By Mike Glenn<\/p>\n
I wish I had a dollar for every time someone walked up to me at the end of a worship service and told me, \u201cPreacher, I didn\u2019t get anything out of that service\u201d. I\u2019ve never been told what they were looking for in the first place. No one has ever explained to me what they had missed. They walked into the service with a list of unspoken expectations and then, when those expectations weren\u2019t met, they were disappointed, even angry.<\/p>\n
What had we done wrong?<\/p>\n
Well, it could have been any number of things. We could have stood up too long. We could have placed too much emphasis on the offering. We could have placed too LITTLE emphasis on the offering. We could have sung too many songs or not enough songs. We could have sung too many hymns or not enough hymns. We could have sung too many choruses or not enough choruses. The sermon could have been too long or too short, too much Scripture or not enough. You get the point.<\/p>\n
If everyone had to write on a board their expectations for the worship service they were entering, all of us would see the impossibility of the task. No one could hit all of those needs and expectations in the hour time limit given for most worship services.<\/p>\n
Add to that the heart breaking reality that most people don\u2019t take any time to prepare for worship. They grab their stuff and the kids and head out when the worship service is over, and they don\u2019t think about worship until next Sunday. They may have prayed, but probably not. They may have read their Bibles, but I doubt it. If they had a moment of worship, it was when they saw a newborn baby or a beautiful sunrise. In other words, not often.<\/p>\n
Add this reality to their already frantic life and when they plop down in their pew on Sunday morning, they are waiting for a worship experience to be done for them. They will sit and admire. They will enjoy the music and be inspired by the sermon. They have their emotions moved and then, they will leave.<\/p>\n
They won\u2019t have done anything. They won\u2019t have given anything. They won\u2019t have worshipped. They will have been entertained, but they won\u2019t have worshipped.<\/p>\n
And they\u2019re probably right. They won\u2019t have gotten anything out of the service. But where is it written they should \u201cget something\u201d every time they come to worship? For the life of me, I can\u2019t find anywhere in the Bible that talks about what we should get by coming to a worship experience. I can find a lot of passages about what we should bring to worship, about what we should give during worship, but nothing about what we should get.<\/p>\n
Worship, at its best, is celebrating what God has done in our lives and then, anticipating what God will do in the future. We celebrate God\u2019s faithfulness to us in the past and then, we eagerly look to see how God will reveal Himself in the days to come. We bring our worship with us. When we gather, we\u2019re looking for a form to express what we\u2019ve already experienced.<\/p>\n
But if you haven\u2019t encountered God in the last week, how do you worship? What do you celebrate? What do you hope for?<\/p>\n
And if you don\u2019t have anything in you driving you to worship, does it really matter what song we sing? Here is what I\u2019ve found out. Whenever I don\u2019t get anything out of worship, more times than not, it\u2019s because I didn\u2019t bring anything TO worship.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t bring an offering to celebrate God\u2019s goodness in my life.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t bring a testimony that brought a song to the moment.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t bring anything to place before God; I didn\u2019t give Him anything to work with in the moment and guess what? Nothing happened.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s not the worship leader\u2019s fault. That\u2019s my fault.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m responsible for my own worship. You are responsible for yours. If we didn\u2019t get anything, maybe it\u2019s because we didn\u2019t bring anything.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what I know. Jesus promised if two or three people are gathered in His name, He\u2019ll be there. I\u2019ve decided that if Jesus shows up, I\u2019m going be sure I find Him.<\/p>\n