12 Things Worship is NOT About

1. The look of the room
2. The lighting, either fancy or not so fancy
3. The cool music
4. The "old" music
5. The accoustics of the room
6. Who is singing or playing an instrument on stage
7. Whether the drums are electric or accoustic
8. Whether the worship leader is ugly, skinny, fat, man, or woman
9. The talent of the worship team
10. The actual room itself (a church, a school, your bedroom, a pavillion in the middle of the woods...)
11. The other people in the room
12. What you get out of it
13. The quantity of instruments
14. What instruments are used
15. The quality of the sound equipment

I've had great worship experiences in arenas filled with thousands of teenagers. I've had great worship experiences in the middle of the woods with one dude on his accoustic guitar. I've had great worship experiences when the amps decided to not work that day. I've had great worship experiences where the lights have been on, where the lights have been off, where the people singing had no clue what they were doing, where the words weren't up on the screen, where the words were up on the screen, with my best friends in the room, with people I've hated in the room.

None of it matters. If you think something as trivial as the look of the room or the talent of the worship team matters to God, WHO THE WORSHIP IS ABOUT ANYWAY, you don't really know him. Jesus walked up to guys with leprosy who were probably really smelly and he didn't care! Why would he care if the worship leader's guitar is electric orange or if the only instrument used is a piano?

(I could go on with this list, but these are the ones that come up most often. Want to add more to the list? Leave a comment!)

What are you fighting for?

I won a $500 scholarship from my school. It was a pretty big deal. There was a ceremony at the middle school, teachers who we wrote essays on came to the ceremony, cookies were served, flowers were handed out. All for a $500 check.

I had to listen to 56 other teenagers go up to the podium, get their envelope, and then make an acceptance speech. It was agonizing. The speeches got really repetitive. Still, even when the last few people took their turns, they thanked the PTA, their family and teachers, just as everyone else had before them.

It looked so easy to stand in front of classmates and their families and thank whoever you wanted to. Even though everyone else had thanked the same people many times, the next person still felt the need to express their own gratitude.

Why was it so easy for 57 high school seniors to be so thankful? What makes it so hard for us to be thankful in another setting: church?

We just stand there during worship. We may sing, but our minds are somewhere else. God did more for us than the PTA did on scholarship night. Unless I’m very misinformed, the PTA didn’t sacrifice their lives. Yet, the teachers and the PTA were so easy to thank. Why is it too hard for us to thank the one who makes our lives worth living?

***

Last week, we sent the latest issue of the school newspaper to the print shop. We also have to send a copy to the principal to be approved. We haven’t had any huge problems in the past, but we have a new principal. She didn’t want one of my articles to be published.

I feel really strongly about the issue I was writing about. I knew censorship was allowed on some level in schools, but I did a little legal research. What our new principal was doing was illegal. I was ready to fight. This was wrong! I wanted justice!

I was pretty mad. I told all my friends about what our principal was doing. I spent a lot of energy getting ready to fight for a half page article in my school newspaper about security issues.

Meanwhile, there are people dying of really curable things in foreign countries. Girls are being sold into slavery. Homeless people live in Monroeville. Kids in my school are being kicked out of their parents’ houses…

And I’m not fighting for those things.

***
The two stories I just told show a common fault in all of us. We are willing to give thanks and fight for causes as long as it doesn’t involve God. The “God issues” are stickier messes nobody wants to get into. It is easier to stand up to your principal than raise a whole bunch of money for a cause overseas. It is easier to thank someone who is standing in front of you than it is to thank some invisible God in heaven.

We can make all the excuses we want, but someday, we’ll have to decide what is really worth our time and energy. The problems here on earth, or God?

What is the most important thing in your mind right now?