What Is the Meaning of Worship?

When we discuss being a worship leader it is vital that we understand what the meaning of worship actually is. I love song leading. There is something thrilling about leading a congregation in the final roof-lifting notes of “The New Song” and then being able to follow it with the tender melody of “How Deep the Father’s Love.” Shaping individual songs is exciting but—even more exciting—is assembling an entire song service into a beautiful, melodic flow that shapes the mood and energy of the entire worship service.

But here is a shocker! Singing is NOT the definition of worship. Not even praying is the definition of worship! If we have fallen into the trap of defining worship as merely singing and praying and preaching, we have set our congregations up for failure. Worshipers will walk away from our services saying, “The singing was mediocre today. Worship wasn’t really that great.” Worship wasn’t great?!? If we put words like “dry,” “boring,” or “mediocre” together with “worship” of our great God, we have entirely missed the meaning of worship!!!

Heart Posture

The meaning of worship is falling before Him—either physically or figuratively in the reverent posture of our hearts—to exalt and honor the glorious splendor of our great and awesome God. Worship is acknowledging our insufficiency and his perfect and infinite sufficiency. It is expressing our eternal gratitude for his undeserved, unbounded love for us. Worship is seeking the power and presence of our eternal Father. It is offering our lives as living sacrifices to our God who desires to work great things through us.

There is nothing dry or boring about our glorious God, Father, and creator and there is nothing dry or boring about worship to Him! I would propose that anyone who claims worship of our great God was dry or boring has not really worshiped.

As worship leaders, capturing the fundamental will radically transform worship in our personal lives. Knowing how to worship well in our personal lives will enable us to express meaningful worship through our public singing, praying, and preaching in a way that will transform our congregational worship into a beautiful offering to God. As worship leaders, we cannot offer something publicly we have not mastered in our private lives.

Being a worship leader is not about how good we look in our Sunday suit behind the podium or how powerfully we built the repeat chorus to “Our God, He Is Alive” or how smoothly we pulled off the key change for “In Christ Alone.” Being an effective worship leader is all about realizing how tiny and insignificant we are before an incomprehensibly awesome God. When we know our place before our great God on a Monday or a Thursday and can grasp how he still somehow loved me at the Cross, then we are ready to humbly stand before a congregation on a Sunday and lead them in true, heartfelt worship.

Cultivating a Heart of Worship

How do we cultivate a heart of deep worship in our personal daily lives? We grow in our capacity to worship God similarly to how we grow in our love for a spouse or our respect for a role model—by dwelling on God’s characteristics. When I dwell on the wonderful characteristics of my wife, I fall more deeply in love with her. When I observe God’s mind-blowing creativity and dwell on his incredible goodness and greatness, my heart is overwhelmed with worship to Him.

Romans 1:19-20 remind us that, “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” God has shown us overwhelming evidence of Himself. It’s all around us in His marvelous creation! But, are we looking? Are we letting the intricacy, grandeur, and beauty of it sink in and draw us to the humbling realization that the living God behind it all is even greater and more beautiful?

I have stood near the base of the most magnificent peak in North America—Denali in Alaska—and hiked into the rugged chasm of the Grand Canyon. I have camped in Chaco National Park in New Mexico and seen the Milky Way stretched out overhead in one of the clearest skies in North America. I have gazed into the night sky in Fairbanks, Alaska and witnessed breathtaking displays of the Northern Lights. I have looked through the lens of a microscope and studied the intricate detail of a paramecium. The vastness, brilliant intricacy, and sheer beauty of God’s creativity is mind-boggling! How can we not be drawn to the Creator behind the magnificent creation around us with our hearts overflowing in worship to Him?

Grasping that God is the author of the physical universe is enough to draw me to His greatness. But we don’t have to be standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon to be awed by God. We can be stuck in a boring office cubicle and still be awed by our God. How? God has created intangible things that are even more awe-inspiring than the creativity expressed in his physical creation.

Seeing God in the Intangible

For example, this universe is a much better place because God has created love and shown us love. We can only begin to understand God’s love when we understand that we should have no right to access it. As unholy sinners, our fair treatment is eternal separation from a holy God. We shouldn’t be able to fellowship with the magnificent, holy Creator of the universe.

But, God did the humanly illogical thing in the greatest act of love that this planet has ever know—at the cross. The cross is not a symbol of fairness; it’s a symbol of love so deep we’ll never begin to comprehend it to its fullest depth in this mortal life. The cross is where God the Father poured out his holy, just wrath on God the son (Jesus) for all our unholy violations against Him—while we were still unclean and untouchable—because He loves us so richly!

That is the meaning of worship. It doesn’t matter where we are, what day it is, or what we are going through—letting the reality and vastness of God’s love sink in will overwhelm us with genuine worship privately, which will allow us to lead genuine worship publicly.

Stay in the Presence of God

In order to dwell on the glorious attributes of God, we need spend time in God’s presence. Unlike Isaiah, who saw an overwhelming glimpse of God (Isaiah 6), or John, who also had a glorious glimpse into the throne room of God (Revelation 4), I haven’t personally seen God in his full glory. How do we spend time in God’s presence in the 21^st century? Many times, we forget about the power God’s word has to reveal God to us.

Spend time absorbing passages like Psalm 89:14 that reveal God’s attributes, “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; steadfast love and faithfulness go before you.” Let Psalm 19 draw your mind to the magnificent creative power of God, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1). Let the terrible and wonderful account of Jesus’ crucifixion in Matthew 27 move you with intense gratitude for God’s redemptive plan.

As Hebrews 4:12 reminds us, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword.” God’s word is a place we go to be touched and transformed by God’s power and presence. We become better worship leaders by letting the sentiment of Psalm 1:2 saturate our lives, “But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law he meditates day and night.”

Meditation on God and his word, bathed in a prayerful lifestyle (1 Thessalonians 5:17) will keep us in the presence of God, which will be evident to those around us. It will help us begin to understand the meaning of worship. Consider Moses in Exodus 34 when he had been in the presence of God, receiving the commandments of God on Mt Sinai. After that encounter with God’s glory, his face was so radiant he had to wear a veil before the people.

Meditation on God and his word, bathed in a prayerful lifestyle will keep us in the presence of God, which will be evident to those around us.

Ben Mitchell

Our faces may not literally shine like the sun when we encounter God’s glory in His word and in prayer, but they will shine with his complete peace and love and joy as our encounters with him inspire us to live lives of daily worship. Living lives of daily worship, starting with our private lives, prepares us to be excellent worship leaders in the public setting.

While I do love the technical aspects of music, I don’t want the music to ever get in the way of worship to God. God did certainly give us musical expression as an incredibly beautiful vehicle to worship and praise Him, but it is not what defines the meaning of worship. I do love understanding time signatures, key signatures, tempos, harmonies, dynamics, and vocal techniques and how they can all be blended in a thousand creative ways in God-glorifying singing.

Conclusion

My challenge to every worship leader is to be a worshiper first. Be a worshiper in your private time and in every part of your daily life—at work, at school, with friends, at the dinner table, in the evenings, and on weekends. Let worship of an awe-inspiring God permeate every aspect of your daily life. Secondly, master the technical aspects of music. Become so proficient with the technicals of music that you can naturally shape individual song as well as the entire worship service in a way that powerfully draws the hearts and minds of the worshipers into heartfelt worship to God.

If we have mastered the technical aspects of leading singing, the technicals will be smooth and beautiful rather than distracting and will allow us to focus our worship leadership on worship of our glorious God rather than on minutia like getting our 4-point conducting pattern right. When we are able to combine technical mastery of music with a deep personal practice of worship, we will inspire our congregations to see that there is nothing “dry” or “boring” about worship of our great and glorious God. And we will grow ever more in our understanding of the true meaning of worship.

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