WORSHIP. What does it mean to you? Singing a few songs on a Sunday morning, perhaps, or slipping some change into the collection plate as it passes by? But what if we don’t like the tunes? Or the words, for that matter? It’s easy to find oneself muttering that singing these platitudes must be the right thing to do, because music is mentioned in the Bible somewhere. But is a weekly hymn sandwich how God intended us to worship? Not at all!

Consider that other bunch of song-singers - football fans. They meet religiously every weekend, maybe travelling miles to get to a stadium. Not for them the half-hearted mumbling of barely audible lyrics, confined to a small window of the allotted 90 minutes. They’ll sing all the way there, throughout the entire match, and then - quite possibly - all the way home too. Then they’ll do it all over again midweek. In short - they’re passionate; it’s all-consuming; they do it willingly.

That’s what God wants of us. Devotion. Passion. Enthusiasm. It’s what Paul calls a spiritual act of worship - a ‘living sacrifice’ (Romans 12:1 all quotations from Today’s New International Version). Revelation paints a frightening picture of God’s reaction to those who are less than wholehearted in worship:

‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot… So, because you are lukewarm - neither hot nor cold - I am about to spit you out of my mouth’ (Revelation 3:15 and16).

Writer Rick Warren puts it this way: ‘God wants all of you… God is not interested in half-hearted commitment, partial obedience, and the leftovers of your time and money.’ As God has given us everything - including his only son, Jesus - should we not reciprocate?

So what is authentic, life-changing worship and how can we be involved?

The Bible describes how music can be part of a healthy, balanced worship diet and it also gives us some other pointers. For me, the key is found in John’s Gospel: ‘True worshippers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth’ (John 4:23). True worship must engage us as individuals, not necessarily conforming to some predefined pattern. Scripture shows people worshipping by singing, shouting, standing up, sitting down, bowing reverently, testifying about their experience of God, kneeling, dancing, playing instruments, praying out loud, praying silently, speaking in other languages, ministering to the sick, needy and lost, sharing possessions and meals with each other, giving money, and so on.

In his book Sacred Pathways, Gary Thomas suggests nine spiritual temperaments can be observed. Most of us will fall into one or more of these categories, and by identifying our own spiritual traits we can begin to find our own way to worship ‘in the Spirit and in truth’.

Intellectuals - love God by studying and exercising their minds

Contemplatives - love God through adoration, a sacrifice of time

Enthusiasts - love God with exuberant celebration and/or mystery

Caregivers - love God through meeting others’ needs

Activists - love God through battling injustice and making the world a better place

Ascetics - love God through solitude and simplicity

Traditionalists - love God through ritual, liturgy and symbolism

Sensates - love God through sight, taste, smell and touch as well as hearing

Naturalists - love God by revelling in creation

The crux is not opting out of worship services, but what God requires of us is to find a worshipful lifestyle that is neither theoretical nor consigned to Sunday mornings. True worship requires time, effort, discipline and, above all, action. When John Wesley was asked how long he prayed for, he answered: ‘Never more than half an hour; but,’ he continued, ‘never do I go longer than half an hour without prayer.’ True worship is sacrificial.

True worship is also honest. Prayer can be hard work, but only by developing our personal warts-and-all relationship with God can we really worship as Jesus exhorted us to ‘with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind’ (Matthew 22:37).

In 1991, fans around the world were thrilled by Bryan Adams singing ‘Everything I do, I do it for you’. Others winced at the somewhat sickly lyrics. Could it be, though, that Adams had inadvertently stumbled upon a phrase that quite accurately defines meaningful Christian worship? Perhaps the title of that Nineties’ rock ballad could form the basis of our own unique worship anthem, as we live out authentic lives of worship. It’s up to each one of us to set it to the melody, harmonies and rhythms of our own lives. God made us to be creative, after his own heart, and he loves us to worship him imaginatively in all that we do.

Can we rise up and sing together - as passionately as the football supporters - our own personal remix of ‘Everything

I do, I do it for you, Lord’?

by David Giles, Webmaster, THQ

Reprinted from Salvationist, UK, October 20, 2007