Worship and Weights

We worship as individuals and as a community. It is easy for me to say, "I will worship!" and then do it. No one to collaborate with, no one to check me. I can do it the way I interpret scripture. It may be great, it may be good, it may be quick or it may be long. I decide. It may be worship "light" or worship "heavy." It is my my home gym and I can do whatever kind of worship workout I like. Maybe that word picture gives us a yellow flag.

Sometimes when I go to the gym by myself, it is a "light" workout, when I would have benefitted from a workout someone else prepared for me. I need someone to help me mature and encourage me as I do it. I need community worship.

Worshipping as a community may sometimes be harder then worshipping individually, but beneficial in a way that individual worship is not. How so?

When we worship as a group, it causes us to cooperate. To be "in communion." It causes us to worship the way others say we should. And for those of us who prepare to lead God's people, it causes us to speak, and listen, and listen some more, and forgive, and try to hear, and try to rest, and try to agree on "how" and "what."

Some nights, it is hard to work together to bring a community offering. But we do; together we do. Even if the offering is not the total preferences of any one individual, collectively it is an offering that is pleasing to God and strengthening to His people.

So can I encourage us as we prepare for this weekend to think about what may be asked of you that you would not ask of yourself as you individually worship? Perhaps we could reflect on how this weekend's worship would strengthen our love for God and one another as we worship well.