What Does It Mean To Worship?

God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. John 4:24

Now that I am retired from vocational ministry, my wife and I are faced with the daunting challenge of finding a church home. Since we are in the midst of a pandemic, we have chosen to conduct our search online. At this point we have explored dozens of churches by looking at their websites and, if that proved promising, by participating in their online worship services.

One of the things that I’ve noticed is the wide variations in the way different churches worship. We’ve seen everything from a very formal Anglican service to a high-energy, contemporary service in a non-denominational congregation. Some services spoke to us more than others, but all were offered with an attempt to help the participants have a worshipful encounter with God.

Of course, we have our preferences like most people do. But just because we find a church that meets our preferences, doesn’t guarantee that we will be worshiping. For true worship is not a matter of style or form. It’s something far deeper.

I’m reminded of the conversation that Jesus had with the woman at the well. During the conversation, the woman tried to get Jesus to pick sides in the long running debate about where worship should happen. I imagine that if that conversation were happening today, the issue at hand would be whether we should have a traditional or a contemporary service.

Whatever the presenting question, Jesus’ answer would be the same. True worship isn’t a matter of location, form, style, instrumentation, day of the week or any other external matter. Rather it’s an issue of the heart. Listen to Jesus’ response to the woman’s question. “God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” It sounds like a good answer, but what does it mean?

Some suggest that worshiping in spirit is connected to worshiping in the Holy Spirit much like our Pentecostal brothers and sisters seek to do. Others would say that worshiping in spirit means to be expressive, to allow your emotions to be engaged. Thus the more emotional you are, the more spirit-filled your worship is thought to be. However, it must be said that our outward expressions of Pentecostalism or emotion alone does not guarantee that our worship is coming from an authentic heart. Nor does the absence of emotional expression mean that we are being more reverent and thus more worshipful.

Furthermore, some believers think that to worship in truth is exclusively connected with doctrinal correctness. So if your worship is orthodox in the way your group defines it, then you are worshiping in truth. But orthodoxy alone does not guarantee that we are worshiping in truth. There’s too much room for intellectual pride and the sad disconnect between belief and lifestyle.

So what does it mean to worship in spirit and truth? As I’ve thought about it, I sense that Jesus is talking about something that is coming from the inside of the believer. Thus to worship in spirit is to bring your full self into the worship experience. It is to be completely open to encountering God and to whatever it is that He is wanted to do in your life through the experience.

As a result, you will want to be fully present in the moment by limiting things that might distract you. You will pay attention to the words that are sung, the prayers that are offered, the scriptures that are read and the message that is spoken. Even more, you will need to listen to the still small voice of the Holy Spirit within who takes all the human expressions and translates them in great precision for your life .

In the same way, to worship in truth is more than getting the doctrine correct as important as that is. I think it also has to do with the truth about ourselves. Rather than hiding uncomfortable facts about ourselves from God, we open ourselves to the searchlight of God’s Spirit to probe into the deep recesses of our hearts. For when we do, God is able to accomplish His transformative work within.

Of course, none of this matters if our gathered worship experience doesn’t translate into living a more Christ-reflective life. The more we think like Christ and act like Christ, the more we can know that our worship is coming from the right place.

As for us, we are still in the discernment process for a church home. In the meantime, we are desiring to worship in spirit and truth. I hope you will join us in that desire.