Worship with a Mission

Here’s a not-so-profound statement: Worship is so much more than what takes place for 30 minutes on a Sunday morning before the pastor speaks. We’ve all heard this before, and to a degree, we all believe this. But what are we doing that shows our audience that we believe it?  What does worship outside of the context of music look like? It looks like so many different things! However, I want to focus in on one scripture particularly.  Isaiah 1:17 says, “Learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.” This, my friends, is worship. This is a great command given to us all.  We sing songs declaring the love, grace, mercy, and affection of God week after week after week. But does our worship end there? Does our worship stop at our lips?  Our songs mean nothing if we are not willing to demonstrate the love of God to the world. It doesn’t matter how loud we sing on a Sunday morning if our lives outside of the church don’t sing just as loud.  Matthew 15:8 says, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”  When we sing, we can feel as though we are so close to God. There are times when it may seem that we have the very same heartbeat as Him. The way the pads are able to “set the right atmosphere.” The way the drummer swells on the cymbals at just the right time. The sound of the congregation singing as one mighty chorus. When all of these combine it can feel as though Heaven is invading earth.

But let me assure you, Heaven will never invade earth until we, worshipers of the Lord, begin to invade earth with the love of God. Sometimes we need to put our hands down and get them dirty from showing God’s love to the least of these. We have to adopt the heart of the Father. And His heart is for His children. His children aren’t just those who show up to church. Every single person on this earth is deeply loved by God. We are called to worship Him in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). His word is truth. Let us not be as the Israelites. Let us not just bring God our lip service. Let us not be known by God for having hearts that are far from Him. Let us continue our worship as we step out of the doors of our churches and into the streets.

Worship without mission is not true worship. Our worship must propel us to further service. I don’t think that God is saying to us as He did the rich young ruler, to sell everything. I do, however, believe that He is asking us to give all that we can in pursuit of truly worshipping Him in spirit and in truth. In order to really live out this true worship and to seek justice and to do right we must keep a particular passage of scripture in mind; Philipians 2:3- “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves” There’s no other way to live out true missional worship. We must be humble. We must think of others above ourselves. I’m not perfect in this. This is something I have to remind myself of daily.

I pray that we, as leaders of worship, would become leaders of worship with a mission in every aspect of our lives. And I can guarantee that as we do so, Heaven will truly begin to invade earth and revival will break forth.