Why Worship?

Why Worship Matters

Nathan Hoff

According to Church researcher and consultant, Carey Nieuwhof, 

“People who attend church are attending less often. People who used to attend every week are attending 3 times a month. People who were around twice a month often now show up once a month. And attenders who used to come once a month are showing up half a dozen times a year.” www.careynieuwhof.com

We don’t track an individual’s attendance at Trinity, but since each service has between 50-100 in worship, we usually notice when someone is missing. My sense is that we have more attenders attending less often. This is not meant to be a guilt-inducing letter that reintroduces “days of obligation” or any other kind of legalism. It is also not aimed at inquirers who are checking out the Christian faith or life in the church. This article is intended for people who are following Jesus, who are members of his body, and who seek to live as his disciple. Here are some reasons why regular worship matters. 

Worship Matters to Others

A few weeks before Harry Nelson went home to be with the Lord, as he lay in his rehabilitation room, he grabbed my shirt and brought me close to his face, as if I was hard of hearing, and said, “Tell the people at Trinity I miss them. I really do.” He hadn’t been able to hear for a few years. It wasn’t the preaching, music, nor was it the programs that made Harry consider coming to worship valuable. He came because he was a member of the body of Christ, and therefore connected to every other member. He needed us, and we needed him. Someone was missing when Harry was missing. Someone is missing when you are missing!

The writer to the Hebrews addresses this. “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” - Hebrews 10:24-25 (ESV). When we show up to worship with other believers, the writer calls it an encouragement. What kind of encouragement happens when a deaf man comes to worship? There are some common old lingering questions and doubts. “What am I getting out of this?” “I have nothing valuable to bring.” “Nobody notices when I’m there or not.” Those old questions or doubts are not true! When we show up to worship with others, we are, among other important things, valuing others.

Who knows the divine appointment God has for you on a Sunday morning when you are walking in or out. Or, maybe an unexpected encounter when you are sitting next to someone during prayer time. Or, maybe it is as simple as a gift or a job, recognized or unrecognized, that you have been given by the Lord of the Church.

Worship Matters to You!

Recently, I (Nathan) have been engrossed in two books that introduced me to a new word: habitus. Alan Kreider writes in The Patient Ferment of the Early Church, 

“The ongoing energizing center of Christian communal life...was worship. Christians claimed that week after week they encountered God in worship - from the heart (affective) as well as from the head (mental). Further, their worship was from the body. Their encounter of God in worship involved bodily gestures and rites that become habitual, repetitive, reflexive ways of being” (185).

The other author is James K.A. Smith in You Are What You Love. He makes the point that we have been formed, discipled, habituated as a citizen of this culture, and as he puts it, “The practices of Christian worship train our love - they are practice for the coming kingdom, habituating us a citizens of the kingdom of God” (25). Basically, we don’t so much form habits as habits form us! And the habit of regular worship with the body of Christ is incredibly powerful over time. In fact, I am convinced that we have high expectations for one-time-events, and low expectations for long term habits. Lets raise our expectation for long term habits. I bet we don’t even realize the transformational power those habits have. The habit of regular worship has benefits beyond these. Do a simple search of “benefits of going to church” on the internet and you will find articles and videos from unlikely sources like the New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN making claims and giving statistics about regular church attendance that would sound like exaggeration if I or an overtly Christian source made them. Regular worship matters for you!

Worship Matters to God

God has made clear that corporate worship matters to him. He wants to meet with us - together. God has something to say to us - a common word. God has something to give to us - at a common table. God has something to do to us - to forgive and equip and fill us! God made us for relationship with him. In Genesis 3 it says of Adam and Eve, “And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord called to the man and said, “Where are you?” Imagine that the God who created you shows up for the connection he has planned with us, but we are missing. I can hear his voice again, “Where are you?”

It is certainly possible to meet with the Lord individually any day and any where, and we should! But God has given the means of grace, an open heaven, to his church, the communal body of his Son, Jesus Christ (John 20.22; Matthew 28.19-20; 1 Corinthians 10.16). He has attached this promise to the congregation, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them." - Matthew 18:20 (ESV). And after our hands, hearts, and minds are open to receive they are ready to respond in unified praise and thanksgiving. 

Worshipping God even made the top ten suggestions commandments. The first command to “have no other gods” and the second command’s meaning  to “call upon him, pray to him, praise him, and give him thanks” speak to the primacy of God’s place in our hearts. The third commandment speaks to the primacy of God’s place in our time. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” The Catechism’s meaning says, “We should fear and love God, and so we should not despise his Word and the preaching of the same, but deem it holy and gladly hear and learn it.” Worship matters to God!

Worship Matters to the Movement

This point will take some sanctified imagination. Do you know that feeling when we are all together at one service? We try it sometimes in August or after Christmas. There is something in the atmosphere when the room is full and everyone is singing or even confessing! If all of us showed up nearly every week (excepting sickness or travel, of course), the dynamic would change in our community. Instead of dreaming of church planting out of possibility, we would have to do it out of necessity! If a local congregation invited us to help them revitalize, we would be ready!

You could scale down this point as well. I have had a few conversations with young adults who say, “I love Trinity, but it would be great if there were a more vital young adult group.” I couldn’t agree more! We actually have a pretty good sized young adult group, but they are scattered across three services. What if someone in that young adult group (we have some great mature young adults), emailed everyone else and said, “Hey, lets all meet at Trinity at the 9:30am worship service, then have a picnic at the Korean Bell. Someone bring a frisbee.” A simple movement begins. Ministry happens!

C. S. Lewis recognized how important regular worship is for the agenda of God in this world.

“Enemy-occupied territory - that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage. When you go to church you are really listening-in to the secret wireless from our friends: that is why the enemy is so anxious to prevent us from going” (Mere Christianity, 51).