Worship is a tricky thing to define. We tend to think of worship as being an exclusively corporate activity and reinforce this idea by saying things such as, “we are going to go to worship,” or “we will have a time of worship and then a time of teaching.”

It’s not that it’s wrong to think of worship as being corporate or involving music, it’s just that it’s unbiblical to think that worship is exclusively assigned to these categories. In truth, worship is much much bigger. Worship involves every aspect and category of our lives. Our eating, our relationships, our work, our play, our gathering, our personal time, all aspects of life are naturally displaying the worship of something.

Worship derives from the word, “worthy.” When we realize that worship is about assigning worth, it begins to make sense why Paul declares in Romans 12:1 that our what we do with our physical bodies determines what we spiritually worship.

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”

My body is the vehicle by which I assign worth. I give my body to whatever I deem is worthy of my time. I give my tongue to whatever I deem is worthy of my speech. I give my hands over to whatever I deem is worthy of my work. The example goes on and on from ears, to eyes, to feet, and so on.

Now we are beginning to see how much bigger worship really is. How much more challenging it truly is to worship God as He desires to be worshiped. Or maybe better stated, to ascribe the amount of worth to God that He deserves from us. Now it seems cheap to define our worship as only being our gathering together for a 30 minute music set. No, He is worthy of much more than that. He is worthy of our whole lives, worthy of more than our lips and vocal chords, worthy of our whole bodies…this is our spiritual act of worship.

Now that the time of music seems so small in light of the grand task of truly worshipping Jesus, what is the point of our musical worship? After all, we are encouraged in Colossians 3:16 to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs together.

The gathering together of the body is for the sake of edifying one another. That simply means sharpening and encouraging. As the song leader, I see my role as being the one who leads in encouraging us to see and remember the worth of Jesus. We need to remind each other of that each week. We sing together to remember we are not alone in seeing and ascribing the worth of Jesus, but again our singing and our music doesn’t determine his actual worth in our hearts. Our whole lives and our whole bodies reveal our true assessment of his worth. Our singing, then, is simply, beautifully, and hopefully an overflow of what is occurring in our every moment.