It’s a phrase shared with me from time to time after services and I sometimes have to hold back my true feelings about it. Don’t get me wrong, I am deeply thankful that anyone would share that encouragement with me. It’s much better than the opposite sentiment. I also understand that when someone shares that phrase with me they may have just had a great experience connecting with God and was thankful that i was was involved with it. We don’t always have the mind to phrase things in the right theological framework when we are all up in our feelings in the moment.

Here’s my issue: I don’t hear that phrase used about anything outside of a nice sounding music set. I think that is a problem.

We would all agree that worship is more than music. Inside and outside the church we worship plenty of things without singing to them. What are we giving out time and attention to? What are we putting our resources toward? Those are things that we might be worshipping. For me it’s Philly sports. They have me. I can get away. Gotta watch the birds on Sunday. I have to make it out to a few Phillies games a year. I’m always trusting the process! Now, I want to make it clear that none of these are inherently bad things (actually Philly sports teams are typically bad) They just happen to fit into our worship catelog which by the way is filled to the brim. Why? because God made us worshiping creatures. It’s inherent in our beings. His intention was that we would keep that worship focus on him. He made us to worship him. The fall twisted that a bit and now our sinful nature draws us to worship the things of this world. Ralpha Waldo Emmersons thoughts on worship are powerful to me.