Communal Disciplines (3)

Let all things be done decently and in order. 1 Corinthians 14.40

The main event
The primary purpose of the Church is to worship God and to promote worship of God throughout the world.

Now such an idea may not line up well with your understanding of church. Of course, churches sponsor services of worship on a weekly basis. But churches do a lot of other things as well, and many of them take more time and require more of those who participate than a service of worship typically does. Worship undoubtedly is important in our churches, but do we really believe that worship is the most important thing our church does?

I mean, what about missions? Or caring for the poor? Or teaching children? Or any of the many other things churches do? Is worship really more important than these?

It is. Because in worship, true worship, we who are the Body of Christ are lifted up above our mundane existence into the very presence of Christ, there to participate in Him and be renewed and transformed in Him, so that His mission through us might go forward in the world.

But if worship is going to play the role God intends within His communities, we need to make sure we understand the work of worship and that we engage that work as a communal discipline according to God’s design and pattern.

A pattern for worship
I mentioned two things that may be new ideas to some of us. First, the idea that worship is work. That’s certainly not a new idea in the larger scheme of Church history. For most of the past 2,000 years or so, believers have understood that worship is a work that we offer to God – a spiritual work, to be sure, but a work nonetheless. Worship requires the application of spiritual force through spiritual means to spiritual ends. The spiritual end is the glory of God, expressed in and through worship and the lives of worshipers. The spiritual means are the various elements and forms of worship, together with the order in which we engage them. And the spiritual force is the Spirit of God working with His Word. We are worshiping God truly when we are working together according to this basic “work order.”

Second, I mentioned that there is a pattern for worship – a template, protocol, regimen which, when rightly followed, allows the work we’re doing in worship to accomplish the end we seek. Worship, in other words, is not merely whatever we decide to do on any given Sunday morning. Worship consists of certain forms, arranged according to a proper order or flow, so as to engage God’s people, by His Word and Spirit, with God the Father through God the Son. Incomplete worship lacks one or more of the forms God prescribes in His Word. Disjointed worship flows in a way that doesn’t make sense according to the divine purpose of worship. When our services of worship are incomplete or disjointed, our worship falls short of what God expects and what we require.

Moreover, worship has a proper focus and realizes a particular kind of freedom in which worshipers are transformed into the image of Jesus Christ and bring forth fruit pleasing to Him. The focus of worship is Jesus Christ, as we see clearly throughout the book of Revelation and elsewhere. Worship should be directed to God the Father through our Lord Jesus Christ. Our worship should review all the work of Christ and call upon His intercession to make our worship acceptable to God. Further, in the ministry of the Word and sacraments we actually participate in Jesus Christ, exalted in glory, and thus fulfill the purpose of worship by experiencing our lives together, hidden in God with Christ (Col. 3.3).

When we worship this way we are set free from mere self-interest and the distractions of the world, the flesh, and the devil. We experience being hidden with Christ in God and we are lifted, as it were, out of our merely mundane existence, beyond the veil, and into the very throne room of God, where we have been seated with Christ in glory (Eph. 2.6). We are free to grow, free to be transformed, free to love God in worship in ways that it can be difficult to achieve or sustain during our everyday lives. But the freedom we experience in worship brings forth in us the fruit of Christ-likeness, so that our worship continues in Him as a fruit-bearing experience in all areas of our lives (Rom. 12.1, 2).

Worship from the heart
The worship God seeks from His people is above all an inward manifestation of their gratitude to and trust in Him (cf. Ps. 50). In our worship we can have all the right forms and organize them according to a proper flow of worship. We can even keep our focus on the Lord, where it ought to be, and feel as though our worship of God is as complete, full, and joyous as we might hope. But if our hearts are not in it – if we harbor sin in our hearts or are more concerned to gratify our own needs than to exalt the Lord, if we do not worship out of a heart of gratitude unto a life of obedience and fruitfulness, then we can expect God to reject our worship and visit us with His displeasure.

Worship comes naturally to us. As the image-bearers of God, we are always seeking something greater than ourselves to desire, adore, possess, and extol (Rom. 1.18-23). But although worship comes naturally to us, proper worship – worship in line with the divine pattern – does not. We must learn to worship the Lord, and this is a labor of the entire community of God’s people.

In our churches we must insist on worship that fits the divine pattern, revealed in His Word; and we must look to our pastors and teachers to instruct us in the pattern of sound worship, even in the midst of worship, as we come before the Lord together. Worshiping God together is the primary purpose of the local church, but only if our worship is according to the pattern God describes will we have the assurance that this communal discipline, this labor we undertake together is not in vain (1 Cor. 15.58).

Next steps: How confident are you that the worship of your church follows the pattern of sound worship revealed in Scripture? Ask a pastor or church leader to explain why your church worships the way it does.

T. M. Moore

This week’s study, Communal Disciplines, is part 6 of a 7-part series on The Disciplined Life, and is available as a free download by clicking here. We have prepared a special worksheet to help you begin getting your disciplines in proper shape for seeking the Kingdom. Write to T. M. at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for your free PDF of the “Disciplined Life Worksheet.”

A rightly-disciplined life requires a Kingdom vision, and that vision is centered on Jesus Christ exalted. T. M. has prepared a series of meditations on the glorious vision of Christ, based on Scripture and insights from the Celtic Christian tradition. Order your copy of Be Thou My Vision by clicking here.

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.