What is Worship?

I was in a meeting at church once, and a member asked the pastor, "What is the difference between entertainment and worship?" I think he was asking the question because he wasn't completely happy with some of the more contemporary services that we had had the previous year. We are a traditional church, with a few more modern services each year. The difference between the traditional and modern is often very apparent.

I don't remember how our pastor answered the question, but I was thinking about it this week.

I have written about this question before. Thinking about the idea of God being the audience, the worship leaders being the prompters and the congregation being the actors, the question of what is worship and what is entertainment becomes more clear.

Worship is a person or a group of people giving themselves to God -- their praise, their gifts, the hearts, their selves to God. It is not defined by the style of the music, the room in which the worship occurs, the articulate skills of the preacher, or the eloquence of the prayers.

The mistake that the gentleman in our church made in his question was assuming that his question could be answered by a statement about the service. Worship is defined by the responses of God's children.

Image: Sunset at football game.