Worship: Where Wise Leadership Begins

This week I wanted to write a little bit about the big picture of leadership (and life in general), because I think we tend to lose the grander vision in the midst of the paperwork, chores, and relational nitty gritty that fills our every day lives. At some point, we all ask ourselves questions like, “Why are we here?”, “Who are we?”, and “What were we made for?” There are countless possible answers a person could give in response to those questions, but as Christians, I think the overarching answer for us has to do with worship.

As a child in Sunday school, I remember being told that to worship meant “to ascribe worth to something.” While this helped communicate the idea that worship is about saying something is great, it didn't quite click for me what this ought to feel like or look like. Did worship mean that I was supposed to go around all day saying things like, “God is awesome!”? I wasn't sure. Maybe, but that definitely didn't sound like something I would be comfortable doing.

Now that I'm older, I'm finally starting to understand a little more what worship is about and why I didn't quite “get it” when I was younger. Today, if someone asked me what worship is, I'd probably ask them to picture a time when they felt really awed and amazed by something in nature.

For me, this brings to mind the time my friends and I visited the coastal town of Tintagel in southern England (a portion of the coastline is pictured above). We stayed at a youth hostel at the top of some rocky cliffs that overlooked the sea. The sunset on the first evening was breathtaking. The tall grass growing on the cliffs swayed gently in the breeze as the sun turned the water into liquid gold and began its slow descent into the sea. We could hear the waves crashing against the rocks below, and above us, a few gulls circled in the sky, soaring gracefully through the air. I was so absorbed in the moment that all I could think about was how beautiful it all was. In a sense, I lost myself in the beauty of that moment. I felt peaceful and also a bit awed at the glory of creation. I wasn't worrying about what I'd do tomorrow, or whether so-and-so liked me, or what I was going to have for dinner. How could I think about those things when I had something this amazing set out in front of me to enjoy?

That experience helped me understand something of what worship is like. Worship happens when we are so intently focusing on something or someone else that we are freed from thinking about ourselves. It is what we do when we are completely enamored with someone or something.

That is what God calls us to – lives of worship. We are not here to worship the creation, however beautiful it may be. We are not here to worship success, popularity, money, ease, pleasure, or comfort, though we often fall into the temptation of worshiping such things. We are here to worship the true and the living God, the One who sent his Son to live a perfect life for us, because we could not, and then to die in our place, be raised from the dead, and to go to heaven to present his perfect sacrifice before the Father and to sit at His right hand so he could pray for us and intercede on our behalf.

Worship is about being so taken with the glory, beauty, love, and perfection of our Savior that we can't help but praise him. It's about losing ourselves in something much greater and better than ourselves. And the funny thing is that in losing ourselves, we find ourselves. We remember what we are really here for, and who we were made for, and what really should be the most important thing in our lives. Returning to worship is really the only way we can remember how amazing God is, and why we should serve and honor him, whether in church ministry, at home, at work, or anywhere else.

At the end of the day, worship is the refreshment we need to recuperate from life's toils and difficulties. As King David put it so marvelously, “It is good to give thanks to the LORD, to sing praises to your name, O Most High; to declare your steadfast love in the morning, and your faithfulness by night, to the music of the lute and the harp, to the melody of the lyre. For you, O LORD, have made me glad by your work; at the works of your hands I sing for joy” (Psalm 92:1-4).