Church is a place to worship.
Whenever believers gather together — whether it’s in a church building or in a park — one of the central reasons they come together is to worship God.
You may ask, “What does it really mean to worship? And what is the church’s role in worshiping God?” Worship starts in heaven. God is awesome and holy, and He alone deserves worship and praise. The Bible says that angels worship God at all times, crying out, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of His glory,” (Isaiah 6.3 NIV); also (Revelation 4.8-11, 11.17-18 ESV).
Worshipers on Earth
God also is looking for worshipers on Earth who will exalt His name and praise Him. Jesus said, “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth,” (John 4.23-24 NIV).
God is actively looking for worshipers whose hearts are fully devoted to Him, (2 Chronicles 16.9 ESV), and who will worship Him in light of the truth revealed in Jesus Christ, (John 14.6 ESV).
Followers of Jesus Christ have every reason to worship God. He has saved us, adopted us, forgiven us and redeemed us — we have every reason to praise Him. In fact, everyone is wired for worship. We were created to give our praise, admiration, affection and attention to something.
We will either give our worship to temporal things like idols, cash, possessions, sports and people, or we will give our hearts in worship to the God who created us and loves us. When believers gather together, they gather to worship. While God desires that we also worship Him privately, there is something special that happens when believers come together in community to worship God.
What does “gathered” worship look like?
We worship through music. “Come, let us sing to the LORD! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come to him with thanksgiving. Let us sing psalms of praise to him. For the LORD is a great God, a great King above all gods,” (Psalm 95.1-3 NLT).
We worship through giving. “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver,” (2 Corinthians 9.7 NIV).
We worship through serving God and giving him our whole lives. “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship,” (Romans 12.1).
We worship through prayer. “I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people,” (1 Timothy 2.1 NIV).
We worship through reading and teaching the Bible. “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God,” (Colossians 3.16 ESV).
We worship through Communion. “He took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this to remember me’,” (Luke 22.19 NLT). Communion is a remembrance of the death of Jesus. As we eat the bread and drink from the cup, we remember His sacrifice on the cross and His great love for us.
This blog originally appeared at: What Happens When Believers Come Together in Community to Worship God? – discipleFIRST and features an excerpt from one of our books, Walk With God.
Because of the importance of intentionality in disciple making, we at Discipleship.org are going to emphasize this skill set and mindset over the next four months. Please join with us and seek to share understanding, insight, and practical tools so that you can become skilled at intentionality in relational disciple making and you can help those on your team or in your leadership group to do the same. There are four ways in which we are emphasizing intentionality to help you in the next four months.
- Discipleship.org City Tour Forums – our four City Tour Forums are designed to help you and your team both understand and develop an intentionality posture. The tour is comprised of one day, high impact forums where there will be teaching and round table discussions. Every attendee also gets a copy of Brandon Guindon’s new book, Intentional: Living Out the Eight Principles of Disciple Making.
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Take the FREE Individual Disciple Maker Assessment – we designed this assessment with a team of national and international disciple making leaders to help each individual be able to evaluate their disciple making mindset and skill. Just by taking this assessment, you will gain an appreciation for the value of intentionality, along with a sense of how you can increase your own level of intentionality. Click the image below to take the assessment.
- Read the short FREE book, Becoming a Disciple Maker: The Pursuit of Level Five Disciple Making – Bobby wrote this short eBook with statistician Greg Wiens to help you understand the mathematical and practical impact of one person’s disciple making efforts and skills.
Click the image below to download this free eBook.
- Read Brandon Guindon’s book, Intentional: Living Out the Eight Principles of Disciple Making – Brandon wrote this Discipleship.org book and Zondervan is publishing, because the understanding and practice of disciple making is so crucial. Every attendee at each of our City Tour events (Nashville, Houston, Dallas and Raleigh), as mentioned above, will receive a FREE copy of Brandon Guindon’s book.
Click the image below to order Brandon Guindon’s book from Amazon.com.
Please join with us in this quest to better understand and practice intentionality. It will help us all to become more and more like Jesus, the world greatest disciple maker.