Why You Should Worship

[January 05, 2011]   --New Year's is often a time of reflection and resolution. I am sure many of you have made resolutions for the year ahead, and I hope you keep them. But there is one thing I would like all of you to consider; in 2011 make worship a priority in your life. For some of you this will be easy; you worship regularly, but for others this may be a challenge. So why do it? Why give up your Sunday morning when you are already so busy? Well, there are lots of good reasons to worship, but let me highlight a couple:

1) Corporate worship strengthens your faith. If you "worship alone" as many people claim these days, or focus on your own "spirituality," you run the risk of creating a really nice idol for yourself. Corporate worship allows us to percieve the ways in which God is at work in the hearts and minds of others, and in so doing broadens our understanding of who God is and what God does. By worshipping with others we open ourselves to the breadth of God. Even as a group we cannot comprehend all that God is, but we can get a lot closer than if we do it alone.

2) Corporate worship renews your faith. All of us go through peaks and valleys in our faith lives. Sometimes we feel close to God, other times we feel distant. Still others may have reached a point where our faith has atrophied. Corporate worship allows our brothers and sisters to carry our faith even as we struggle. I remember one professor in seminary telling us that this is why he never missed worship. Even when he didn't feel close to God, he could go to worship and others could sing for him, speak for him, pray for him. The faith of the community renewed and restored his own. Sometimes we can restore our faith on our own, but we are as likely to let it slide if we do not seek the support of the community.

3) Worship is the hub of the wheel of congregational life. All that we do as a church is built of worship. Worshp is the foundation. The songs we sing, the prayers we offer, the word which is proclaimed and the sacaraments which are celebrated set the stage for everything else. How else can we understand mission, discern God's Will for our work, or interpret our budget, finances and building, if we do not have a vibrant worship service? Worship sets the stage for everything else, and we cannot be an effective church without a meaningful, vibrant and busy worship service.

So that is my plea to you. Make worship a priority in 2011 and see how your life changes. If you come twice a month, come weekly, if you come monthly, come twice a month, if you never come, get back to it! Worship, over the course of time, will change your life. Why not start this Sunday?

[Phil Blackburn, First Presbyterian Church]