Worship as a Lifestyle
Mandy Smith explores how worship as a lifestyle reaches far beyond music and weekly church services. Drawing from Romans 12, she shows that everyday acts of service, sacrifice, and faithful obedience are expressions of true worship.
- Romans 12 presents worship as a lifestyle of living sacrifice.
- Sunday worship celebrates and prepares believers for a week of faithful service.
- Serving others through everyday obedience is a biblical expression of worship.
By Mandy Smith
Last year I started a new job that means I will never get to worship, or so I have been told. It is my responsibility every Sunday to help others worship by overseeing the sound board, musicians, PowerPoint, seating, bulletins, and Communion cups. No time for singing or sitting or listening. No worship for me.
As part of this new job, I got a subscription to Worship Leader magazine and, while flipping through it, I became convinced of something we already know: “worship leader” has come to be synonymous with “music minister.” Of the 51 advertisements in the magazine, 29 were for instruments, CDs, or songs, (i.e., music).
We all know worship isn’t just music. Every time we have a sermon series about worship, we remind people that it’s not just about singing. But then the rest of the year we go back to calling our song sets, “worship sets,” and our musicians “worship leaders.”
Yes, worship can be music, but could it be more?
One magazine advertisement gave me hope that we’re starting to look into that possibility. It promoted a Web site called Experience Worship (see www.experienceworship.com) that has the admirable goal of exploring the true nature of worship. But, again, upon visiting the site I found a limited understanding. The site is trying to get outside of church and beyond music, which is commendable, but most of the stories of worship I found there were about sunrises and sleeping children and mountaintops.
Yes, worship can be about euphoric experiences, but can it be even more?
Biblical Cues
Many of our biblical cues for worship come from David, the exuberant dancer and musician. And so it’s only natural we have learned that worship is music and elation and emotion. But what would worship look like if, in addition to David’s approach, we got some worship cues from Paul?
Paul doesn’t talk a lot about worship, but when he does it’s usually in the context of the Jewish tradition, in discussions about circumcision and sacrifices. That is understandable, since the Old Testament sense of worship had a good deal to do with sacrifice. As worshipers brought sacrifices from their fields and flocks, they brought together everyday life and spiritual practices, the products of daily work into sacred space.
Unfortunately, in our contemporary setting, we have separated worship from daily life. In Romans 12:1, however, Paul provides a new pattern for worship (new for first-century believers and new for us): “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—
