The Gift of Worship

by Barney Ford

We worship. We sing. We come together with one another, feel connected, whole even. We come into God's presence and we worship.

Worship "works" for us. Musical worship brings focus, carries us beyond the distractions of life, anxieties over tomorrow's activities and challenges, tasks and assignments. In worship we are able to set those things aside and concentrate. We feel connected and it's a good feeling because the focus of our worship is the good and holy God of Israel.

Worship integrates us with God and one another. For some, being in worship before God is one of the few places where they feel truly safe to encounter their own emotions, their own experiences. Have you ever had the experience of worshipping with others and seeing someone in whom you simply know that something is going on inside him or her, as well as in the community around them, and they're thus released to be themselves? Somehow, intuitively it seems, we understand that worship is good. It connects us to ourselves, integrates us with others. There's a kind of a shalom - a wholeness - that happens to us in worship that feeds our souls and strengthens our spirits. I believe this experience is unusually true for this student generation.

God has given this generation the unique gift of an interest in worship, which brings them wholeness and integration by its very nature. It's not segmented and disjointed like so many other aspects of our lives. And it's not exclusively rational. Rather, it's highly relational and it connects us to God, one another, ourselves. There's a growing movement in worship. "Passion '99," a conference held in January of 1999, drew 11,000 college students from the United States and around the world to worship, to praise God. Experiences of worship in large gatherings are growing common on college and university campuses everywhere. God's doing something exciting in this student generation. And He's doing it through worship.

In John 4, Jesus says to the woman at the well, "Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks." David repeatedly declares that the nations ought to praise the Lord. In Psalm 103, in four verses in particular, verses 19-22, we read that God is on the throne and He rules everything. We must praise the Lord and obey Him. "I'm going to write poetry," says David, the king of a rather small and seemingly insignificant country. "I'm going to write poetry in which I instruct the created order to stop all other activity and worship the God who made them." The Father is worthy and He seeks worshippers who come to Him in spirit and in truth.

In Exodus, when we recall Moses' words to Pharaoh, what comes to mind? "Let my people go." Yes, but that's not biblically complete. When the God of Israel demanded of Pharaoh that he let the Israelites go and no longer be enslaved to Egypt, He gave more than a plea for liberation. God commanded freedom, but he also conveyed the very purpose for which he calls his people to him, to worship Him on the mountain. "Let my people go," he says, "so that they may worship me."

And when the Israelites worshipped, they were moved. In the worship hymn of Exodus 15 the Israelites sing as they look back across the waters that now cover the very people who had enslaved them. It's an exuberant time-tambourines and dancing. The passage suggests a women's chorus of all the women in the entire nation.

In 2 Samuel 6 David brings the ark into Jerusalem for the second time. He offers a sacrifice and he's so exuberant and uninhibited in his worship that he dances. We, too, can be pretty moved by worship.

Worship can be difficult to thoroughly define, but I believe healthy worship has three main aspects:

Firstly, worship is about its object. We're created to worship, to focus upon God who is worthy of our worship. When we focus elsewhere, when we worship other things or people rather than God, we go against the very reason for which we were made and our purpose in life becomes vandalized and perverted. This is why idolatry is so terrible. Good worship, healthy worship, draws us more toward the character of God, toward the object of our worship. We focus upon His attributes: His love, His gentleness, His justice, His patience. Worship is about the character of God.

This present generation of college students is participating in a second aspect of worship: response. Worship, in Old Testament Hebrew and in much of the New Testament, often refers to a physical response. Most often, the wording used is equivalent to the phrase "to bow down." In biblical descriptions of worship, people literally fell on their faces in worshipping God. In Western, Christian culture today we don't use much physical expression, though biblically it is at the root of worship; not the most important aspect, but critical nonetheless. So worship can have a physical response. It may be to sing. It may be to dance. It may be to lift our hands. It may be to be very still. In many cultures stillness is rare but stillness can become a sacred time before God.

A third aspect of worship is found in the call given to the Israelites in the first half of Exodus to "come and serve God on the mountain." Some Bibles translate the word as "worship," others use the word "serve." In either understanding, we are connecting with God as He integrates our lives and aligns us more with His character. Worship begins to push itself into the nooks and crannies of where we live, becomes part of us. In true worship, "in spirit and in truth," the character of God begins to find its way into our lives and the spirit of that integration, that shalom, begins to express itself in us. Worship works only as we worship in spirit and truth for we'll then experience God's integration, His shalom, and His character. Worship that does not result in each aspect of our lives being more aligned with the character of God is not biblical worship.

Worship is a glorious and multi-faceted gift. It's about God, our response to Him, and the integration of His character into ours. Yet worship is about more than music for we also worship in our silence, in times of quiet at the feet of Jesus. We worship God when we read Scripture together, pray, through artistic expression in dance, poetry, or the visual arts, when we give of ourselves in our time, energy, or finances. In a very real sense, as we surrender our lives to God for His purposes, everything that we do becomes worship to Him.

It is critical that we affirm worship among students, as this clearly seems to be a gift which God has bestowed upon this student generation. At Urbana 2000, as we enter this next millennium, we will affirm this worship that is sweeping through university campuses and thank God for moving as He is in the hearts of students. We will respond to God, because He first loved us, and rightly give Him all the glory and honor that is due Him. Our goal then is that this love for God and worship of Him will draw worshippers to follow the example of Jesus and love the world around them.

Barney Ford

Director, Urbana 2000

"Praise the Lord, all you nations;
Extol him, all you peoples.
For great is his love toward us,
And the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.
Praise the Lord."
Psalm 117

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The Gift of Worship

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December 27-31, 2009