The Spiritual Discipline of Corporate Worship

By Pastor Chad

Who you worship matters. Who you worship shapes who you are. Not only does who you worship matter, how you worship matters. What you think about worship matters. Your understanding of worship matters. 

On Sunday morning, I discussed the spiritual discipline of corporate worship. Private worship is necessary and important for every Christian, but corporate worship is also necessary. In fact, as I’ve said before, corporate worship is a necessary act to anyone’s spiritual life. If you are not active in a local church through corporate worship, your spiritual life is in danger–if it exists at all. I have never met an individual who was growing in his or her faith and did not have a high view of church. I have never met someone growing in the faith that willfully and blatantly ignored local church attendance. 

So, what is corporate worship all about? What happens in corporate worship? And why is it so important? In Romans 12:1, Paul writes, “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.” Thus, as we can see from this passage, the most accurate way to describe spiritual worship is that it is a living sacrifice. If I had to define worship, I would say it is the act of surrendering your life to God. It is an internal act that will manifest itself through some sort of external display. To be sure, this can be done in a corporate setting and in a private setting, but our focus here is on a corporate setting. 

Above all, what we can see about worship, is that it is primarily and ultimately about God. If one is offering himself or herself to God as a living sacrifice, that means God is the focus of the worship. Evangelicalism is steeped in worship that is entertainment-based and man-centered. This should not be so. There are many styles and preferences in worship. As I have mentioned to you before (on multiple occasions): These preferences are expressed differently throughout the Christian world. Saying that, however, here is what scares me: evangelicals are great at asking, What can we do? We are horrible, however, at asking, What should we do? What is God’s preferred method or style of worship? What does God want? We cannot impose our worship preferences upon God’s worship preferences. We evangelicals have historically worked from a position that God is indifferent to our form or methods of worship. We have generally understood worship to be a completely free expression toward God. But that is simply an assumption. The main reason I am hesitant to accept such an idea is that worship is not described like that in scripture. And it definitely has not been displayed throughout church history. 

In the Old Testament, worship was highly regulated and directed by God. Granted, we are under the new covenant, and perhaps there is a bit more freedom, but that doesn’t mean one should engage in worship anarchy. We can say that the New Testament does not give us a detailed description of how corporate worship should function, but that’s not to say that it has nothing to say about corporate worship. For example, in 1 Corinthians 14:12, Paul writes that corporate worship should be done in a way that builds up one another. In 1 Corinthians 14:23, he writes that corporate worship should be conducted in such a manner that we do not make unbelieving outsiders think we are out of our minds. And in 1 Corinthians 14:40, Paul says all corporate worship should be done “decently and in order.” So there isn’t complete freedom in how a corporate worship service is conducted or ordered. 

As we gather together, to ensure worship is done properly, that God gets all the glory, and that we receive the full spiritual benefit, corporate worship must be done under the guise of God's preference and glory. Again, worship matters. Who you worship matters. What you worship matters. And how you worship matters.