We started this series, “What is…?” a few weeks ago and we started off by looking at ‘what is worship?’ We took away the “worship team” so there was no music and we examined what true worship means.

True worship is a live dedicated to serving God in humble reverence of who God is. That means that worshiping God is something we do every day, not just on Sundays at church, and certainly not just in the song brackets we sing.

Paul urges us to be a “living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1), which means that we worship God with our entire life; how we treat ourselves, how we treat others, how we conduct our business, how we live forgiven, in our gratitude, in our words, in our prayers, in our relationships, in our hospitality, in our generosity, in our faithfulness, in the things we sacrifice for the sake of the Kingdom and for the sake of others, and also how we prioritise our lives.

Priority is big! Worship is about prioritising God above all else.

what are some things you place a high priority on? do they ever take the place of God?

I took away the sung worship to drive home the point that the whole of our gathering on a Sunday is an act of worship; the songs, the prayers, the sermon, the fellowship – everything. It’s all worship because it all points to the glory of God, which is our highest priority.

But I also took away the music to draw attention to the role music actually plays in our worship.

The songs we sing supplement the whole service! It is worship because it’s the way we humble ourselves and bow before God in reverence – whether we do it in our hearts or physically fall to our knees. Sung worship is our way of giving opening our hearts and our emotions through the power of song as a sacrifice of praise to God. Music is part of our liturgy, and for many, probably, music is where one develops their theology; in the words we sing (which is why it’s very important the songs we sing are theologically sound). Music plays a huge role, but it’s not the entirety of our worship.

I’m not sure about you, but I was reminded just how important music is in our worship, BUT I also hope you took away the LARGER implications of what worship is too!