The Act of Worship

Hello beautiful people of the internet! I am so excited to be writing for this awesome blog, and hope to be a regular poster from now on! Let me briefly introduce myself…I’m Bronwyn, a 24 year-old Sociology Honours graduate trying to open my heart to God’s purpose for my life. I love God, I love people, I love writing. So this opportunity suits me perfectly J I’m hoping to bring a bit of a womanly touch to the blog and hope you’ll enjoy the topics I choose to explore. I’m not as clued up on the music side of things as the boys so bear with me and allow we to wander a little off track…literally (get it? Track? No? Moving on…).

Today I’ve decided to stick with the music theme and talk a little bit about worship. I love to sing – I cannot claim to sing well, but that’s never stopped me before. Worship is one of my favourite parts of a church service and I feel most connected to God when there’s music playing and I’m able to express how I feel to Him in the eloquent words of someone else. Worship brings out the warm fuzzy feelings in me that I think a lot of us search for when we spend time with the Lord. As a bit of background, I’ve been a Christian my whole life really but over the last 2 years, most specifically my year spent in South Korea, my faith took a knock and I’ve been on a very bumpy road. I’d like to think I’m “back on track” though and since coming home, the Lord has been opening my eyes to all sorts of things…worship being one of them. So back to the warmth and fuzziness – I think a lot of Christians, maybe especially in the beginning of our walk with Christ, long for the feeling of God being near. We seek His presence, we long to be overcome by the Holy Spirit. This is awesome, and a great goal to have. As this blog has often pointed out, music is a great way to bring these feelings and bring us closer to God. But today I want to argue that we need to look at worship as so much more than music.

I’ve been reading Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life and one of his days prompted my thinking on this topic. He talks about different kinds of worship music and what worship is all about. He refers to worship as an act of surrender. What stuck out for me is the way he gets you thinking about how as Christians, everything we do should be a form of worship, a form of surrender. Our lives should be lived in a way that is worshipfull (making new words, roll with it). The way we treat people, the way we go about our jobs and everyday tasks can all be used to worship God if we offer up everything we do to Him. Driving is such a huge part of a lot of our lives and in South Africa, being on the roads can prove to be a huge test of patience. The way we deal with taxis, learner drivers, road works etc can all become part of the way we worship if we chose to deal with the situation in a God-honouring way.

Another example that relates back to church, somewhere where worship of the musical kind happens most. Worship can be the way we treat fellow church members, visitors, our pastors and leaders. The new person who’s standing alone awkwardly in the corner (chances are it’s me) – go to them, welcome them with open arms and make them feel included in God’s family. Worship – a brilliant excuse to live our lives in a way that makes God smile. Warren suggests that if we give everything to God, hold nothing back from Him but practice complete surrender, then we’ll come to understand true worship. Maybe musical worship fails to really connect you to God, maybe you hate singing? Then worship in a million other ways. Just because we call the time of singing ‘worship’ does not mean we need to box it up and leave it there. A pastor from another church asked me the other day where I worship, not where I go to church and I loved that because ALL of our church activities can be regarded as worship if we do them to please and honour God. Our whole lives can be an act of everyday worship.

Maybe I’m not making sense and my first post has flopped completely but I’ve just so enjoyed trying to look at worship differently recently and wanted to share that with you all. How exciting to think that we can worship God wherever we are, at whatever time, even without the brilliant guitar solos and piano melodies because worship is so much more than just music. If we see worship like that, it doesn’t only become the best part of a Sunday service – it becomes the best part of the other 6 days of the week too.

Let go and let God. Until next time :)

B