More Thoughts on Worship (ICEWS, eb 08)

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt


I enjoyed reading/hearing/watching the material for week 5 of this course and just bringing everything together. There were a few things that stood out to me:

In the article “Singing the Song of the Kingdom”, Gary Best touches on the spiritual warfare that is involved when we worship: “… it proclaims to the spiritual world our allegiance to Christ, causing rejoicing among God’s angels and trembling among Satan and his demonic forces.”[1] We talked a lot about representing God here on earth because we are made in the Imago Dei (image of God). I believe that is also true in the spiritual realm as we represent God in the battle field. Worship is a big part of putting on the “full armour of God”[2] because both worship and the “armour” involve the way we live our lives. This is no once-a-week event.

It also struck me how he said “True worship is a holistic response of our entire selves to God; it can be nothing less”.[3] We’ve been talking throughout the entire course about how worship encompasses our entire lives and that makes sense to me. What gripped me about Best’s statement was that “it can be nothing less.” What I gather from that is if it is “nothing less” it is not true worship. How many times have I half heartedly presented talents and situations in life to God and called it worship? This is very humbling.

After reading David Ruis article “Simple Devotion to Christ,” I had some thoughts about worship in relation to caring for the poor: In Matthew 25, Jesus talks about God rewarding the righteous who have served the poor. In Romans 12 we are called to be living sacrifices, giving our live completely over to God. If worship is living for God and in the end God keeps us accountable for how we treat the poor, then a large part of worship must be living a lifestyle that gives to the poor. Ruis says it well in his article: “Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 25: “Whatever you’ve done to the least of these, you’ve done to me.” I don’t know a better definition of worship than that.”[4]

I don’t think we could truly worship God without recognizing that we are in a spiritual battle, giving our whole lives over to Him, and caring for the poor.


[1] IW Master All, page 45
[2] Galatians 6:10-18
[3] IW Master All, page 46
[4] Ibid., page 25