Worship, in that modern-day evangelical world, has become shorthand lingo referring to a musical genre or some sort formula for congregational services. To be sure, this has been a centuries-long reduction of what it means to worship from an all-encompassing way of life shrunken to an hour long mass. In the end, to think of worship as merely musical or to confine worship to an act of service would be to diminish worship and sever its theological density and meaning, rendering the worshiper confused, disjointed, and fractured, unable to worship truly for their lack of understanding.
At the introduction, the word worship immediately brings the limitations of language to bear upon the conversation. Because worship, as it is commonly known, has generally been used as an adjective, i.e. worship music, worship service, worship time. This betrays that worship serves, most fully, as a verb, as in, worship is an activity. This is not to detract from worship being used to describe various activities or times, but worship should be thought of more than merely a type or form of an activity.
Think of music. Because evangelicals have made worship a musical genre, the part of the active worship participator has been moved to the role preferential spectator. Now worship has been deemed a taste. As if the one who would be the active worship participator could actually choose if they wanted to worship or not like it was as common a decision as deciding whether they wanted italian food for dinner. This is not to say that music is not a medium for worship, rather, it is to highlight the apparent deficiency in the minds and hearts of worshipers that has come about from a misconception.
Worship, at its irreducible base, requires body and head, Church and Christ. This is one of those difficult things to understand: there is a unity, a communal requirement of worship. Although it occurs on a personal, private level to a limited degree, it is primarily a community activity, requiring a lifting of one voice from many to sing with one accord that Jesus is Lord. Worship is a word that describes an active worship. The deficient focus, in the past, has spent to much time on the personal aspect of the adjective to the declension of the community verb. In the end, though, these are not mutually exclusive ideas, far from it, for they are both necessary for worship to be.
Remember Jesus' words: "For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them." (Matt. 18:20). Jesus is not undervaluing the individual in the slightest, however, He is laying out a community requirement of worship. Often times this verse is employed for matter of prayer, but its context deals with binding and loosing, the very activity of worship needs to be focused on these elements.
In addition to the community requirement of worship, two other factors must be present, namely, Spirit and Truth. Again we turn to the words of Jesus: "But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him." (John 4:23). The truth is the Word, which is Christ. The Spirit is the Holy Spirit, which is the indwelling within the hearts of believers.
The Truth is the content, the Spirit is the outpouring of emotion and energy, both focused on worshiping the Father. In this way, worship engages with every member of the Trinity in their respective realms of influence and function. The point, then, is not to designate specific activities or certain tasks as worship but, rather, to fulfill the greatest commandment in every posture, remembering the words of Paul: "And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him." (Col 3:17).
Our goal and intent, as worshipers, is to join together with one, unified voice to offer sincere praise, adoration, exaltation, and thanksgiving to the Father, through His Son, Christ Jesus, which is empowered by the indwelling Holy Spirit, who baptizes those whom He is pleased to call His own. If we understand worship in this way, we would cease to lack evangelistic energy or mission or focus, and we would no longer think of worship as a common spectator activity. Let us then join together in song so loud and unified that the foundations of the earth are shaken!
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