One of the reasons I hear for people not coming to Sunday worship gatherings is that the services don’t seem relevant to them or aren’t uplifting. They don’t like the music, they aren’t “being fed”. I understand these comments coming from those who aren’t Christians. But when I hear them from someone who claims to follow Christ, I am disturbed.
Our worship gatherings should encourage us, lift us up, ready us for the week to come. But that isn’t why we are there, it’s only a by-product.
When we gather to worship—and yes, when we worship with each thing we say and do throughout the week—we do it for God. When we sing, we sing to God. When we celebrate communion we remember what He did for us. Everything we do is a celebration of our relationship with Him, and our focus is on Him. We worship God because we need to, but it isn’t about what we get out of it—it’s about what we give! As one person said, “Worship is a concert, and the entire congregation is performing it for God!”
If we approach our worship gatherings with the expectation—even the demand—for what we are going to get out of it, we miss the point, and that’s the biggest reason so many of us are troubled by distractions and feel our worship experiences aren’t “relevant” or “uplifting”. They can’t be when we’re not really worshiping! And if what we are doing is about us, then we aren’t really worshiping.
That’s why it is so important that we come together no matter what is happening in our life, how we feel, or what’s on our mind. We need to worship God, and to do it together.
