The Heart of Worship

When the music fades, and all has stripped away, and I simply come.
Longing just to bring, something thats of worth, that will your heart.
I'll 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 apear,
You're looking into my heart...
Lyrics from The Heart of Worship by Matt Redman

So I fractured my hand last week the day before I was supposed to lead worship and two days before I was supposed to go to the Chris Tomlin concert in SJ. I was pretty bummed out and was kinda struggling to get things to work out. I later realized that one of the songs in my set, The Heart of Worship, was the perfect song for that week. It made me remember that music is just one aspect of worship. There are many other ways to worship and we sometimes put too much emphasis on music worship in our lives. This past week has shown me many things about worship and how we can find many many ways to worship God and to share that worship with others.

We can worship God through prayer- At SFKUMC, I attend the Friday fellowship there and we try to spend at least 5 minutes each week praying after the bible study just to help us come back to God, end the night focusing on Him and what He has taught us and just asking Him for help and praising Him.

We can worship God through fellowship (and food)- On the way to the Chris Tomlin concert, Nathaniel and I had the chance to sit, eat, and talk with each other and share how we've been doing spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and many other ways. We could've spent that time listening to music without talking to each other, or talking about things not glorifying to God, or talking about worldly things only like college, work, summer plans, things that are not sinful but not glorifying either. It was an amazing time to get to sit and talk about our spiritual walks (as well as life, I admit) and just praise God with what has happened since we last seen each other.

We can worship God through shopping- Yes, a weird one I admit. A friend of mine and I were at Borders the other day and we were looking through the books hoping to find something to help us share our faith with three of our friends. We hope to give them a book to help them figure things out after our conversation in the near future..... I don't know how this one will turn out so more later.

And yes, we can worship God through music. Probably the one that has gotten me the most questions in these past few days. The Chris Tomlin concert was one of the many ways in which we can worship God through music. Chris Tomlin says it perfectly:

We will sing, sing, sing and make music with the heavens, we will sing, sing, sing, grateful that you hear us when we shout your praise, lift high the name of JESUS!
Lyrics from Sing, Sing, Sing by Chris Tomlin

Hallelujah! We can listen to music praising God, we can sing our praises to God, we and make music to worship God, we can share song with others when praising God too. The most important thing about worship is not that we are thanking God for everything in our lives but that we are CHOOSING to SPEND THE TIME with God with an open and grateful heart ready to receive a message through the bible or through fellowship, ready to see a song in a whole new light, ready to be amazed, ready to be hugged, and ready for the great things that have been done, the great things being done now, and the great things to come from God.