Over the centuries, most people have gone to church hoping to meet God there. Most of us have an intuition that there is a God in this universe who is to be known. So, we go to church to see whether we can get to know him. Some go hoping to have a first encounter with God. Others go to have their understandings and experiences of God deepened. As that happens, we begin to engage in what we call worship, i.e., putting God at the center of our vision and offering him our questions as well as our thanks and praise. The definition of “worship” I use is this:
Worship is the proper response of the whole of our lives to our Triune God. When we worship, we ascribe all honor, praise, and worth to God precisely because he is worthy. True worship results in God’s being at the center of both our adoration and our action, both in our personal lives and in our corporate gatherings.
I am aware that there are things other than meeting with and worshiping God that get us into church—like our parents or our spouses making us go. Lots of people go to church simply out of tradition or habit. Some go even because they like the music or the speaker. However, those things rarely keep us going. If we like a certain kind of music, we find that we can get the style we like by buying a concert ticket or mp3 download. If we want a good motivational speech, we can go to our sales meeting or pull up a TED Talk. If we want a social experience, we can go to a bar or social club. But, at church, we hope to actually meet God, learn more about him, and worship him together with other people.
Ann Ortlund, a long-time member and leader at Lake Avenue Church, wrote about this in her book, Up with Worship. She said that we should go to church hungry to encounter God with others. Ann wrote, “When you get together, what’s to be your common goal? It’s not just to follow an order of service with a minimum number of goofs. …Your common goal is nothing less than to connect with God himself:
Holy
Thrilling
Cleansing
Warming
Possible
Veni, Spirite, Sancte. Oh yes, God, do come, please.”
In Acts 2, we will read about a lot of people meeting God. I pray that the same will happen in our church.
To His Glory,
Dr. Greg Waybright
Senior Pastor