The Todd Blog

One of the questions I’ve been asking internally (and externally) lately is “What is the point of worship?”

For most of life, I’ve been taught that worship isn’t about me – it’s about God. About my recognition of who God is and who I am in relation to that. Whether or not I enjoyed or got anything out of worship was irrelevant. It was all about what I gave to God that mattered.

This has never really made sense to me. I’ve never really understood why an all-powerful God would require his subjects to worship Him. Is He insecure? Greedy? Arrogant? None of those attributes seem to mesh with the picture of God in the Bible. I do think that He desires our worship, but I’m not entirely sure why. Feel free to chime in with a comment if you have any insight.

After a great conversation I had Friday night, I began to think about worship again. And while I’m sure that the initial conclusions I’ve arrived at aren’t earth-shattering, they were helpful for me. And so I share them with you.

I’ve come up with three “purposes” (for lack of a better word) for worship. I don’t think that these are exclusive, but rather they exist together in harmony, each equal to the others in importance. As I said, I’ve just started developing these, so be gentle in your critiques, please.

Worship as Praise
Despite my lack of clarity or understanding, I still think that worship is designed to glorify God. Even if it’s as basic as our  recognizing that God is God and we are not, giving praise to God is important.

Worship as Communication
Sometimes, we are incapable of expressing exactly how we feel or think about something. As a kid, I remember listening to a country song called “Life’s a Dance” and feeling the deep, meaningful truth of that song. I could never have expressed that on my own, but the lyrics and melody did it for me. In the same way, many worship songs communicate our feeling of love, gratitude and relief for what God has done for us.

Unfortunately, many worship songs and gatherings only communicate celebration – not sadness, anger or confusion. This is one of the challenges of community worship – it’s difficult, if not impossible, to capture the feeling and emotions of the entire group. Wouldn’t it be awesome if a gathering allowed its participants to express how they were feeling – even if it wasn’t happy? Or, if the gathering encouraged its participants to share in the feelings of others, even if those feelings weren’t happy? (I’ve got more to say about this in another post.)

Worship as Encouragement
Finally, I think that worship is designed to build up and encourage the community of people who are worshipping. Colossians talks about this in chapter three:

Verse 16: Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.

I think it’s incredibly encouraging when people are gathered together, authentically sharing in worship as praise and communication. When I went to Catalyst, the worship was by far my favorite part. Being in a room with 10,000 similarly minded folks, worshiping one God, was amazing. It reignited my passion for not only worship, but for the God we were praising.

So that’s it. Three facets of worship. What do you think? What have I left out? What have I got wrong? I’m eager to hear.

What’s the point of worship?

I’m not a worship leader. There’s a VERY good chance that worship leading is not a path I will be able to pursue in the future. This is for a number of reasons:

1. I don’t play an instrument very well. I can play a couple of chords on guitar – enough to play about 98% of the worship songs out there – but I don’t play them very well. And what little I remember of my piano lessons is limited to the first couple lines of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.
2. I’ve never really had any worship leader experience, either as a leader or participant.
3. My song choices are limited to what I hear on Hillsong United CDs. While awesome, this does limit my song choices quite a bit.

Regardless of the things holding me back, I still like to pretend that I could put together a pretty engaging worship set. But as I have no church to try this out on, I will have to settle with posting it here and imagining it coming to life.

For those who do work at a church in the capacity of a worship leader, feel free to take this set and take it for a spin. If it brings people to Jesus, make sure to come back here and report your findings. If it causes them to walk out the door in boredom, frustration or apathy, you probably should have added another guitar and incorporated video.

The Set

Hosanna by Jason Morant – As people are coming in and finding their seats

Opening Responsary Prayer:
My soul waits for the Lord
more than those
who watch for the morning,
more than those
who watch for the morning.

Call: Out of the depths I have cried to You.
Response: O Lord, hear my voice.
Call: With my whole heart I want to praise You.
Response: O Lord, hear my voice.
Call: If you, Lord, should mark iniquities:
Response: Who could stand? who could stand?

I will wait for the Lord.
My soul waits,
and in His word
do I hope.

The Time Has Come by Hillsong United
Desire by Phil Wickham
Jesus Paid It All by Kristian Stanfill
Messiah by Phil Wickham
Beautiful by Phil Wickham
It is Well With My Soul by Phil Wickham

Expressions of Faith:
Lord, You have always given
bread for the coming day;
and though I am poor,
today I believe.

Lord, You have always given
strength for the coming day;
and though I am weak,
today I believe.

Lord, You have always given
peace for the coming day;
and though of anxious heart,
today I believe.

Lord, You have always kept
me safe in trials;
and now, tried as I am,
today I believe.

Lord, You have always marked
the road for the coming day;
and though it may be hidden,
today I believe.

Lord, You have always lightened
this darkness of mine;
and though the night is here,
today I believe.

Lord, You have always spoken
when time was ripe;
and though you be silent now,
today I believe.

Communion
Came to My Rescue by Hillsong United
Saviour King by Hillsong United
Solution by Hillsong United

Closing Benediction:
See that ye be at peace among yourselves, my children,
and love one another.
Follow the example of good men of old
and God will comfort you and help you,
both in this world
and in the world which is to come.

As you can tell, I’m heavily influenced by some specific artists. And I really just copied a couple of their song groupings and mashed them together.

Now it’s your turn. Share your worship set. You can do it here in the comments if you’d like, or on your own blog. Just make sure you leave a comment with the link so we can all check it out.