Where is our heart during worship?

by Joanna Clark

I've been thinking and praying a lot lately for our church; in fact, Joe & I both have. Joe has taken some steps of faith in challenging and encouraging other men to be part of the "solution" to the issues and challenges facing our church. It got me thinking, as well as some of the reading I've been doing, about how we even enter into our home church. When we have our own quiet time with God, it usually is a pretty personal experience. I mean, it's just me and God in those moments. I pray that He would guide me, teach me and show me what He's wanting to work on my heart about. BUT...do I pray that before walking in to church on Sunday morning? Do I put that much personal attention into my "Sunday worship experience"? Or, do I instead attend it as if it's me walking in on someone else's worship experience and quiet time with God? Are we attending a "preview" of what the pastor is learning in his quiet time? Is that how God meant our Sunday mornings to be spent? NO, I don't think so at least. So then I asked myself how can we make it more personal, how I can invest and learn from it?

And it takes me to the heart of the issue, which is the heart! Where is my heart at on Sunday morning? Sometimes I feel like it is right where it should be, open and ready for whatever it is that God wants to teach me or have me experience. But, other times sadly to say, it is closed up and wanting to watch and criticize someone else's experience. Well, if my heart is closed to what God may want to teach me that day, then of course I am not going to think it was a great sermon on Sunday morning. And, it may in fact be not a great sermon anyway, but the point is - if your heart is open to what God wants to teach you, then He can in fact teach it to you through anyone or anything. It is our responsibility to make "church" a personal experience. Yes, our pastors are responsible for tending their sheep, but as mature believers, we cannot pretend to be little lambs who can't find their way...it's a balance and takes work on each of our parts. But if we are not doing our best to make every day a day where we strive to honor God and allow Him to speak into our lives, then why are we surprised when we don't feel we are learning anything? Go figure!

And I'm talking about our entire church/worship experience. To me, a "worship service" is whatever your Sunday church experience includes...singing/praising, sermons, serving in nursery, setting up or tearing down. All these things are part of our worship experience because we can worship God in any and all of those aspects of a Sunday morning church experience. So, if we invite God to meet us there, meet us where we are at, He can (and wants to) teach us and use us at each of those experiences.

It reminds me of the song, "The Heart of Worship" written by Matt Redman. The story of how and why he wrote the song is great! He was at a church where the pastor felt that the congregation was not where they needed to be and not contributing, so he asked the question "When you come through the doors on a Sunday, what are you bringing as your offering to God?” They got rid of all music and sound system as their church sought God. This led Matt to write the song. It's explained in more detail at http://www.crosswalk.com/1253122/.Some of the lyrics say:

When the music fades, all is stripped away, and I simply come / Longingjust to
bring something that’s of worth that will bless your heart… / I’m comingback to
the heart of worship, and it’s all about You, Jesus...

Is it all about Jesus? Are we there to serve Him, praise Him, learn from Him and grow with others? Or, are we there to seek some kind of feeling induced by someone else's quiet times? Like I wrote earlier, we can view it as a bad sermon or a great sermon, but it's up to us to truly seek God's heart through that message so that it can still speak to us and teach us something. So, as we try to include God in our lives, hopefully daily, we need not forget about Sunday! Just because we go to church doesn't mean we don't need to include Him in that day as well.