Worship and Missions

Something that has been on my mind recently has been worship and what it really means. That and the way it correlates with missions.
First, is it really worship if you go to church and you just stand there staring off into space? Worship is an action, a verb. It means you do something. The Greek words for worship all have the same type of feel.

• SEBOMAI – to lift up high, or to exalt
• PROSKUNEO – to bow down
• LATREUO – to serve

As you can see, all three of these words are actions, to do something. Is it really hard to sing to the God who created you? Who gave you life? I think not. Worship is not just attending a service, it’s doing. Now, growing up I went on many mission trips with my youth group. Some I went on were choir mission trips. We would practice songs and choreography for months to prepare for “shows” we would preform. We would do these shows at different locations, mainly public places so random people walking by could stop and listen. The goal was once we were through with the concert, the students would go out into the crowd and talk with people and eventually share Christ with them. That was the goal and it worked for the most part. Do I think this was the most effective way to share Christ with people? Maybe not. I think there are many ways to do mission work, there’s not just one right way. But I feel like some just want to sugarcoat the gospel so much that it looks like something it’s not. Some of these so called mission trips are hardly even missions too. Student groups take their kids off somewhere in the USA for a mission trip and they end up focusing on fun activities and barely doing ANY mission work. I knew friends in high school that never shared their faith with anyone on our choir mission trips. Why? Because it was so easy just to sit back and not. Now many of us did share our faith and led many to Christ. Don’t mistake what I’m saying here.  I just feel many leaders focus on the wrong aspect of how to go about doing mission work when it comes to students. Why call it a mission trip if you are barely doing mission work? If you are trying to make the mission trip look “fun” then you have the wrong motivation. Sure you want kids to go on the trip but getting kids to go for the numbers is just wrong. I could go into churches and numbers but that is for another post. Missions is worship. Jesus commanded us to go and tell the world about him and his saving grace. Obeying him and his commands is a form of worship, just like singing and lifting him up in song. Awesome isn’t it? I want to end with a section from one of Spurgeon’s sermons about worship.

How much public singing, even in the house of God, is of no account! How little of it is singing unto the Lord! Does not the conscience of full many among you bear witness that you sing a hymn because others are singing it? You go right straight through with it by a kind of mechanical action. You cannot pretend that you are singing unto the Lord. He is not in all your thoughts. Have you not been at places of worship where there is a trained choir evidently singing to the congregation? Tunes and tones are alike arranged for popular effect. There is an artistic appeal to human passions. Harmony is attended to; homage is neglected. That is not what God approves of. I recollect a criticism upon a certain minister’s prayers. It was reported, in the newspaper, that he uttered the finest prayer that had ever been offered to a Boston audience! I am afraid there is a good deal of vocal and instrumental music of the same species. It may be the finest praise ever offered to a congregation; but, surely, that is not what we come together for. If you want the sensual gratification of music’s melting, mystic lay, let me commend to you the concert-room, there you will get the enchanting ravishment; but when ye come to the house of God, let it be to ‘sing unto the Lord.’ As ye stand up to sing, there should be a fixed intent of the soul, a positive volition of the mind, an absolute determination of the heart, that all the flame which kindles in your breast, and all the melody that breaks from your tongue, and all the sacred swell of grateful song shall be unto the Lord, and unto the Lord alone.

Read the whole sermon:The New Song and the Old Story There are many questions in this post but I really don’t care. I could of said more but I think this gets across what I am trying to say. It’s good to ask questions and I hope many of you respond with your thoughts in the comments below. I’m interested in what you have to say.