Chapter 2

How to worship

Worship should be an integral part of our daily lives as Christians. The apostle Paul makes this clear in various places in his letters. For example:

"…be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual song, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart..." (Ephesians 5:18-19)

"…teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God." (Colossians 3:16)

While the context of these passages deals with Body Life, our relationships with one another as Christians, worship primarily begins with how we relate to God when we are alone. In an article in the first issue of Equipping the Saints magazine where she talks about the home meeting that evolved into the Anaheim Vineyard, Carol Wimber tells how worshipping alone at home led them to a deeper experience of God when they worshipped together [Note #2: Quoted with permission from Renewal Journal 6: Worship. The article is titled Worship: Intimacy with God, by John & Carol Wimber found at https://renewaljournal.com/2011/05/19/worship-intimacy-with-god-by-john-carol-wimber/ and is well worth reading for its story of how worship was birthed in (and led to the birth of) the Vineyard Movement.]:

"During this time when we were stumbling around corporately in worship, many of us were also worshipping at home alone… We noticed that as our individual worship life deepened, when we came together there was a greater hunger toward God. So we learned that what happens when we are alone with the Lord determines how intimate and deep the worship will be when we come together."

Carol correctly identifies here the relationship between worship and hunger for God. The more hungry we are to know God, the more we will worship Him. And the more we worship Him, the hungrier we become to experience His love and power in our lives. Scripture asserts the same in Psalm 84:1-2,4 where the Psalmist says:

How lovely is your dwelling place, 

 O LORD of hosts!

My soul longs, yes, faints

 for the courts of the LORD;

My heart and flesh sing for joy

 to the living God…

Blessed are those who dwell in your house,

 ever singing your praise! 

Because our hunger to worship God as individuals largely determines what kind of worship experience we can expect when we gather together in corporate settings, we will start by exploring how we can worship God when we are alone. 

Solitary worship

Although I'm a trained musician and have led worship in many home fellowships and played keyboards on worship teams, my wife Ingrid probably has more of the heart of a worshipper than I do. For example, if I enter the bathroom while she's taking a shower, I often hear her singing in the Spirit as she intercedes for people and problems the Lord has laid on her mind. When she is working in her office, doing laundry or getting dinner ready, she sometimes has a worship CD playing in the background. And before she has a time of reading and meditating on the Word, she often begins with worship as she describes here: 

"If you set aside a special time like I do such as Saturday morning for reading the Word, it's good to start off with worship. It can be just one song repeated a few times. Sometimes a song just comes to you, or even two or three songs. Repeating them is helpful because it gives the words more meaning. I find that worshipping like this helps to open me more to the Holy Spirit so I can hear His voice and be touched by Him."

I'm somewhat different. For me, worshipping when I'm alone often takes effort. I first have to disconnect from the world and put aside the pressures of life and work that weigh on me. I picture myself coming before God's throne and then open my heart to Him, thanking Him for all His wonderful promises and faithfulness. If a song doesn't come to mind, I browse through a songbook and either start with something familiar or try learning a new song if the words seem to speak to me. 

I prefer not to play an instrument when I'm worshipping alone. Playing keyboard takes too great a share of my attention, distracting me from the words of the songs I'm singing. Worshipping alone with a guitar is easier, but I'm only a novice guitarist and often feel dissatisfied with my playing which hinders worshipping. (This doesn't happen when I'm leading worship with guitar in a home fellowship as the singing of the others helps drown out my mistakes!) So most of the time my solitary worship is a capella which lets me focus my whole mind on the words I'm singing. Let me illustrate with a story. 

The other day I went outside onto our deck early in the morning to worship the Lord. My heart had been feeling dry, so to revive myself I had decided to work through an old out-of-print Vineyard songbook and sing five or six songs each morning trying to recapture what it meant to worship: 

Figure 2: Treasure from the past. Might be worth a lot someday!

As I sang through the first few songs, my mind wandered as I struggled to focus on the words and what they meant. Slowly however the truth of what I was singing began to penetrate my brain. Then I turned the page and began to sing an early Vineyard worship song titled Bright and Shining Star by Carla Martin & Tim White [Note #3: Lyrics for most early Vineyard songs can be found in various places on the Internet. Our main source in earlier years was Vineyard Music Extra! (www.worship.co.za) which unfortunately is no longer maintained, but it can still be accessed through the Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20020606104138/http://www.worship.co.za/pages/songfind.asp. Recordings of some early Vineyard songs can be found on YouTube and various other sites; lead sheets and chord charts may be available from VineyardSongs, SongSelect and other worship music websites. ]:

Lord I want to know all that I can know about you.

Lord I want to go, where you lead me I will follow.

I suddenly realized that these words I was singing expressed exactly what was in my heart. Because ever since I met the Lord, my greatest desire has been to know everything I can know about him. The song continued:

Lord you are my bright and shining star,

and I know I'll never be too far 

from your love. 

A feeling of relief swept over me as I grasped once again how much God loves me. Scriptures like Romans 8:32 came into mind. The song concludes:

You're showing me the way,

I just want to obey,

oh teach me Lord I pray. 

My singing had now been transformed into a prayer as I found myself once again laying my life at the feet of Jesus, the Lord of my life. 

Worshipping alone may be different for you and for each one of us. You need to experiment to find out what works best for you. Maybe strumming on a guitar can help you get into worship mode. Try dimming the lights to remove distractions, and be sure to turn off your phone as well. Consider lighting a scented candle to symbolically remind you that Jesus is the light of the world, and his love is like perfume. Try stepping out on your balcony or into your back yard where you can see the heavens above, and lift your hands above your head as you praise His holy name. Instead of listening to the news as you drive to work in the morning, play a worship CD in your car stereo and sing along with it. Listen to one of your favorite worship playlists on your phone and sing along as you ride your bike or go jogging. There are lots of different things you can try doing when you want to worship God solo—the important thing is to do it.

As you learn to set aside regular times for worshipping the Lord, there will be times when His Spirit comes. When this happens, stop singing and just sit or lie in His presence, pouring out your heart to Him in words of thankfulness, or simply being silent before Him. Worship doesn't always have to be about singing; sometimes our deepest expressions of worship are beyond our words (Rom 8:26). 

Whether His Spirit comes upon us or not however isn't the point of worshipping God. We worship Him simply because He is worthy to be worshipped. Carol Wimber said it best when she reflected on the importance of worship in the early days of the Vineyard [Note #4: From an article titled The Power of His Presence by Carol Wimber, from the Yorba Linda Vineyard website archived online at https://web.archive.org/web/20160524073113/http://www.ylvineyard.com/2014/04/14/the-power-of-his-presence.]:

When we look back and see God's presence moving on us, forming us, worship had such an intricate part through all this. Over the years we've seen things change-shift, but from the very beginning we understood that worship wasn't "for" anything, except for the Lord. Sometimes I get the feeling that we've shifted a bit too, "We worship in order for this to happen." Whatever "this" is—a great move of the Spirit perhaps. But that truthfully is the opposite of what we were doing in those early days. We were worshipping simply because God is worthy of worship. The wonderful things that happened were as a result of His presence. But we didn't worship so that His presence would come; we just worshipped!

Keep those words in mind as you worship God, whether you're alone at home or together with others.

Small group worship

Worshipping together in a home fellowship can be a marvelous experience. As I've previously related in my book Simple Kingdom: Home Fellowships, God will often reveal Himself in amazing ways during small group worship times. I won't go over this ground again here but will simply mention four ways you can enhance your worship experience in the small group where you fellowship. 

Learn songs.  Try to memorize the worship songs you use in your home fellowship. Knowing songs by heart will enable you to sing them with your eyes closed to remove distractions. Knowing the words will also allow you to focus on their meaning as you sing them to the Lord. If your worship leader hands out songsheets for each meeting, take copies home so you can work on learning the songs. Recording your group's worship times on your phone can also help for learning songs, but make sure you first ask your group's leader if it's OK to do this because sometimes worship flows right into ministry time and you want to make sure you respect the privacy of those being prayed for. For this reason phones should generally be turned off during home fellowship meetings. 

Bodily posture.  Home fellowships are where you should feel free to worship not just with your mouth but also with your body. Lifting hands, kneeling, bowing down, even lying face down on the floor—these are all common expressions of worship in the Bible (see Psalm 63:4; 95:6; 1 Kings 18:39; Revelation 22:8-9) and in a small group where people know each other you shouldn't feel self-conscious about giving yourself wholly to God. 

Being led.  Allow yourself to be led by your group's worship leader. Western Christians are often too independent-minded and don't like submitting to others leading them, both in the world and in the church. Scripture however teaches us otherwise. Remember Ephesians 5:18-19 from the beginning of this chapter? 

"…be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart..."

The passage continues:

"giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ." (Eph 5:20-21)

The one (being filled with the Spirit) goes with the other (submitting to one another). 

Spiritual gifts. Worship with expectation when you are worshipping together with others. And I mean not just expectation for yourself but also for receiving spiritual gifts to share with others in the group. Perhaps the Spirit will give you a prophetic word of encouragement for someone in your group while you're worshipping. Or perhaps a word of knowledge, or of wisdom, or a revelation for the whole group. It doesn't matter how small your home fellowship is because even when only two or three are present, Jesus is also there among you (Matthew 18:20). 

For example, one time I was leading worship in a home fellowship we had recently started with another couple. While I was praying ahead of the meeting, I had a fleeting impression that Jesus was going to visit us somehow. As we worshipped together it became clear to us that we should move into a time of ministry. Several people then received prayer, and while one woman was being prayed for I suddenly felt that Jesus was standing behind me watching us pray for her. I saw this in my mind, not with my eyes, but the impression was clear. Then something strange happened: His body disappeared and only His floating, disembodied head remained! I shared my weird vision with the group and someone immediately gave the interpretation: we—our small fellowship—are His body, because we care for one another, pray for one another, love one another (see Colossians 1:18 and Ephesians 4:16). We all felt truly blessed by this revelation! 

Worshipping in church

So finally, regarding worshipping in church let me simply say this: how you worship at church Sunday morning should be no different from how you worship when you're in a homegroup or when you're alone. Doing this of course means you have to lay aside all your self-consciousness and focus your mind, heart and body on God. 

I still remember some of the earliest Vineyard gatherings Ingrid and I attended. I had so much hunger for God at the time that I often left my seat during worship and found a place near the back of the room where I could lie face down flat on the floor worshipping God. 

My suggestion then is that regardless whether you're worshipping alone, in a home fellowship or in a traditional church setting, you should try to worship God as if it's just you and Him alone there. Unless of course you happen to be the one who is leading worship—in that case it's a bit different. Let's explore that topic next: how to lead worship. 

---> Go to chapter 3