In previous posts I noted two major problems many of us have with worship:
1. We make the mistake of believing worship gatherings are for us (see “The Problem With Worship, part 1”)
2. We don’t worship God during the days and hours we are not in a “worship service” (see “The Problem With Worship, part 2”)
There is another—and more mundane problem many have with worship—particularly corporate worship services: we simply aren’t prepared.
Why do we need to prepare to worship? And how exactly do we do that?
The answer to the first question could be “why shouldn’t we”? We prepare to do pretty much everything important in our lives, why wouldn’t we prepare for worship? So many people spend the week not thinking about the Lord (see “The Problem With Worship, part 1”) and then hit then weekend to do anything they couldn’t accomplish during the week. For some this means errands, household tasks, hobbies. For others it means playing and partying, staying up and out as late as possible to make sure we milk every ounce of fun out of the weekend.
Then we drag ourselves out of bed on Sunday morning and come into the worship gathering.
And fight distraction and sleep.
How different would our worship gatherings be if each of us focused on the Lord throughout the week?
How different would our worship gatherings be if each of us thought about our worship gatherings on Friday and Saturday?
How different would our worship gatherings be if we took care to avoid the things that create barriers between us and God?
How different would our worship gatherings be if we insured we were well rested, well fed, and ready to focus when we walk into the worship gathering?
This isn’t particularly innovative, and it isn’t really very controversial. (Ok, getting some sleep on Saturday night might be out there for some people) But what is important isn’t always innovative or controversial or obscure or…anything but mundane.
Sometimes the problem with worshiping as a church is we simply don’t prepare ourselves to for it.
