Living the Life of Worship | These Tea-Stained Pages
Published over 2 years ago • 7 min read
I usually start out my monthly newsletters with something like “Lately, I’ve been thinking about [insert topic here]” or “Such-and-such happened recently, which got me thinking,” and I’ll proceed to write about what’s been on my mind or heart that week.
Well, my mind feels a wee bit empty today. 😅 Not because I haven’t been thinking, but because I feel like I’ve already expressed all my thoughts—in other posts and devotionals, on my podcast, ranting to my sister when she’s trying to go to sleep. You know how it is.
But there has been a common thread in most of my discussions throughout May. Worship. I’ve written or talked about writing as worship, the importance of worship, corporate worship…etc. But while I was lying in bed the other night, wracking my brain for something to share this month (since I still couldn’t think of anything when I sat down to write on Monday), my thoughts turned once again toward worship. Specifically, worship in every day life.
I keep hearing and seeing a lot of folks complain about modern worship or how a particular church worships. And I totally respect people’s opinions and concerns, but something that keeps coming up is this idea that corporate worship is the end-all, be-all in the Christian life. When you expect a twenty minute worship service on Sunday morning to satisfy your desire for intimacy with God, you completely miss the point. You end up feeling discontent and disappointed in what you’re getting from church. Same goes for the sermon and small groups—the moment you hang the entirety of your walk with God on what happens one day a week, you put what little of a walk you have in jeopardy.
So many people are upset with modern sermons and songs because they expect them to be ✨perfect✨ and to check all the boxes for worship. But worship comes in multiple parts: corporate worship AND private worship, worship in deed and worship in word, worship as an activity and worship as a way of life. If all you’re focused on is corporate worship, you’ll be disappointed when you discover it doesn’t satisfy your every need or preference (because, as the name suggests, it’s worship within a group of other people with other preferences). If all you’re focused on is worship in word, you’ll miss out on the blessings of worship in deed. If all you’re focused on is worship as an activity, you’ll grow tired or discontent or stagnant, because you’re not offering your body as a living sacrifice, which is spiritual worship (Romans 12:1).
You see what I mean?
If you (generally speaking and to you this time, reader) feel like something’s missing from your corporate worship during church, consider if what you need is something you can incorporate into your daily life on your own. A type of song you want to sing? Sing it yourself. Some extra time in silent prayer? Go to a quiet place and pray. Praising through dance? Get up and dance. Instrumental worship? Find a spontaneous instrumental playlist or pick up an instrument yourself.
More time sharing testimonies or praying for others? Go out and pray for your friends or share with others what God’s done for you. More emphasis on generosity and giving? Help someone in need or give extra to a ministry. More opportunities to serve or grow? Create them.
I say all of this to say that true spiritual worship doesn’t start in a pew. It starts in our hearts. As John Piper put it, “you can do as many deeds as you want and go to as many church services as you want and never be worshiping if it is all external and nothing is happening in your heart toward God. All true worship is in essence a matter of the heart. It is more, but it is not less” (“What is Worship?” 2016).
We’ll never feel spiritually fulfilled by anything we do. It is only when we put our focus on God and what He has done that He begins to fill the crevices of our souls and it becomes less about our music tastes or timetable and more about glorifying God. Our heart needs to be in the right place—and part of that entails getting rid of this idea that worship is for our benefit or gain. Worship is for God and God alone. If we do it right, we’ll absolutely reap the benefits (like greater intimacy with Him), but ultimately, even what we do receive is for the betterment of His Kingdom and to further His purposes, so…🤷♀️
“The inner essence of worship is the response of the heart to the knowledge of the mind when the mind is rightly understanding God and the heart is rightly valuing God” (Piper, 2016).
So when our heart is in the right place, our lives ought to match up. When we know God and value Him, what should our response be? What does the inner essence of worship look like?
It looks like gratitude and thankfulness for all that God has done.
It looks like a greater desire for intimacy with Him and hunger to know Him more.
It looks like conviction that leads to confession that leads to repentance.
It looks like a desire for holiness and to walk according to His word.
It looks like joyful generosity and self-sacrifice and service to God and others.
We realize this inner essence in three ways:
communion
praise
service
Communion is basically partaking in the divine. It’s spending time with God, investing in your relationship with God, studying God. Anything that leads your mind to better understand God and your heart to better value Him falls in this category, like:
prayer;
reading the Bible;
memorizing Scripture;
studying the Bible;
meditating on Scripture;
writing down prayers, Scripture, etc.;
and even just sitting in silence and listening to Him.
Praise is the expression of what you know about God and how you feel about Him. It’s putting that gratitude and joy we feel into words and movement through:
singing;
playing an instrument;
dancing;
testifying;
reading Scripture aloud (like psalms of praise);
writing something (from a prayer to a blog post to a poem) that praises and honors God;
or simply thanking God for all that He’s done.
Service is, well, serving God and others. It’s living out what we’ve read in the Bible, it’s acting on our faith in God, it’s glorifying Him through our actions. But what we get wrong about service sometimes is that we put it at the top of this list. We think that doing for God is what secures our salvation and constitutes our relationship with Him. We try to check off the boxes without focusing on God first through communion and praise. We go through the motions while still feeling doubtful or guilty or angry with God. But when service comes after communion and praise, we find ourselves doing because we’re grateful for what God has done, because we love Him and all that He is, because we want others to know our Savior.
We serve through a wide variety of things, but here are a few:
giving/tithing;
volunteering in the local church or the community;
using our talents and gifts to glorify God;
discipling others;
bringing God’s presence into the world;
speaking the truth of God;
loving others as Christ loves us;
prioritizing God in every aspect of our lives;
following God’s commandments and precepts;
and living and thinking in accordance with God’s Word.
And now this newsletter has ended up a thousand times longer than I expected. 😅 I apologize for the sermon, folks. I guess I just needed to get this out of my system, because it literally burdens me to see so many people become discontent and complainant, jaded and disillusioned, or complacent and stagnant Christians because their focus isn’t in the right place. And I say this not as someone who has it all together—but as someone who’s complained and fussed too. Who’s felt discontent and lacking too. Who’s learning, slowly but surely, what it really means to die to yourself and live for Him.
So whether you’ve felt this way too or not, I hope this e-sermon has encouraged you in some way or motivated you start living a life of worship. Thank you for sticking with me for the last 1,400+ words. 💕
(Also, I know John Piper has some...interesting theology and teachings, so just because I'm quoting him on this subject doesn't mean I agree with him on everything.)
This is probably the last time you'll see this section. In fact, the freebie section has already disappeared (more on that), because I'm currently in the process of updating my newsletter's design + reevaluating its purpose. If you want to stay up-to-date on what's going on in my writing and businesses, the best way to do that is to subscribe to my blog, where I share a monthly updates post and various other things. (Pro tip: click on a post and scroll past the comments to find the sign-up form!)
Back to the freebie...I decided to cut it out because (1) I'm running out of ideas for free things and (2) I plan on putting together a incentive freebie for new subscribers, so I don't really need the monthly freebie anymore. But then, I realized something. I use the freebie as an incentive not just to subscribe but to stick around. But the downloadable graphic isn't my main offering to you, so if I want people to stick around because of that, I'm doing something wrong. SO I want the actual content of my emails to speak for themselves. I want folks to stay for what I have to say, not cheesy little freebies.
So from here on out, I intend to be more focused on and more intentional about the actual content of my newsletters rather than all the other things.
Before I sign off for the month, y'all let me know if you'd be interested in receiving my welcome incentive e-course emails (for the fun of it, or to help beta-test/proofread the content)! If everyone's up for it, I'll start sending the emails out to y'all (in addition to my monthly emails) as I write them!
I have an idea in mind for the e-course that focuses on spiritual and creative dryness, but I would looove y'all's ideas and suggestions for sub-topics! What's been on your mind and heart lately? What have you been struggling with or learning about (spiritually, creatively, generally)? I want this e-course to benefit my audience, so to do that, I need to know what areas y'all need help in! Hit reply and let me know!
Y'all have a beautiful, hopeful, delightful, humble June, my lovelies! Thank y'all for being with me through all the revamps and rambles. 💕
