I started asking “what is worship” recently because I do not remember a church service that didn’t seem like a show. The shows are slightly different of course but they do not seem to be about worship. Come in and stand for a bit, sing for a bit, greet for a bit, give a bit, listen for a bit, and let me get home in a bit to watch TV. You are part of the show if you go. I do not recall ever having felt like I was worshiping the God who created heaven and earth at one of these gatherings.
What am I expecting worship to be? Having been raised in conservative Baptist churches, I am used to drabness which does not seem like worship. Having been to different versions of “Spirit” filled churches, I have experienced extreme excitement which also does not seem like genuine worship. I have also experienced a range of things in the middle but none of it seems like worship. This is one reason I have been trying to figure out what I would expect.
worship: the feeling or expression of reverence and adoration for a deity.
One thing that causes this question to arise regularly, is my perceived lack of emotion. The “expression” of reverence should be emotional right? And since I do not have emotion, I cannot worship. This is not the point where we get up in arms.
I am in awe of God regularly. I will be reading His Word in the morning and know He is talking to me. And it just amazes me that the God who created the universe would communicate with me so directly and personally. So I determined that this was a form of worship.
But for some reason, I still feel that I should be emotional about the whole thing. It is one of those “things” that I know is not true for me but feel (rightly or wrongly) that it is being forced on me. Strange thing is it is being forced by no one in particular, which means that I am forcing it on myself. It probably has to do with some social construct I have processed over the years which has produced bad data in my mind. Now bad data will corrupt quite a bit and will do so quickly. And bad data is very difficult to purge from the system.
So I have bad data. I don’t know what worship is. Church feels like a show. And life feels fake. Why can’t I be a sloth?