Chapter 1

What is worship?

Worship can mean different things to each of us. For some worship means singing hymns in church Sunday morning. For others it can mean a series of liturgical declarations and responses led by a priest. Some churches start their services with a half hour or more of continuous singing. Others may include a time of silent waiting upon God as participants worship Him in their hearts. 


All of these examples of worship are valid, and they can all be supported to some degree from the Scriptures. But these are really just outward expressions of worship; they don't get at the core of what worship actually is. 


In the Summer 1993 issue of Equipping The Saints magazine where he revisited what he saw as the key priorities of the Vineyard Movement, John Wimber said that "Probably the most significant lesson the early Vineyard Fellowship learned was that worship is the act of freely giving love to God." John went on to explain how we should make worship our highest priority, how worship can be expressed in different ways, how it can involve not just our thought and intellect but also our bodies, and how it needs to be Christ-centered, Spirit-led and include the Lord's Supper. But before we discuss such things, let's step back for a moment and focus on loving God. 


Loving God

Loving God is really the essence of what being a Christian is all about. This is illustrated for example by the story in Luke 10:25-28 where Jesus responds to a question:


And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" He said to him, "What is written in the Law? How do you read it?" And he answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." And he said to him, "You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live."


Jesus also says loving God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind—with every part of your being—is the great and first commandment (Matthew 22:38). This means putting God first in every area of your life, keeping him in mind in everything you do, and having no other gods (anything you idolize) except him (Deut 6:4-15). 


Loving God also means worshiping him. When Satan told Jesus he would give him authority over all the kingdoms of the world if only he would worship him, Jesus replied "It is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.'" (Luke 4:8). 


True worshippers of God worship him in spirit and truth, and God is looking for those who will worship him like this (John 4:23-24). Where can we find an example of such a worshipper?


The example of David

David is probably the most prominent worshipper in the Bible. He was a skilled musician (1 Samuel 16:16) and an accomplished songwriter (see the Book of Psalms). He also organized worship for religious services and for special events (1 Chronicles 15:16-29, 25:1-31). The many psalms he wrote express worship through adoration, thanksgiving and confession. Let's look at a few examples:


Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! (Psalm 103:1)


O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! (Psalm 8:1)


The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. (Psalm 19:1)


I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. I will be glad and exult in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High. (Psalm 9:1-2)


Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! (Psalm 51:1)


Then there's this psalm where David expresses his love for God in simple, almost childlike terms:


I love you, O LORD, my strength. (Psalm 18:1)


This is an example of intimate worship, something that characterized the worship songs and approach to worship during the early years of the Vineyard Movement. 


Intimacy with God

In his article Wimber goes on to describe what happens in our hearts as we worship God. He describes five basic phases through which the worship leader tries to lead participants in a Vineyard worship service. We'll examine these phases later, but the important thing now is what the worship leader steers people towards:


"As we pass through these phases, we steer towards one goal: intimacy with God. I define intimacy as revealing one's deepest nature to another (in this case to God), and it's marked by close association, presence, and contact." 


I first encountered this kind of worship when someone gave me a cassette tape recording of live evening worship at the Vineyard Christian Fellowship when it was still meeting in the gymnasium of Canyon High School in Anaheim, California. [Note #1: I've digitized this and several other early live Vineyard worship cassette tapes as .mp3 files and can share them with interested readers; email me using the address on our website.]As I lay on my bed listening to this worship tape, I wept uncontrollably. Because I had finally found something I had always been longing for: a way of expressing the deepest feelings of my heart to God.

Figure 1: This live worship tape from the early Vineyard changed my life!


I've always loved worshipping ever since I got saved in 1976. The first church I attended was non-denominational Evangelical, and as someone who was classically-trained in piano, I soon found myself accompanying the hymn singing on Sundays. Full of joy and amazement at my new birth, I would often walk the streets at night loudly singing hymns like A Mighty Fortress is our God (Martin Luther, 1529), And Can It Be That I Should Gain? (Charles Wesley, 1783), He Lifted Me (Charles H. Gabriel, 1905) and many other classic hymns that I had memorized. 


But this was something different. My favorite hymns typically had several verses and often covered a lot of ground theologically. Most of the songs on this cassette tape however were short and used simple words. And while I loved how those old hymns glorified God, they sometimes left me feeling that God who is holy is way up in heaven, but I'm down here, a sinner saved by grace. 


Not that this is wrong of course, because it is the cross of Christ alone that saves me. But I'm more than just a sinner saved by grace. I'm also God's child, beloved by the Father and precious in His sight. And while the theology of the hymns helped me understand with my mind how much God loves me, the simple worship songs on the tape helped me feel God's love in my heart and express my love to Him in return. In other words, the songs helped me experience intimacy with God in a way I hadn't before. 


I think there's probably nothing we crave more as human beings than to experience intimacy. Something deep within our nature wants to know and to be fully known. At least this was true of myself before I met God. Perhaps that's why my first exposure to early Vineyard worship affected me so deeply.

 

What about you? Do you long for a closer relationship with God? Do you want to experience Him more deeply? Do you wish you could hear his voice more clearly? Do you hunger and thirst for His presence? Intimate worship can help you with these things. 


But while intimacy with God is what we seek for ourselves whenever we worship Him, it isn't the reason we should worship Him. We worship God because He's worthy to be worshipped, to be loved with all our heart, soul, strength and mind. Let's explore next how we can do this—how to worship. 


---> Go to chapter 2