Becoming Fully Human Again

I have recently had the privilege to read through the book Created to Worship: God's invitation to become fully human by Brent Peterson for one of my classes this semester and it is very insightful on what worship truly is. For one of our first assignments we were prompted to post a forum discussion using the first 5 chapters to answer the question Why do we Worship and how do we worship as Christians. What follows below is my response to that question which I think is important for all of us to wrestle with since it is our calling as humans to worship God. 

It is important to talk about why we worship because so often worship becomes the central reason why people leave churches. Oftentimes when people leave you can hear responses such as “I thought it was too traditional.” Or “I didn’t feel emotionally moved by the worship set.” Whatever it is people tend to want to worship according to their preferences of music and how things are done. This should be addressed because worship is so much more than that. As Peterson say, “while a worship service must be familiar to each local context, there is a profound idolatry at work when I can only worship when the church’s worship is what I want, what I am comfortable with, or what I am used to” (21). I could not agree more and I believe it is easy to fall into this idolatry because we live in such an individualistic, instant-gratification world where we are told that we should have all of our needs met. That is so detrimental to the plan that God had for us.

God created us, humans, in his image to worship him. God is a triune God and so he is relational, which means as his image bearers we ought to be relational. This individualistic society and even preferences in worship are not a part of his plan; for how are we being image bearers of a 3-in-1 God when we are so focused on ourselves in an act that God desires us to do? When we tear away from this individualistic approach and view worship as a communal act we are living the way God intended, for as Peterson says “To glorify God literally imagines God’s love shining between human faces and finally back to God” (24).  When we are in community, loving God and each other, and inviting people into God’s grand story we are partaking in Christian worship.

Along with our call to communal love, Peterson tells us that “God’s Breath is the very thing that sustains all living creatures” (42). This is shown evident in Genesis 1 when God breathes into the dust to create man; because of God’s breathe we should worship him for without him we would be nothing. It is also God’s Breath through the Spirit that gathers us together to be the church and then breathes us out to go and spread the hope and joy of God’s mission in the world. When we gather together communally and then go out to spread the message we are worshipping God by being who we were intended to be. So to worship effectively as Christians we need to be willing to leave the boundaries of our church building and be the church which is “called to participate in God’s further healing in all the places the Spirit blows the church” (44).