Dear Friends
Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens! Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him
according to his excellent greatness! Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him
with lute and harp! Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with
strings and pipe! Praise him with sounding cymbals; praise him with loud
clashing cymbals. Psalm 150:1-6
Your worship looks a little different from
the Psalmist's description of his worship.
I remember the time when a couple of members
of a Vineyard Fellowship joined us for worship. The Vineyard churches place a
strong emphasis on freedom during their services. If you attended a Vineyard
church, you might see several different forms and expressions of worship, and
one of the forms you might see is people dancing during the service.
Now you might be comfortable with people
raising their hands in worship, but dancing- that’s where I would draw the
line.
One Sunday, I watched a couple dancing during
our praise and worship time, dancing in front of their chairs. With their hands
lifted high, they expressed the joy in their hearts. It was a different way of
worshipping than I was accustomed to, but for them, their form of worship was a
real and natural way of expressing their love for Jesus.
As I watched them, my mind drifted back to my
first worship experience while on a mission trip to Haiti, where I witnessed
the freedom and exuberance of the Haitian people as they worshipped God.
There is no formula for true worship, any
more than there is one way to pray. Praying and worshipping are matters of the
heart, and as such, they will be expressed in different ways by different
people.
Let us never be like the man who sat next to
a friend of mine in worship. During one of the praise songs, my friend asked
the man if he minded him raising his hands during his singing.
“Yes, I do,” the man replied. Now that
might have been the last time my friend ever worshipped in that church, but he was
gracious and respectful, and he honored the man’s wishes.
The word worship comes from a Greek word
meaning to turn and kiss. When you turn to kiss your wife, you don’t follow a
ten-step formula for kissing her; you just kiss her as your heart moves you to
do. There is no set way or right procedure; you just let your feelings dictate
your expression, and you don’t worry about how or where you do it.
There is no set way for worshipping God. Some
might raise their hands, and some might keep them in their pockets. Some sit
quietly, and some get up, waving worship flags as they dance throughout the
sanctuary. Now, I don’t know if your church is quite ready for dancing and
flag-waving, but for some churches, this is how people express their worship.
When David brought the ark of the Lord from
the house of Obed-Edom into the city of David, he did so with great joy, and we
read, “David danced before the Lord with all his might, and he was girded with
a linen ephod” (short for boxer trunks). David danced as trumpets played and
people shouted forth their praise. And we are told that when Michal, Saul’s
daughter, looked out and saw David dancing in his boxers as he leaped and
danced before the Lord, “she despised him in her heart.” (2 Samuel 6:16)
Now, somewhere during that service, we too
might have drawn the line, but David didn’t care. He was so excited, so filled
with a heart of worship, that he didn’t worry about what people might say or
think.
However, we worship, may it be an
enthusiastic and uninhibited expression of our love for Jesus, always
remembering with A.W. Tozer, who said, “worship means to feel in the heart.”
Yours in faith and friendship,
Tom
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