Is Worship a Lifestyle?

Depending on your religious background, you may need to expand your understanding of “worship.” You may think of church services with singing, praying, and listening to a sermon. Or you may think of ceremonies, candles, and communion. Or you may think of healing, miracles, and ecstatic experiences. Worship can include these elements, but worship is far more than these expressions. Worship is a lifestyle.

Worship is far more than music. For many people, worship is just a synonym for music. They say, "At our church we have the worship first, and then the teaching." This is a big misunderstanding. Every part of a church service is an act of worship: praying, Scripture reading, singing, confession, silence, being still, listening to a sermon, taking notes, giving an offering, baptism, communion, signing a commitment card, and even greeting other worshipers.

Worship is not a part of your life; it is your life. Worship is not just for church services. We are told to "worship him continually” and to ''praise him from sunrise to sunset.”

• from Rick Warren - “Purpose Driven Life”

Worship is a way of life

So much more than a song, worship is a way of life. That is why you will see me with my armed raised high and voice loudly singing praises in church (or in my living room) My heart and inner life may feel messy and like they are spiring out of control, but that doesn’t matter

https://godtv.com/worship-is-more-than-just-a-song/

So you can see what is happening in the New Testament. Worship is being significantly deinstitutionalized, delocalized, de-externalized. The whole thrust is being taken off of ceremony and seasons and places and forms and is being shifted to what is happening in the heart—not just on Sunday but every day and all the time in all of life.

This is what it means when we read things like, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). And “whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father” (Col.3:17 nasb). This is the central New Testament action of worship: to act in a way that ref lects the glory of God—to do a thing in the name of Jesus with thanks to God. But the New Testament uses those greatest of all worship sentences without any reference to Sunday worship services. They describe life.

I conclude that the essence of worship is not external, localized acts, but an inner, Godward experience that shows itself externally not primarily in church services (though they are important) but primarily in daily expressions of allegiance to God.

Now the crucial questions become: What is the essence of that inner experience which we call worship? If it is not essentially an outward act but an experience of the heart, what is that experience?

-from “Brothers, We Are Not Professionals” Ch 34 - John Piper

The Word of God tells us to, 'Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise' (Psalm 100:4). Yet praising the Lord is not limited to singing a few songs once a week in a church service. Worship is a lifestyle that embraces the entire spectrum of life. You can praise God at any hour of the day, seven days a week – in the car, in the shower or in the middle of night. It isn't about singing a particular hymn or reciting a prayer – it's about a relationship with your Heavenly Father who loves and cares for you

“How to Maximize Your Life” - Brian Houston

Joyce Meyer on Twitter

@JoyceMeyer

We worship God with our entire life—with every decision we make and everything we do.

2:45 AM · Feb 4, 2013·SocialEngage

Leading worship isn’t just about the songs we sing on the platform in our church services. Worship is a stance of the heart, it’s a lifestyle, and it’s reflected in every area of our lives.

https://hillsong.com/collected/blog/2014/11/building-a-healthy-worship-culture/#.XrShXS-z1TY

Our message has always been clear; true worship has never been confined to twenty minutes of singing on a Sunday. I’ve been a worship pastor for the majority of my adult life and in all of these years of leading and equipping others to lead corporate worship in our many weekend services, this theme has consistently held true:

Worship is a lifestyle.

Because of this I feel confident to say that our need as Christians to worship our God, in spirit and truth, is as real right now as it ever has been and as it ever will be. When we finally return to worship together again, worship is still a lifestyle.

https://hillsong.com/collected/blog/2020/05/three-ways-we-can-worship-today/#.XrS8LC-z1TY

Pursue Worship as a Lifestyle

If worship is a lifestyle, then our reverence for God’s presence doesn’t have to leave when we are outside of the church walls. We are no longer under the law that once bound worshipers to a geographical location or sacrificial system. In the words of Kim Walker-Smith, “Worship, simply put, is the connection we have to God.” This understanding empowers us to live a transparent life of worship that is not dependent upon circumstances or surroundings. We can stay connected to the heart of God at all times because He never leaves us (Hebrews 13:5).

https://bssm.net/schoolplanting/2016/04/19/3-keys-to-becoming-a-radical-worshipper/

One of the most quoted passages in the Bible, related to worship, is Romans 12:1. It says:

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship.”

If there was one thing that Paul (the writer of Romans) and the people of his time understood, it was that sacrifices are dead. In other words, when he talks about our lives being “living sacrifices” of worship, he is literally saying, “As dead as a dead sacrifice is, that is how living your life offering to God is to be – a complete and a done deal!”

This passage is telling us, through a metaphor, that the worship God seeks involves our entire lives, offered as a response to His great love. From the way we speak to our spouse, to the way we handle our money, love our neighbor, and work at our jobs, worship is an all-encompassing act. An old Latin phrase, coram Deo, sums up this kind of life. It means to “live before the face of God,” or to “live in the presence of God.”

• from Vineyard Resources https://vineyardresources.com/productDetail.aspx?&itemID=VRUSA68-EBK - no longer linked

Theology of Worship is an in-depth study of different passages in scripture that give us insight into the subject of the Christian’s highest calling and greatest privilege of worshipping God. It is my prayer that through this class our understanding of God…who He is and what He has done, will grow deeper, as we broaden our understanding of the subject of Worship. We will also look at how it works out practically in our lives as we see the Christian life as truly a lifestyle of Worshiping God.

http://www.schoolofworship.net/core-classes.html

As I dug into Scripture, I began to see that my view of worship were focused almost entirely on the singing portion of Sunday mornings. Books like Engaging with God by David Peterson and Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem helped me understand that our worship of God not only extends beyond singing, but involves every moment of every day.

In this series, we've seen how the Bible speaks of worship as exaltation, expression, encounter, and event. All of these are contained, however, in worship as everyday life.

There are many Scriptural references to worship as a lifestyle, but the best-known may be Romans 12:1-2.

In other words, worship isn't something we simply feel. Worship isn't the name we give some experience that we seek while singing, lifting our hands, or closing our eyes. It's something we DO with our bodies in all of life. We can worship God through our eating, drinking, typing, speaking, cooking, driving, and countless other ways. We worship God whenever we perform an act out of a desire to draw attention to His greatness, especially revealed in sending His Son as a substitutionary sacrifice for our sins.

http://www.praise-and-worship.com/worship-articles-1.html