Walking and Weighing Worship

One of my very good friends came over today and we walked and talked and then weighed in about worship. How do you "rate" it? When do you know if is it "good" or not? Are we a 4 or 6 or 9 and on whose scale? Does the sermon "count" more than the sacraments or the liturgy?

Good questions. Maybe the first question should be "Do we get any feedback and should it be quantitative, qualitative or something else?" If God has called us to worship Him, than we know He is the audience. Fair enough and you have heard that before. How does He tell us what He likes? Through His word. Not just the regulative principle sort of thing, but I think He is wanting worshippers to worship from their renewed hearts.

So what does that mean? Sermons are good to get to the heart. Music is good to open the heart. Confession cleans the heart. You get the idea. So, was the worship good? It was to Him; if your heart was opened and something happened. That can only be done by the Holy Spirit.

Now we do not have an x-ray machine to check you on the way out, so we need to depend on Him, to have done a work and for you to report it, for His glory. It may sound like I am getting "anecdotal" but I am thinking we do not say enough, "That was nice, but it did not get to my heart." That would be good to hear, because it means He did not do anything that noticeably opened your heart. A great thing for us to know and you too. On the other hand, it could be that the last point of the sermon got to your heart or the first stanza of the third song. Good to know too. He used that.

We are not looking for just emotion, but we are also not looking for no emotion. God could have done a work and cognitively you would not know it until Wednesday when you resist the temptation. We are called to test and see.

So, can I encourage us to ask God to open us to Him as we come to worship and then report back (to Him) what happened. We don't want a worship time that was a "check the box" event. We show up, and we want Him to show up too. If that is happening, to Him be the glory. If it is not noticeable; lets beg Him to make Himself known to us as we live life.

Blessings