Everyone can tell what you like, enjoy or treasure by your priorities.
In 1967, Desmond Morris published a book called 'The Naked Ape' in which he described "Body language" – what your pose and actions (subconsciously) tells onlookers about your attitude.
The way you live, behave and devote your time etc. shows where your priorities lie; or, as Jesus put it "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matt 6.21)
That's what the Anglo-Saxon word “weorthscipe” means – how we display worth - the values and value judgments that form our life's patterns. It's the root word from which we get our word 'worship'.
So, in that sense, worship is the priorities and values indicated by the way you live.
Everyone can tell what you like, enjoy or treasure by your priorities.
A good “Service of Worship” should help re-organize the priorities of our life, make them line-up with the kingdom of God.
Do you remember the PBS program called "The Antiques Roadshow"? In which people take an item from the attic or basement, expose it to expert scrutiny & analysis, and from those expert comments they discover more about the object and how precious it is. It's something like that with an Act of Worship – we take our faith, dust it off, examine and celebrate it together and begin to appreciate who God is and what He has done – in a new light. Through worship we begin to see ourselves as we really are – sinners saved by God's grace – or better still we see ourselves as God sees us – loved but lost, unworthy but welcome.
However, when we take our focus off Christ, we quickly forget what's central to our faith or get distracted from our life resolutions – and all this, too, is obvious to people around us.
Pastor Rick Warren's book, 'The Purpose Driven Life' begins with the sentence: “It's not about you.” That highlights one of the problems we face when discussing our worship services. Each of us loves to sing songs or hymns, pray prayers and say creeds that express our faith. But asking questions about what you like or enjoy is not the point; in fact, that only serves to make us think about ourselves, and most of us don't need help to be self-centered.
what you like or enjoy is not the point
Really the question should be what do your children, your parents, your neighbor find helpful in expressing themselves to God? How can we, as a church family, celebrate our faith and commune with God in a way that works for all of us?
If we see that this old hymn reminds Grandma of a meaningful time in her life - or this contemporary worship song really speaks to our teenager, it's going to be easier to celebrate together. If these words help me to express my faith, or explain the Gospel to my friends, then my family know it's important to me, and they'll be happy to say or sing them with me.
So, when we design a service of blended worship, we're doing just what the hymn "All Hail the power of Jesus' Name" says, we're "joining in the everlasting song". Words that were inspired by the Holy Spirit three or four thousand years ago are blended with words that were written three days ago; all included because - as an extended family - we can express our faith and respond to God together.
