What is worship?

This is from August of this year. I understand that it isnt a complete thought, nor is it completely theologically correct. But it does stimulate discussion.....

I think it is time to try and write down in a centralized way what I have been thinking about, praying about, and experiencing in God for the last 12-15 years about HIS desire to use music and creative expression, and our need and desire to have that. It goes way beyond “worship” as a musical thing, but it is the springboard to what I have been thinking.


1. Worship

Worship is NOT singing, dancing, or some other expression. Worship, at it’s core, is a lifestyle (Rom 12:1-2), not an event. A constant, and progressive process. It is a laying down of our life, a living sacrifice. It is a constant thing. It also involves (as it’s result) a transformation (via a renewing of our mind) that should completely change us to have a different experience and understanding than we would normally have.

Additionally, one of the perspectives of worship in the OT is sacrifice. The irrevocable giving over of things to destruction, such as cities that were burned down to the ground (at God’s explicit command), killing people (ewwwww!!) and animals and things of value etc… This was combined with offerings, which was giving of something of value to God.

Here are some other thoughts I wrote on this a couple years ago. This seems to apply much more to the OT concept of worship, which was really a worship in response to rules and process laid out by God. You didn’t get to think up a way to worship God in this context. If you wanted to worship, you found out what the law said, and did it that way. There was Praise etc… in the Psalms. This was different.

1. At it's very basic essence, worship is a transaction
2. The transaction is always a giving up of something of value by the worshipper. The greater the extent of the value, the greater the worship. This is the application of the word sacrifice. In reality, sacrifice is a death of some level. The old testament meaning of sacrifice was also interpreted to be the "irrevocable giving over of something to death". The burning of a city, the slaughter of an animal that could be used for food or work, the destruction of something personal to the extent that it could not be retrieved and picked up again. This ties in to the "If you eye offends you" statement of Jesus. But that is for another discussion!!
3. The hope of the worshipper is to get something in return from the worshipped in response to the death. Atonement, Deliverance, Cleansing…..
4. When worship does not result in some form of death on the part of the worshipper, it is not worship. It may be praise, it may be fellowship, but it ain't worship.
5. Humans are always full of something. Themselves, God, the world. Combinations of all.
6. "Giving is Receiving, and Receiving, Giving" In order to give something of any true value, you must receive something from God. The flesh profits nothing, but the Spirit gives life. You must displace what you have initially with something from God, which means something must be emptied before something can be filled. (Tommy Tenny has a great take on this in his recent books). So, in order to have something to give, you must give up something about you to have "room" to receive from God. In order to receive something from God, you must empty yourself in some way, through giving, or death to something.