I'm coming back to the heart of worship, because its all about me...

For Christmas some friends of the family gave me a gift certificate to Blessings ‘my local Christian marketplace’. I hadn’t been into a Christian bookstore in quite some time and was curious to see what I could get with my $25 of gift certificate goodness. After looking through all the little pencils, bumper stickers and Willow Tree angels I got to the back of the store and their music department. And what did I find there? Music I didn’t really want to buy of course, but out of all the CD’s one in particular stood out. It was a sampler/ep for a band named Rock and Roll Worship Circus.

I was stunned, utterly shocked that there would actually be a band with that name. I came close to buying the $3.99 sampler just so I could hear the music of a band whose name typifies my current beef with church and my college’s chapel services. So much of what I see in a college chapel or church service is almost akin to a circus. The whole thing seems more like a free 30 minutes or hour of entertainment than a conduit to God for me.

I don’t understand worship services. Everyone stands and faces the PowerPoint screen and sings songs about how great God is and pathetic we are. Some people close their eyes, some sway and still others raise their hands as if the sky is about to fall or a bag of cash will soon be filling them. Is that what worshiping God is?

I feel like I don’t know how to worship. I thought for a while if I just closed my eyes and furrowed my brow it would come, if I just wanted it bad enough I’d be able to worship. That didn’t seem to be the case. I just stood their wanting to peek out of one tightly shut eye and see some sign that what I was doing was actually worship.

I’ve been doing research on this whole topic lately and one word that kept popping up is the Greek term latreia. This word is often translated as worship, but can also, or perhaps more accurately, be translated as service or sacrifice. That is something I often see as lacking in my experiences during church and chapel. Nowadays when I am in a worship service I feel like the whole thing is all geared towards me. The whole thing is about making me feel a certain emotion, making me feel comfortable and at home when I’m singing, or painting or whatever people do to ‘worship’ these days. What has happened to the whole service and sacrifice thing? Maybe I should be closing my eyes, furrowing my brow and raising my hands when I put a loonie in the offering plate.