by Shalon McGaffin

Consider this scenario:

It’s Sunday morning (or whichever day and time you corporately gather with your church) and you arrive at church and it’s time for service to start. Perhaps the Pastor gives a word of greeting and then…

…everyone turns on their iPod (or perhaps a Walkman with an audio cassette if you’re a Boomer!) and for the next 25-30 minutes everyone has their head phones in and enjoys their most preferred praise & worship songs in the perfect style, at the perfect volume level, using the most appropriate and professional instrumentation. And absolutely everyone enjoys the musical worship time!

 

So, why don’t we do that? Everyone would be happy – no complaints!

 

Sounds like a great idea to me! In fact, I wholeheartedly believe the church should do just that!!

 

…just NOT at our corporate worship gatherings!

 

I indeed believe every Christian (the Church) should be spending time personally worshipping God, which may or may not include your iPod or Walkman.  But I believe a vital aspect of the musical worship portion of our church gatherings is that it is just that…a gathering of worshippers – the main concept being that we are together; It’s not about me, it’s about you! Please note, that’s not a capital-Y ‘You’, it’s a lowercase-y ‘you’ as in you and me! 

 

I’m certain we all agree that worship, fundamentally at its core is about glorifying our most worthy God and expressing our praise and worship to Him; that being understood, a secondary aspect of our corporate worship times is that my praise & worship is for you, and yours is for me.

 

Worship is not about me, it’s about you when I can say,  “I’ll sing that song which I don’t necessarily connect with and I will choose to worship because <insert name(s)> truly appear(s) to connect to God through it.”

 

Worship is not about me, it’s about you when I can say, “I don’t like the music that loud but the youth of my church are choosing to praise God through it. So I will clap along and worship with them!”

 

Worship is not about me, it’s about you when I can say, “Even though hymns aren’t musically or lyrically my preference, I understand they have a rich heritage and worshipping God through hymns will honour my elders.”

 

Worship is not about me, it’s about you when I can say, “Even though the musicians don’t sound like professionals, I will smile and encourage them, and worship God along with them as they offer their best to Him.”

 

 

I’m certain we are all challenged in one way or other on Sundays when we meet for corporate worship. So here’s one more challenge for you; have a purposeful, close look around the room next Sunday during the musical worship time and ask yourself, “Who is my worship about today?”

 

Choose to worship and remind yourself, “It’s not about me, it about <insert name(s)>…and together our worship is all about You!”

 

*Sunday morning represents the time and day of any regular worship service.

Tags: worship

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Worship Ministry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.