A man puts his fingers to the keys of a piano as parishioners begin to open their hymnals and join together in song in a church nestled in the countryside. Another grips the neck of his guitar as the track counts in his ear while churchgoers turn their eyes to the words on the screen in a church in the center of a city. A woman gently sings a song late at night to sooth the child nestled in her arms as she rocks back and forth in a chair in the nursery in her home. After sipping his coffee, a designer turns to his computer and begins to put the finishing touches on the graphic displayed on his screen. Shadows dance along the walls of the stadium as the pyrotechnics flash when the singer releases a guttural scream at the climax of his band’s hit song causing the crowd to go wild. A teenager sits behind a lighting console in an empty and dark worship center as he carefully programs cues for the songs for Sunday’s service. Dressed in matching robes, a choir lets out a note that causes the congregation to shiver. After working all day, a father puts the final touches on dinner while he calls for his family to set the table. An artist puts her hair up while touching the tip of her brush to the canvas to define the flower’s petals. Finally at the end of himself, a man quietly calls out to God as he sobs on the cold floor of his cell. The crowd cheers as the player lifts a finger into the air dedicating the victory to God. Heads nod in unison as the artists on stage delivers rhyme after rhyme to the beat. Tell me, which one of these is worship and which isn’t?

I suppose the answer depends heavily on who you ask, but isn’t that a problem? As the people of God, we are called to worship Him. If we’re called to worship God then we should probably know what that means, right? Then how can we be so divided on what worship is? Since the beginning, it seems that the church has always struggled and wrestled with what is “appropriate worship” and what it means to worship. Real worship is found in hymns accompanied with piano. What! You use instruments? You can’t worship with those worldly instruments. Hymns are boring, I want lights and rock! That’s not real worship, that’s all just a show. Real worship is choir robes and congregational singing! We all know it’s not real worship unless the altar is full. On and on the arguments go, and the church continues to fracture and divide. The enemy must be very pleased with himself over how he has divided the people of God using the very thing we are supposed to praise Him with. Let’s put these tired arguments to bed once and for all. What is worship?

It’s a difficult question to answer, which is why this is the first part of a series of posts I will be making here on my blog all about worship. Let’s start by simply trying to define what worship is. Take a look back at the examples I opened this post with. Out of all of them, which ones should we consider worship and which ones simply cannot be? Here’s the thing, we actually can’t definitely know which ones are worship and which aren’t. “Come on,” I hear you say, “you may not like it but hymns are certainly worship music and I’ll even concede that guitar music can be worship, too.” I agree, that they could be worship, but they also may not be. Same with any of the other examples I provided. Creating a digital design can be as much worship as singing a hymn, which can be as much worship as painting a picture, or programing lights, or rapping to a beat. The reasons why so many of us may have a problem accepting that is because we have too narrow of a definition of what worship is. When most church-goers think of worship, they probably think of the time during Sunday morning service at their church where they sing songs. That’s certainly not wrong, but if worship for you is limited to one hour on a Sunday then we have a problem.

Let’s consider what the Bible says about worship. The Bible uses the word “worship” 190 times in the Old Testament and 77 times in the New Testament, at least in the CSB. Granted, I haven’t checked every single instance, but only occasionally does it mention anything about music in context with worship. That’s not to say that the writers of scripture did not use music in their worship, they certainly did. What it does show is that the writers of scripture held a definition of worship that included much more than simply singing songs. If that wasn’t true, then that would mean in Mt 14:33 after Jesus calms the storm the disciples started up a rousing rendition of “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.” Also notably missing from scripture is instructions on how one should worship. It does tell us in verses like 2 Sam 6:5 that they used instruments like lyres, cymbals, and the like, but it does not say how we should play them. It doesn’t say that God prefers hymns, or choir music, or rock, or fog, or lights, or stained glass, or rap, or Mongolian throat singing. We’re not told how many beats per second our worship should be set at, what decibel level, how much bass we should have, or even what instruments we should or shouldn’t use. None of the psalms include any sheet music. To me, it seems that God isn’t terribly concerned about all of that. If He was, then He would surely reveal to us His preferences, and He hasn’t. When we say that worship music should be played this way or that way, all we’re really saying is that I prefer music that sounds like this. It’s OK to have preferences, but we go astray when we being to say, “if I don’t like your worship music then clearly God doesn’t like it, either.” That’s when we begin to turn something meant to glorify God into something that is all about me and my own sensibilities.

So what does God care about when it comes to worship? If it’s not music then what makes worship worship? 1 Sam 16:7 tells us the answer fairly plainly what worship is. Worship is not about the music but it’s about the heart. The music and lights and fog and everything else are just tools used to help direct our hearts to where they need to be, with God. That’s why just about anything, outside of clearly sinful and irredeemable things, can be worship. A father making dinner for his family can certainly be worship. What could be more like God than caring for your children? Sports can be played for the glory of God if only the players humble themselves and celebrate not what their own power can do but what God has done by giving them the talents and abilities to play. Of course painting can be an act of worship if the painter is creating unto the Lord. What a wonderful gift this is to understand that this is true worship! A custodian can clean to the glory of their Father. A gardener can cultivate to the greatness of the Lord. A contractor can build to show the honor of God. How sad it would be for us if worship was limited to the same handful of notes and collection of songs. It would be like trying to look at a sunrise through a keyhole.

There’s a story from scripture that can put all of this into perspective for us. In 2 Sam 6, King David, riding off the high of a recent victory, decides to move the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem. Now the Ark of the Covenant is extremely important because it is literally where the presence of God is among His people. We’re not so concerned right now with David’s struggles in moving the Ark, so we’ll quickly skip to the end. David eventually moves the Ark into Jerusalem. The whole way David and a bunch of his subjects are singing songs, praising God, and playing instruments. It was like a huge parade worshiping God. Well, the previous king’s daughter, Michal, sees all this celebrating and really didn’t like it. She runs down to David and begins to chastise him. “What a fool you made of yourself,” she said. “You even exposed yourself to the slave girls.” Apparently, David did party hard enough that some did see his, uh, little king, and Michal was accusing him of not really worshiping God. Instead, he was just wanting to party and he even flashed some servants. David’s response is simply amazing. He says, “I will dance before my God, and I will become even more undignified for the Lord.” Essentially, David says that he doesn’t care what Michal or anyone else thinks. He’s not doing it for them, and Michal can’t see David’s heart. The Lord can, and that’s all that matters. He will worship his God however he feels he should and if it makes him look like a fool, then that’s fine. In fact, he’ll become even more foolish if it means worshiping his God.

That’s really the attitude we all should have when it comes to worship. It’s easy for us to want to impose our preferences for worship on others, and I genuinely think it comes from a place of love. It comes from our desire for others to truly worship God. What we forget is that God doesn’t really care how we worship Him. He doesn’t want hymns, screaming guitars, lights, chants, choirs, deep bass, stained glass, hip-hop, or pipe organs. He just wants your heart. If to give your heart to God means singing hymns, playing rock music, lights, fog, organs, choirs, dancing, painting, cooking, head banging, rapping, or even Mongolian throat singing, than who am I or anyone else to say you’re worshiping wrong. How beautiful it is that we serve a limitless God who is equally glorified by however we feel best to express ourselves, just as long as we turn our hearts towards Him.