Through seminary, my new job, and a conversation going on here, I've been shaping a definition of worship. As I serve college women in a sorority house, as I type my fingers off making documents at work, as I choose my daily tasks - this definition helps me to center my every effort on the greatness of my God. As has been said on the blog above, "How you define worship affects how you design worship." I do not design weekly worship services for the church, but I do design my daily work of service to the Lord. My definition of worship affects how and what I choose to do as a worshipper of God.
Definition of Worship:
To worship is to serve in the holy presence of God, service being what I was created to do through divine relationship, not that which God needs. Worship is an active result of who I am in God through Christ my Savior. The Holy Spirit aids me to worship as a new creation according to God’s revealed purpose, which I find in the Bible. And through the ministry of the Holy Spirit I seek to know God with reverent fear and love of the Holy. Because I am a sinner, I must receive from His means. Therefore, I situate myself to serve Him, and I do so according to the context that He established, namely the community of persons who have faith in Jesus Christ.
Shaping Scriptures:
Genesis 2:7-8, 15
Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. The Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed...Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.
1 Chronicles 6: 31-32, 48-49
Now these are those whom David appointed over the service of song in the house of the Lord, after the ark rested there. They ministered with song...
Their kindsmen the Levites werer appointed for all the service of the tabernacle of the house of God. But Aaron and his sons offered on the altar of burnt offering and on the altar of incense, for all the work of the most holy place...
Romans 12:1
Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptabel to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
