Is Worship More Than Singing

James MacDonald

I often read or hear a servant of Christ insist that worship is more than
singing. We are frequently told that making a meal for your family or
cleaning your car or helping your neighbor are all acts of worship. When
these acts are the outgrowth of our love for God and are done to
demonstrate that love, I would agree that they are worshipful, but
technically they are not worship. Im not seeking to parse meaning with
undue rigor, but we need to be precise in our definitions if we want to
accurately embrace the very purpose for our existence. Worship is the
actual act of ascribing worth directly to God. Worshipful actions may do this
indirectly, but when the Bible commands and commends worship as our
highest expression, it is not talking about anything other than direct,
intentional, Vertical outpouring of adoration. While that does not have to be
put to music, it does have to be direct and not indirect to rise above the
worshipful and actually ascribe worth to God. First Chronicles 16, Psalm
29, and Psalm 96 define worship with surgical precision: Ascribe to the
Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name (Psalm
29:12). Worship is mind, emotions, and will engaged in whole-person
ascription of worth.
Nothing brings glory down in church as quickly and as powerfully as when
Gods people unashamedly adore Gods great Son, Jesus Christ. Not just a
few enthusiasts in the front row when the service starts but a room packed
to the walls with fired-up Christians. Not testimony to personal benefit
resulting from gospel belief, but ascription of worth to the God of the
gospel. When that happens, an unbeliever coming in will worship God and
declare that God is really among you (1 Corinthians 14:25). A whole body
of believers worshipping with their whole beings can expect to get the only
thing we have to offer this world: Is it not in [Gods] going with us that
we are distinct from every other people on the face of the earth?
(Exodus 33:16). All church activities that dilute, diminish, or detract from
worship destroy Verticality, deny the priority of doxology, and forfeit what
Vertical Church is all aboutglory.
How often have we sat in church and heard the platform misnomer that a
song will be sung to prepare our hearts for the message? Yes, ascribing
worth to God elevates Him to His place and lowers us to ours, readying
souls for Gods instruction, but the phrase can seem to imply a pecking
order that should not be intended and is not true. We dont worship so that
preaching will be more impactful for us; we preach so that worship will be
more impactful for God. Bless the Lord, O my soul (Psalm 103:12, 22) is
a summoning of the inner person to achieve his or her highest calling.
While God is not enhanced or increased by our worship, He is apparently
blessed and that in itself should stoke the fire of our adoration. Reading
Scripture, it appears that all preachers will be out of work in heaven, for
then all believers will know fully, even as I have been fully known (1
Corinthians 13:12). Where knowledge is complete, worship will be total and
the reason for preaching will be gone. We preach so that people will be
better worshippers, so that the nature and story of God proclaimed will
result in an amplification of what provokes glory to come down. A churchs
ministry extends of course beyond the weekend worship service, but if we
fail there, nothing else can succeed. That single service in a Vertical
Church is like the wood-burning stove in a factory or warehouse. The stove
is not the work, but when the fire goes out in the stove, the work stops.
What percentage of the relational strife currently plaguing local churches is
endemic to the frigid majority trying to warm themselves because the fire
that should stoke selfless interaction went out long ago? How much of
horizontal church is an attempt to produce Vertical results with horizontal
methods instead of getting to the bottom of why we cannot confidently
expect God to do what He says He willingly does? Instead of finding ways
to make church palatable because it ceased somewhere in the past to be
powerful, why not drill past surface solutions that entertain instead of
impact and get back to church as a place where God actually moves.
White-hot, unrestrained, whole-congregation, adoration is the first step in
that direction, and pursuing that kind of worship is the unceasing center of
Vertical Church.