Worship in the 21st Century

I grew up in the church and have always attended church.  For 25 years, I was one of the people who helped to lead the worship part of the church service.  A lot has changed in my lifetime when it comes to style and instrumentation.  I remember organs and choirs and hymns from my childhood and young adulthood, and I remember Sunday evening services that reflected a more relaxed, down-home atmosphere.  Through the years, the organs and choirs have largely disappeared – along with most of the hymns.  In the churches I have attended, today there are worship teams that offer a more rock or pop feeling; and most of what we sing would be called contemporary praise songs.

We talk about the “worship” portion of the church service and take great care in choosing songs that support the “sermon” portion of the service and help us feel closer to God.  There’s not necessarily anything wrong with that, but true worship isn’t about what we do; it’s about our relationship with God.  If a worship attitude isn’t part of our daily life, then what we do at church isn’t really worship.  Worship is about spending time in God’s presence and bringing glory to him; and that shouldn’t be happening only on Sunday morning.

Jesus taught that the greatest commandment is this: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30).  Fully surrendering every part of ourselves to God is what true worship is all about.  This involves surrendered attitudes (heart), surrendered emotions (soul), surrendered thoughts (mind) and surrendered actions (strength).  You can see how this transfers to every part of our lives and not just our church moments.  This type of daily surrender to God then enhances our Sunday times of corporate worship, because it is based not on momentary feelings derived from specific music but on a living relationship with the God of the universe.

I have heard that anthropologists agree that everyone seems to have an instinctive desire and need to worship something.  Of course, God’s original design and greatest desire is that we would choose him as the object to fulfill that instinct.  But we often, even if unwittingly, choose other things: we “worship” creation instead of the Creator (Romans 1:25); we “worship” people (either societal heroes or our own family members) by giving them top billing in our lives (Luke 14:26); we “worship” possessions and money (Matthew 6:19-21); we “worship” power and control (Mark 10:43-44); and we “worship” comfort (Matthew 6:25-33).  These are just a few of the things that we are tempted to focus our worship on instead of the God who planted the worship instinct in us.

Yes, true worship in the 21^st century can be difficult.  There are more distractions than ever, and technology can act as an enemy in our worship pursuit.  But God still desires for us to give him all of ourselves and chose to focus on him more than we focus on anything else.  He still calls us to worship that reaches into every part of our lives because true relationship with him permeates everything we do or say.  Church is a great place to worship with other Christians (through music, the Word, prayer, community, etc.); but let’s think outside the box and determine to worship God every day in varied ways.  The possibilities are endless!