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Leila
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 93

Posted 6/30/2003 7:50 AM (GMT -6)

I’ve been on this site for over two months now, mainly trying to reconcile some things in my own mind that have been troubling me a lot since becoming a Christian, primarily hell, the existence of evil, and the seeming “unfairness” of it all. While the posts have been very interesting, insightful, and helpful, there is something that is still very troubling to me and I’m wondering if someone can help me in my struggle with this seemingly simple question: How are we to worship God?

Now I know the definition of worship; I know that we are to love God with all our heart and soul; I know we are to put God above all else, to give thanks to God, and praise God for who He is, etc. etc. But what I am asking is how do I MEANINGFULLY WORSHIP God? How do I worship from my heart and not just from my lips?

I go to church every Sunday, and I sing the songs proclaiming God’s greatness and majesty. I listen to the minister giving thanks to God, praising God, and professing love to God. I’m sure a lot of people do feel genuine when they worship God in this way, but for me I just feel that I am robotically singing songs or passively listening to another’s prayer. Most of the time my heart is not just in it and I feel hypocritical and ashamed by my feelings.

I think things like, “Why do I need to praise God and tell Him how great He is?” Just because He told me to? But if someone compels you to worship him, and you do so because you are so compelled, aren’t the ensuing expressions of greatness and majesty pretty meaningless? Surely this is not God wants from us. But what is it then?

Thanks!

Laika
Registered Member

Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433

Posted 6/30/2003 8:30 AM (GMT -6)

For me, worship is like exercise for the spirit/soul. Like physical exercise, it takes discipline to get started but as you do it more often, you get better at it and you start to get hooked on it. After a while, you feel cheated if you miss a day of it. Nothing of value comes easy, most of what is beneficial to us requires discipline in order to achieve it, whether it's physical (health), mental (education) or spiritual (worship).

When I'm in a service, some songs are easier to enter into worship for me, but whether they are easy or hard, it pays for me to discipline myself to focus on Jesus.

Don't think of God as a tyrant, demanding fealty from His subjects, but as a friend calling you for a chat.

might-be-don
Registered Member

Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 830

Posted 6/30/2003 8:32 AM (GMT -6)

Leila,

Magneton was kind enough to supply this :

Just a few months before his untimely death in 1944, William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, broadcasting over the BBC, made the statement,

The world will be saved from political chaos and collapse by one thing only: That is worship.

Then he gave a definition of worship:

To quicken the conscience by the holiness of God,
To feed the mind with the truth of God,
To purge the imagination with the beauty of God,
To open the heart to the love of God,
To devote the will to the purpose of God.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

No mention of singing songs.
No mention of Sunday morning church attendance.
No mention of repeating the name of jesus over and over again.
No mention of listening to a preacher give a "message".

None of these things have anything to do worship. Are they beneficial to us? Yes. Gathering together with our brothers and sisters is uplighting and encouraging. We can always learn more about the God we serve. Not sure repeating the name of jesus over and over is of any benefit at all.

It's good to see you honest with yourself when you say, "Most of the time my heart is not just in it and I feel hypocritical and ashamed by my feelings. ". Most people just ignore this feeling and say to themselves, " Everybody else is doing it, it MUST be the right thing to do".

peace and love, don

---
"You cannot step twice into the same river; for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you." Heraclitus

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 6/30/2003 8:57 AM (GMT -6)

As Meph says, I post about on everything. So let me just politely offer a few alternatives. You do what you want with it.

1. The Reformed vision of worship is DIALOGICAL. My wife wrote her Orthodox priest brotherinlaw this:

quote:
Whenever I've been to your church, I've only gotten the general gist of the order of the service. Our order of worship is:
1. We approach God in worship--call to worship, praising God for who he is.
2. We confess our sins, we receive his pardon, we are summoned to new life in him. (sometimes, used to be always, the Ten Commandments are read here)
3. We hear his word.
4. We go to the Lord's Table. (at least twice a quarter)
5. We go out to serve.

My wife continues in a literary kind of mode (Dutch reformed do not actually have "shewbread and insense." We don't even lift up our hands.)

quote:
Sometimes this model is referred to as dialogical--God calls, we respond, God speaks, we confess, etc. It is also roughly a tabernacle model--we progress through the gates with praise, wash in the laver, offer our sacrifices, pass by the light and shewbread through the sweet smelling incense, into the Holy of Holies where we commune with God.

2. All the other traditional Christian practices -- the one's not designed as propaganda media (from Charles Finney, to D.L. Moody, to Jim and Tammy Faye...) have used a formate borrowed and adapted from a combination of the Temple and the Synagogue liturgies. Truth be told! I grew up "non-liturgical." So when I find something neat at my local Russian Orthodox church I feel like maybe they invented it. Look in the Lutheran hymnal on my shelf and the SAME things are in there too. Anglican "Book of Common Prayer" -- about the same. John and Charles Wesley took the BCP stuff and re-added in lots of Orthodoxy via. a Greek Father names Macarius -- giving us several hymns that I'm sure you know, and a strengthening of Trinitarian theology. You might pick up a book with a version of that liturgy in it (any denomination from Lutheran to Orthodox) and read it.

My wife asked her brother: "Now, I have a question of my own. I get the sense that some of these elements are also in your services. Could you explain to me what they are and their progression through the service." His response follows.

quote:
As you see, your progression is very similar to the Divine Liturgy. The mainpoint of departure, however, is the protestant's non-sacramentality. In other words, protestant worship makes a "figurative" progression through the gates, in the laver, at the altar, through the incense and into the Holy of Holies. God put the shewbread in the Tabernacle because He knew that one day, in the New Israel, the bread (ie., His Son's flesh) would be eaten. In the Liturgy, everything is real AND symbolic, and not just figurative.

his being said, let me run through a "bulletin"-style outline of the Divine
Liturgy:

The Synaxis

Great censing
Great litany
Antiphonal singing of the psalms
Antiphonal singing of the Hymn of the Incarnation (written by Justinian)
Little entrance (procession of the Gospel Book in through the Royal Doors)
Congregational singing of troparia and kontakia (ie., hymns for the week in an 8-week cycle, and hymns for the day if it is a Feastday)
Congregational singing of "Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us ..."
Chanting of the Prokimenon (selections from the Psalms)
Epistle reading, with censing during the reading
Congregational singing of "Alleluia" and verses
Gospel reading
Homily

The Eucharist
Great entrance (procession of the Gifts of bread and wine around the congregation and through the Royal Doors)
Congregational recitation of the Nicene Creed
Anaphora (prayers by priest, commemorating salvation history)
Epiclesis (prayers by priest, asking Holy Spirit to change the Gifts into the Body and Blood of Christ)
Commemorations (prayers by priest commemorating the Virgin, the prophets and apostles, the saints, others in the Church Trimphant; then the Patriarch of

Constantinople, bishops, clergy and other saints in the Church Militant)
Litany of Supplication
The Lord's Prayer
Fracture (priest breaks the Body into the Blood)
Congregational prayer of preparation for Communion
Communion of clergy
Communion of congregation
Thanksgiving hymn
Closing prayer from the amvon (half-circle dais in front of iconostasis)

You might be surprised that your "order" (we would say "typicon") of worship comes remarkably close to the implicit structure of the Divine Liturgy. The
Divine Liturgy of Orthodox Christendom (truly catholic, ie., universal, before the departure of the Latins in 1053) continued the synagogue and
temple traditions. The 2 main structures, thus, are the "synaxis" of the Word, and the Eucharist. The synaxis is marked primarily by singing of
psalmody, and readings of the Epistles and Gospels (Old Testament readings, originally included in the Divine Liturgy, are now part of the Hours and
Vesperal cycles). The Eucharist structure reveals many reminders of the Temple's sacrificial and hieratic liturgy.
br>
As you see, your progression is very similar to the Divine Liturgy. The main point of departure, however, is the protestant's non-sacramentality. In other words, protestant worship makes a "figurative" progression through the gates, in the laver, at the altar, through the incense and into the Holy of Holies. God put the shewbread in the Tabernacle because He knew that one day, in the New Israel, the bread (ie., His Son's flesh) would be eaten. In the Liturgy, everything is real AND symbolic, and not just figurative.

ONCE AGAIN, LITURGICAL WORSHIP IS THE COMMON PROPERTY OF ALL OF CHRISTIANITY. IT HAS CHANGED LOTS IN EXPRESSIVE FORM SINCE THE APOSTLES. BUT THE CORE REMAINS THE SAME.

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 6/30/2003 9:04 AM (GMT -6)

The Worship Service: Basics
Telford Work
www.westmont.edu/~work/classes/rs150/spr2002/liturgicalabc.html

Good, crip outline of various types. Worth clicking on.

Contains:

Origins of the Mass: Justin Martyr
The Classical Mass: The Medieval Roman Rite
Interpretation: Mass as Dramatization of the Gospel
Postscript: The Mass after Trent

It has the curious bit:

a resemblance here between classical Catholic spirituality and the "seeker-church" movement centering on Willow Creek Community Church

Obviously somewhat critical of both.

Edited by - PotOnWheel on 06/30/2003 2:08:02 PM

John Earp
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1715

Posted 6/30/2003 4:42 PM (GMT -6)

Hi Leila,

A couple of things that I think are crucial to this discussion:

1. Jesus said that the Father seeks people who will worship Him in spirit and in truth.

2. Paul said, "Offer your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your spiritual worship."

"The Discovery of new truth will modify old views and opinions, and there is perhaps no end to this process with finite minds in any world." Charles G. Finney, Systematic Theology.

revivaltheology.net

Leila
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 93

Posted 7/2/2003 8:25 AM (GMT -6)

Thanks for all your comments -- very interesting.

I think I have difficulty in having a true worship experience for several reasons:

(1) I have always felt like worship is something that God has demanded, that we should worship for the sake of worship. As Laika said:

quote:
Don't think of God as a tyrant, demanding fealty from His subjects, but as a friend calling you for a chat.

I will try to view it differently.

(2) Perhaps becoming a Christian in my early 30s with very little "church experience" makes it harder for me to "get" the concept of what worship is really about.

(3) The church that I attend has a pretty relaxed atmosphere. Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that, but I think that a more formal service might create a mood more conducive to worship. (Everyone socializes loudly right before the service starts, half the congregation looks like they're dressed for a picnic, some still sipping their Starbucks, etc.)

On the other hand, some of the more formal conservative services I've attended seem very mechanical and conducive to little more than sleep.

I sometimes wonder if worshipping privately alone would be preferable, at least for me. Is it important that worship be done corporately? Thoughts?

Laika
Registered Member

Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433

Posted 7/2/2003 8:39 AM (GMT -6)

Leila

quote:

I sometimes wonder if worshipping privately alone would be preferable, at least for me. Is it important that worship be done corporately? Thoughts?

Whatever gets you started. Me, I spend much time alone, at work, commuting, running, etc. and I ponder things. I usually try and relate what I'm thinking about to God and in a way, I think I'm conversing with Him. He shows me things this way as well. Once you're more comfortable and disciplined thinking about Him, go to a worship service AND think about Him. Whatever song they're singing, use the lyrics to direct your thoughts. He will eventually respond, heck, it's a promise of His. The adversary will give you negative thoughts as well, but you can recognize that and reject those thoughts.

Psst! I'll give you another hint but don't tell anyone else this, as I want to be able to get my seat. Sit near the front. You're closer to the music, you're surrounded by more emphatic people, AND most distractions are BEHIND you. But not my seat. Stay OUT of MY seat!

"A fanatic is one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim."
-- George Santayana

Edited by - Laika on 07/02/2003 1:43:25 PM

S.B.G.
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 143

Posted 7/10/2003 4:10 AM (GMT -6)

In my experience, I truly learned to worship when I truly began to see Jesus as my Lord-- When I comprehended my great need for a Savior and allowed myself to believe that He really does love me! It was the sense of gratitude and unworthiness that prompted me to bow before him, then rejoice in the amazement of it all. I guess you could say I fell in love with Him, and I imagine Him dancing with me and smiling at me and holding me.

I might compare worship to that moment when I greet my husband at the door with a kiss and embrace at the end of the day. It's so good to see his face and hear his voice and feel his arms again. Everything seems right and as it should be, we are together again and the evening has just begun. This is how it is to come before my Lord at the end of the week, or the beginning of the day, or just whenever I need him. I love Him,and I am excited about being together and worship is my way of wrapping my arms around Him and greeting Him at the door.

S.B.G.

To understand and to be understood is bliss.

Laika
Registered Member

Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433

Posted 7/10/2003 4:19 AM (GMT -6)

SBG

quote:

I might compare worship to that moment when I greet my husband at the door with a kiss and embrace at the end of the day.

I might have to try that approach, imagine greeting your husband at the door.

What's he look like?

Edited by - Laika on 07/10/2003 09:26:16 AM

S.B.G.
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 143

Posted 7/10/2003 5:38 AM (GMT -6)

You goof!

Gotta love ya Laika!

S.B.G.

To understand and to be understood is bliss.

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