I’d never heard about Kyle Speller. He’s the “voice of the Denver Nuggets” and the team chaplain. He’s best known for his rip-roaring public address announcing during the championship basketball club’s games. “Let’s go!” he thunders into the mic, and thousands of onsite NBA fans, as well as millions more watching or listening to the action, react to the voice that earned Speller’s nomination as the 2022 All-Star Game PA announcer. “I know how to feel the crowd and kind of set that home court atmosphere,” he says. Still, every word of his voice artistry – featured also in TV and radio commercials – is to glorify God. His work, Speller adds, is “just doing everything for an audience of one.” (Taken from the October, 2024 edition of ‘Our Daily Bread’ devotional).

Let’s begin by defining worship. Worship is the celebration of God. When we worship God, we celebrate Him: we extol Him, we sound His praises, we boast in Him – we boast in His name to the good of His people. We celebrate God when all parts of a service fit together and work to a common purpose. Worship is to be the fulfillment of planning, praying and strategizing with the goal always to be honouring the God among us. This is corporate worship when God’s people come together. But worship is more than just when we’re together corporately.

Worship is integral to our personal stewardship of giving to God’s work. We’re to be “hilarious” givers, not presenting our tithes and offerings grudgingly out of a sense of a compulsory mandate, but because we simply love Him and adore Him. And when we part with our resources, it’s an act of worship.

Worship is a very visual and active word. The biblical words for worship come from the royal ceremonies and courts, and they describe how subjects were to relate to their king. “Worship” really means to “bow down or prostrate oneself” or “to kiss the hand.”

Visually, worship involves every part of our being – our physical posture, our will and our emotions. But worship is not just words or music or kneeling. Rather, it is the combined multiple parts of our lives focused simultaneously on giving honour, reverence, respect and actually awe to God our King for who He is and what He has done. Worship then becomes an awareness of and natural reaction to the presence of God in our midst. It involves the mind, the body, the mouth and the heart.

Unfortunately, many Christians today who, even though they really love God, have nevertheless made worship about themselves! There are the complaints about the worship being too loud, too boring, that there aren’t enough old hymns used, that the songs are too fast-paced and on and on ad infinitum. Comments like these are making worship about ourselves – our preferences. But truly, our worship has only an audience of one! I’m reminded of the verse that says, “Man looks on the outside, but God looks on the heart.”

I believe worship should be “life centred.”

The Old Testament way of a specific place, and form, and people would be replaced in the New Testament by an internal motivation expressed in multiple ways. Worship as praise, worship as sharing and worship as holiness. Worship of God does not require a cathedral! It does not depend on benches (pews) or theatre seats, (I remember when padded pews were the real deal!), on organs or even hymnbooks, on lighting effects or on choirs in robes. I’ve worshipped God on sandy, arid soil maybe with the shade of a tree, or not, and there were no seats but rugged uneven benches that wobbled. No organ or keyboard were present because neither could be afforded, and besides, there was no electricity, so no lights for effects, and no choirs in robes! But we “had church!” I wish you all could have heard the worship!

What we say and think is referred to in Hebrews 13:15 as “a sacrifice of praise – the fruit of lips that confess His name.” Through praise, through singing and even sometimes shouting, believers raise up the person and work of God with awe and reverence. But understand this too: silent meditation and contemplation also are for many, including myself, an individual reaction to God’s presence in our midst.

But worship is more than just what we say. In Hebrews 13:16 the writer speaks of a different kind of worship. “And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.” I call this worship in sharing or giving. Every time we give our tithes and offerings, every time we support missions at home and abroad, every time we volunteer our time in helping others in need, all that is worship. After all, it is God who gives us all things. Working in a food bank or helping at a homeless shelter is a sacrifice of worship to the One who gives us the health and capacity to serve in this way.

And we also worship through what we are. This is worship as holiness. This is the worship that Paul refers to in Ephesians 1:3-14 when he reminds us of all that God has done in us as believers, exclaiming over and over that these blessings result “to the praise of His glory.” What we are praises the Father. When we live as children of light we find out what pleases the Lord (Ephesians 5:8-10). Godliness and holiness please Him (I Timothy 2:2-3).

Here’s an expression given by an elderly gentleman in a midweek service prayer meeting. The authorship is unknown. “O Lord, we will praise You; we will praise You with an instrument of ten strings; we will praise You with our two eyes by looking only to You. We will exalt You with our two ears, by listening only to Your voice. We will extol You with our two hands by working in Your service. We will honour You with our two feet, by walking in the way of Your statutes. We will magnify You with our tongues, by bearing testimony to Your lovingkindness. We will worship You with our hearts, by loving only You. We thank You for this instrument. Lord, keep it in tune. Play upon it as You will and ring out the melodies of Your grace. May its harmonies always express Your glory.”

This instrument of ten strings is beautifully summarized in Romans 12:1: “Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.” As we offer our bodies, our voices, our thoughts, our money, our time, our possessions, our holy obedience – everything that we say, do and are – we are offering up to the Father the praise and honour that His presence requires.

This, my friends, is true worship!