Worship?

A couple months ago, I was assigned a schedule that required me to work on weekends. I was sad to have to miss church services but optimistic that it would be bearable. I missed church, but I was making do with what I had—I still visited with my Christian friends as much as I could and I listened to my church's sermons on podcast. It seemed like I had a pretty good routine going. I have all my bases covered. I have all the best parts of church—I just see the members of my church family I like and I only experience the parts of service I enjoy. I don't have to deal with any of that filler like, I don't know, worship.

Oh yeah, worship. I'd forgotten about that. If the sermon is the meat of a church service, then worship would be the steamed vegetables on the side—sometimes they're seasoned well, but they're never what I'm actually hungry for.

When I was a teenager, I used to get in trouble for looking so bored during worship. When I was in college, I went to church late to avoid hearing the choir. When I moved to Georgetown, I went to a church that took worship beyond music and singing and integrated art, prayer, and communion into services. In Austin, I went to a church that had an absolutely AMAZING praise team composed of professional musicians, but that wasn't enough alone. We chose our current church without considering the worship style at all.

When I stand up in church on Sundays and sing along, but I find my voice fades as I sing until I'm practically whispering. Eventually, I'm just mouthing the words. It's not that I hate worship—worship, the expression of adoration of God, I'm in favor of—it's just that worship is, you know…just singing, right? Worship is for artsy people who play acoustic guitars in their spare time, not me. I don't sing in the shower; I don't sing in my car. Why do I need to sing in church?

I don't know what the official answer to that is, but here's what I've noticed is missing in my life free of worship:

1. A designated time of worship. Right, I know I worship God in all my actions, but honestly that's still multitasking. That's like telling Peter, I love you while I'm working and shopping and cleaning, so we don't need to actually make love. (I'm sure he'd be plenty happy to hear that.)

2. A focus of worship. Worship pastors put a lot of thought into the messages of the songs they choose to lead a church in. Rather than shuffling through songs at random, they're offering you a theme to meditate on.

3. A UNIFIED focus of worship. Not only does worship give you a theme to meditate on, but it gives that same theme to everyone around you. For the rest of that service, that day, or potentially that week, 200 people in your community (give or take) will have one specific aspect of God's magnificence running through their minds and souls as the songs they sang in church play in their heads.

4. A softer heart. Listening is a little like jogging; it's easy if you're doing it wrong. If you listen at church while writing notes to your friends (me) or listen at home while busy with work (also me), it's pretty painless. But if you actually listen to hear and learn, you can get hurt. Much like my hamstrings, I need to stretch my pride and selfishness through worship. If I listen while my ego's still tight, I'll end up offended rather than changed.

As I said before, this is not an official list, nor is it an exhaustive list, but these are the reasons relevant to me. I don't know how I'm going to integrate worship into my life for the next few months, but it's become clear that the time has come to find a way.