The Heart of Worship

There is a certain unsettledness that goes with any major church change-- like changing our worship times and format. And with unsettledness comes discomfort-- what was wrong the old way of doing church anyway? It is easy for us to become sidetracked by the forms and formats of worship that forget its focus. After all, when we come together as a church, we have to do something. And we all have our own ideas about what we should do-- old songs vs new songs, planned worship vs spontaneous worship, short sermons vs shorter sermons. And there is something to be said about using the very best forms. But sometimes we can focus so much on the externals of worship that we miss the heart of worship.

Matt Redman tells how his preacher led him to look at worship in a different way. Redman is a worship leader; that is both his gift and his ministry. But for a period of weeks, it was decided decided that the church would worship without any music at all—no instruments, no singing, no nothing! During that time, the church concentrated on worship withou songs. For Redman, this focus was painful. But it was out of that experience that Redman saw worship in a whole new way, and he wrong wrote his classic praise song “Heart of Worship”--

When the music fades, all is stripped away
And I simply come longing just to bring
Something that's of worth that will bless your heart
I bring you more than a song,
For a song in itself is not what you have required
You search much deeper within
Through the way things appear
You're looking into my heart
I'm coming back to the heart of worship
And it's all about You; it's all about You, Jesus
I'm sorry Lord for the thing I've made it
When it's all about you, it's all about you, Jesus

The first question we need to ask about worship is not about its form or format; the first question is always about its focus. Worship is about God. Sure, the form worship tales impacts people, and therefore we must think about the forms. But the focus must always be God.