It's all worship

One of the recurring issues that demands my attention (and causes me a bit of grief too) is the knotty issue of 'worship'. The grief element is due to the fact that a goodly number of people seem to think that 'worship' is the music bit and so they speak of the 'worship time' in the service. "We had a great time of worship during the service," they say, meaning they enjoyed the music bit.

Recently, whilst discussing this I brought up the issue of 'liturgy' only to be told that "We don't do that sort of things, we leave that to you high church types."

Well, here's what I told them.

Liturgy (leitourgia) is best regarded (from the Greek) as 'the work the people do' and it refers to the act of duty that is expected, nay demanded, from us. It is the act of worship and this encompasses the singywotsitstuff, talkywotsitstuff, the readingswotweread, the praying and Godbothering and the preachystuff too. It is not a rampant fast section or the slow bit where we do the worship, it is the whole shebang from the welcome to the last Amen.

We don't do worship to bless us but to bless God.

Good worship isn't what happens when we're entertained but when our services are a fragrant aroma in God's nostrils.

Pax