"Why," requested a college sophomore, "should worship be a part of Christianity?" The student continued, "Why don’t we just have Bible study?"

The thinking of this student, it seems to me, reflects an all-too-common attitude today which can be visibly demonstrated in the growth of small Bible Study Groups and Prayer Cells.

While these are frequently sponsored by a church, they are many times independent groups, functioning as a substitute for church, with the end result that many participants seldom, if ever, find themselves in a church worship service.

Thus the question if this sophomore is not a speculative one for the purpose of debate but rather a question rooted deeply in the practices of many today.

In a recent study 3,450 church members and pastors in a broad cross-section of denominations across the United States and Canada were asked what they considered the paramount No. 1 task of the local church. The most frequent response was "winning others to Christ." This poll, based on a sampling twice as large as that used in a Gallup Poll, and involving sessions lasting for two hours or more and the filling out of 23 pages of questions, indicated that the second task of the church is to provide religious instruction. Then in the third and fourth positions worship and the sacraments were placed respectively.

While in full sympathy with evangelism and religious instruction and recognizing their importance, one cannot but wonder why worship and the sacraments should have been rated no higher than third and fourth.

Is not worship primary in the life of the church? The Westminster Catechism, in response to the question relative to the chief end of man, responds, "To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever." And is this not worship?

Not that evangelism and religious instruction are unimportant but rather that worship is central and primary in the life of the church.

Hear the words of William Temple: "The world can be saved by one thing only and that is worship. For to worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God."

The word "worship" is Anglo-Saxon, by way of Middle English, and it signifies "worthship." Thus when we worship we are declaring worth.

The Hebrew and Greek words, translated worship, emphasize the act of prostration, the doing of obeisance.

Worship, then, is the declaration of the worthship of God by the humble acts of homage. 

By his very nature man is a worshipper. God has so made him. In the words of Augustine: "Thou madest us for thyself and our heart is restless, until it repose in thee."

No one escapes worship if he is conscious at all of values and no one quite avoids ritual however much he may proclaim his dislike of it.

If man does not worship God, he will find some other object, cause, orbeing which he considers worthy of adoration.

Consider Marxist atheism. There are substantial grounds for the view that an authentic equivalent to religious worship has grown up within the Soviet system despite all its athiestic pronouncements. The singing of the Internationale, the raising of the clenched fist, the maintenance of the shrine of Lenin – all these may seem to us to be horrible caricatures of singing the Te Deum, kneeling in prayer, and making the stations of the cross. They appear nevertheless to be psychologically identical with the Christian uses, springing from the same kind of psychological needs, and producing the same kind of psychological satisfaction.

Even the avowedly secular scientist, who would not choose to be identified as a religious and worshipping person, comes remarkably close to the worship of that which he considers truth. Thomas Huxley said: "Sit down before fact as a little child." And is this not a form of worship? 

Even the most casual reading of the Scriptures show the importance of worship and its prominence in both Testaments.

In the Old Testament, the meticulous and detailed regulations relative to the ritual, the clergy, the communicant, the place and time of worship – all these cannot but impress the reader relative to the importance of worship in early Judaism, not to mention later Judaism.

In the New Testament, the Pastoral Epistles show the development of worship in the First Century Church. The use of prayers, refrains, and incipit creeds can clearly be seen in First and Second Timothy.

Further, the elaborate scenes of worship in Revelation may well reflect, as some claim, the projection into the heavenlies, of the worship practices of the early Christians. Hymns, responses, doxologies, and prayers are heard. Such accompaniments of worship as instrumental music, incense and ritual movements are in evidence. The 24 elders constitute a kind of choir. We at least have here some echoes of worship in John’s time.

And now without any claim of being either exhaustive or profound, I share with you some adjectives that are vital to worship. You will observe that they are cast in terms of tensions.

By its very nature worship is social. While one can worship God in solitude and should do so, the demand of the scriptures and the heart is for corporate worship.

Consider these words from Psalms:

"O magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together." (34:3) 

"How lovely is thy dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!
My soul longs, yea, faints for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God.
Even the sparrow finds a home and the swallow a nest
for herself where she may lay her young, at thy altars,
O Lord of hosts my King and my God. Blessed are those
who dwell in thy house ever singing thy praise!" (84:1-4) 

"O come, let us sing to the Lord, let us make a joyful
noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come into
his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful
noise to him with songs of praise." (95:1-2)

"O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before
the Lord, our Maker. For he is our God and we are the
people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand." (95:6-7) 

Observe the plural pronoun – a common phenomenon in the Bible.

But while corporate in essence there are still individual dimensions to worship.

• Worship is something we do, not something that someone does for us.
• As worshippers we are not spectators but participants.
• We are not present in worship either to criticize or to applaud, but to participate.

It should be noted parenthetically that worship is a place to use our God-given talents but not a time to display them. We should not seek to impress the congregation with our abilities nor should the presiding clergyman feel compelled during the service to praise and thank those who participate. In true worship, whether it be singing or preaching, all should be done to God’s glory.

The minister and the choir do not worship for the congregation, nor as it, but with it and as a member of it.

I must make my contribution to the corporate worship. I must join my voice, my faith, my prayers, and my offerings with others.

I must acknowledge my sin, affirm my faith and add my praise.

I cannot simply sit and watch and listen.

Worship by its very nature must be both. There must be form as well as freedom. But this is a difficult combination. All too often we opt for one or the other. In our case, the spontaneous.

In a church attended as a young person, we had no printed order of service. Such would be too confining for the Spirit! Hymns were chosen immediately before or during the service. There was uncertainty as to the flow of the service. One suspected occasionally that the music of the service had not been properly planned or practiced. Even the sermon was subject to change after the service had begun.

This was and is defined as allowing the Holy Spirit to control the service but in reality it frequently indicated lack of preparation and simply signifies "playing it by ear." In actuality this "no-order" service results in a fixed format – that of "no-order." An ad-hoc ritual has been developed.

Every minister however anti-liturgical he may think himself, has his own ritual phrases with which he passes from one part of the service to another, and the less he is conscious of them, the more likely he is to use them without variation.

Consider prayers as an illustration. Rather than read a prayer we pray, so we say, extemporaneously. But note how regularly we pray in the same words, resulting in prayers almost as fixed as any in the Book of Common Prayer.

Our worship service must be carefully planned. The same Holy Spirit whom we depend upon during the service should be able to lead earlier in the week when the service is being planned.

Even as a sermon must be twice born, first in the study and then in the pulpit, so must the entire service. Birth in only one of these two places will result in worship less than what it could and should be. 

Here again there is an inclination to the one or the other. Both are essential. Both are Biblical.

In the Roman Catholic Church and the high Protestant Church the emphasis is upon the priestly.

In most of the churches we attend the emphasis is upon the prophetic.

This distinction is visible in many ways:

1. Designation of Clergy Priest/Preacher
2. Function of Clergy Liturgical/Homiletical
3. Place of Clergy Altar/Pulpit
4. Conduct of Clergy Precise/Explosive
5. Direction of Worship  Priestly-Takes Communicant To God
                                           Prophetic-Bring God To The Communicant

 In priestly-centered worship the altar is central and the function of the clergy is at and about that altar.

In prophetic-centered worship the pulpit upon which is an open Bible is central and the primary function of the clergy is to stand behind that pulpit and preach. The sermon is central to such a service and frequently the other parts of the worship service are unfortunately referred to as preliminaries which are considered as expendable.

This dichotomy is unfortunate. As already mentioned, both are Biblical functions.

When both function as they should, the supplement and complement each other. When either is stressed at the expense of the other, the congregation is the poorer.

I am not suggesting that this tension is easily resolved. A careful reading of the Old Testament will reveal otherwise. The prophet was constantly exposing the shallowness and superficiality of Israel’s worship. This needs to be done today. But the priest, the keeper of the law, constantly answered that his practices were rooted in Sinai and Moses and that abuse of them by some did not invalidate them in toto. This needs to be said today.

Blessed is that congregation today who has in its clergyman both the priestly and the prophetic.

We who believe in God do worship him, and we can do no other. The more consciously we seek to perform our ministry aright, to carry out our service truly, the greater is our hope of entering verily into the presence of God in our prayer and our praise.

Copyright by author.

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