired, even when my hands are heavy, I will lift them up to You."

--Seven Places ("Even When" from the album Hear Us Say Jesus)

 

Good words, true words, but are we losing the capability to apply them to our actions? Are our souls so heavy that we just hum this tune and think, "What a shame it's not like that anymore."? I think back to the early church--though I wasn't there, I read in books about Christians singing when there are no instruments, when they don't know the words, when Roman soldiers are hunting for the secret meetings, seeking fresh prey for the coliseum lions.  Worship came from the heart, not from the band, CD, or the three Christian radio stations we flip through like a stick-figure comic book every morning on our way to work. 

We've become sleepy sheep who need a "worship leader" to stuff handfuls of stale, over-chewed grass into our mouths because we've forgotten how to reach for it ourselves. I'm the guiltiest of lazy worshipers. I played in a worship band half my life. I formed my opinions of how it "should" be done. I wrote a magazine article about it (unpublished, of course, probably because my ignorance coated the paper thicker than my ink). There were hundreds of positives in my worship upbringing, but I've outgrown them.

I am not against organized worship. I love grooving to specific songs more than others. Nine times out of 10, I don't "feel it" during worship. I don't have answers or opinions of how worship "should be". All I know is how I want my heart to be. Right now, It's not very close to where I want it. America feels like a damp blanket straight from the hot dryer and over the mouth of my soul. I'm trying to breathe in God, but only a tiny gasp of true worship is reaching my lungs. I mustn't wait until I get to Heaven to breathe freely. I will not settle for half the oxygen God intended my soul to have on earth.  I will find my answer to how it's supposed to be. I'll share it with you, but it won't be your answer. You have to seek, too, because our souls are different. You can bring God a completely different form and depth of worship than I can.

Let's seek to bring Him the enjoyable worship experience...with every zealous gasp of air. Only then do I believe we'll really start feeling it ourselves.