I stressed community in the last chapter because the church no longer stresses it enough. As much as technology and social media are supposed to create community, they more often leave us isolated behind a keyboard.
I realize we can’t live with our Christian friends 24/7. But through the common interests of Bible study, worship, and prayer, we can always be there for each other.
Community is huge for me, and God has blessed me by allowing me to make my living through leading group worship. My biggest worship time, however, comes when I’m alone in the car. Most of my songwriting time comes after worshiping God right there behind the wheel.
Worship is taking God’s best and giving it back to him. This can happen in serving, in giving, in singing, in admiring his majesty in creation. A butterfly can lead to tears of adoration for a holy God.
An attitude of worship is the vanguard of our hearts. The idea that citizens of Jerusalem placed palm branches on the ground and sang hosannas for five days before they screamed, “Crucify him!” shows how quickly we can focus on ourselves. Worship is not praising the God you want. It’s praising the God who is. Worship is what we’re created for, and we’re never more at peace than when we’re doing what we’re created to do. Worship is God’s gift to us, and through worship we enjoy fellowship with him (community!). But he didn’t give us worship because we have to remind God of how good he is. He’s God. He gave us worship as a gift so we can do what we’re created to do.
I once performed a church skit with Melanie. We staged the skit as if it were her birthday party. Melanie sat onstage, and I burst onto the scene and plopped next to her.
“Happy birthday,” I said. “This is your day! It’s all about you. I’ve got presents.”
I slid over three huge boxes, wrapped in bright paper and bows and full of tissue paper. Melanie acted overjoyed. In rehearsal, I had prompted her to tear off the paper and throw it all over the stage in excitement as she opened the boxes.
She reached inside the first box and pulled out a watch. A man’s watch.
“Oh, hey — it’s a watch,” she said.
“Yeah, don’t you love it?” I said. “It’s awesome!”
“Um . . . it’s kinda big.”
“Nah, it’s perfect. It’s going to be just right.”
“Is this a lady’s watch?”
“No, silly.” I fastened the watch on my wrist. “Now, can you imagine how you’ll feel? I mean, I’d be so happy to wear this if it would make you happy. And this is all about you and about us being together and the magic and the beauty and the wonder of our relationship.”
“Oh, OK,” she said, a lilt in her voice.
“But there’s more. Open this one,” I said.
We went through the whole excitement routine again as she unpacked two other boxes. The first had a softball glove. Then she reached in the last box and pulled out a leather jacket. It was sleek and black, and the people in the front row could smell the new leather. Melanie let out a shrill giggle and stood to lift it to herself for sizing. Once again, her beaming face fell.
The jacket was extra-large. I grabbed it, put it on, and pranced around to model the perfect fit. I held up my arm to show the wristwatch as I raised my eyebrows and broke into a cheesy smile.
“This has been the best birthday you’ve ever had,” I said. “C’mon, Melanie. We have some more surprises. Several other people out here have presents for them — I mean, for you too.”
I ran off the stage and left Melanie standing in the middle of the shredded boxes and wads of paper. She looked out at the audience with a confused look, turned, and walked off the stage as the lights dimmed.
I came back onstage and looked out at the crowd.
“We’re all here to worship Jesus today. Worship is giving back to God the best he’s given us. It’s a gift of praise and adoration of him,” I said. “How do you think he sees our gifts? Were our gifts about him? Or was our worship really about us?”
A sign of spiritual maturity is when we show that we know the gift is to be given back. God is so awesome that even in a moment that is all about him, he pours everything out on us and fills us with a sense of his presence. May our hearts spill out such gratitude that we’re never hesitant, never bashful, to lift our voices to praise him, as Romans 15:5 – 6 tells us: “May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
This verse shows us that worship deepens our community with God and with fellow believers. But worship has another purpose that I didn’t learn about until I became a student pastor. Worship teaches relationship and therefore teaches us how to pray.
Prayer is conversation. That’s why I like to start prayer with worship, because worship is going to God without asking for anything. It’s just praising God for who he is and thanking him for what he’s done.
I heard a preacher say one time, “If you want to know how selfish you are, just start praying and see how long you can go without asking for anything.” I frowned. A little pompous and determined to prove him wrong, I set out to pray with no petitions. I lasted maybe three, four sentences. I instinctively asked for something. I didn’t know how not to ask.
When I first learned about the psalms, I understood them to be songs. That’s what the word psalms means. It took me a while to realize that they were really prayers put to music. David and other writers of the psalms showed how worship and prayer correlate. And what does David do in the psalms? He opens his heart and dumps out everything to the Lord. He is unreserved. He is unashamed. He is transparent. He even asks God to destroy those who want to destroy him. David is real. I learned how to pray by studying the book of Psalms. It dawned on me that God wants us to converse with him because, as Psalm 25:14 makes clear, he is our friend.
When we talk with friends, it’s not cool to tune them out or talk down to them with clichés. I’m guilty of doing that to God through mechanical prayers that sound more robotic than fervent. “God, thank you for today. Thank you for your mercy and your grace. Thank you for the food. Oh, wait, it’s not mealtime.” We can shift into methodical prayers because we’re just trying to get through the moment.
We all have a friend who seems to talk just to be talking, and we spend a lot of effort trying to get away from that person. How often are we like that friend when we approach God? “Oh, blah, blah, blah. So anyway, here’s what’s going on.”
On a few occasions, people who attended my Bible college at the same time I did have contacted me since Casting Crowns started releasing records and going out on tours. They had nothing to do with me early in my ministry career. I was in Daytona struggling as a young student pastor. I was at Eagle’s Landing trying to figure out how to build a vibrant ministry in a big church. No one called to check in on me. But now that we’re on the radio, everybody is my best buddy. They like to reminisce with me, over e-mail, for about three sentences.
“Hey, man, remember me from Bible college? Boy, what good times. Here’s what I need. We’re doing a little fund-raiser.”
After that happened a few times, I thought to myself, I don’t really want people like that in my life. Then one morning in prayer I realized I do the same thing to God.
A lot.
I’m glad he doesn’t say, “I don’t really want people like that in my life.”
Regular prayer doesn’t have to be monotonous or formulaic, and it certainly shouldn’t be self-centered. I don’t have those kinds of conversations with my wife, and I don’t have to have them with my Creator. It’s a friendship. It’s community with God.
Our worship and how passionately we dive into the chance to connect with God do not make him stronger or weaker. Remember Tinker Bell from the classic story Peter Pan? Tinker Bell reappeared only after someone clapped hard and believed.
Our worship, our clapping real hard, and even our believing in God doesn’t make him more or less of who he is. Our worship does, however, reveal who we are and what we believe about God. I also have my convictions about worship during a church service. It’s easy to say that you can be quiet in public worship and not sing. I guess that could be the case for some introverts. Maybe. But if the Holy Spirit is in you, he’s got to come out. It’s your chance.
Philippians 2 tells us that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. I have a feeling that when all of those tongues confess, it’s going to be loud. That’s just a theory. I wouldn’t want that scene in heaven to be the first time I praised his name in public. I wouldn’t want to be a believer for much of my life and have the first time my tongue confesses in a great voice that Jesus is Lord be after my life is done.
I want to do it now.
Point to Remember
Worship deepens our community with God and fellow believers.