In various surveys when people are asked why they don't go to church, they often reply that church is just too boring. Now I know that sometimes church can be dull, especially to the unbeliever. At the close of a service the pastor announced a meeting of the board. A visitor showed up at the meeting. When asked why he was there he replied, "If there is anyone here any more bored than me I'd like to meet him." A mother said her son died in the service to which a visitor replied, “Which service, morning or evening?”
True worship is anything but boring. The very essence of worship will never allow us to be bored. Worship can be described as a stairway on which there is movement in two directions, God comes down to us, and we go up to God. Worship is a thirsty land crying for rain. Psalm 42:1,2: "As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, Oh God. My soul thirsts for God, for the Living God."
Christian pollster, George Barna released a study of worship in America. "On a typical Sunday more than seventy five million adults attend worship services in Christian churches. That's three times the number of adults who tune into football games on a typical Sunday. Less than one-third of all adults who regularly attend say they have never experienced God's presence at any time in their life." Do you leave church feeling that nothing has changed? Wouldn't you love to feel lifted up and blessed by the Living God? Wouldn't you just once like to feel that you have been in the presence of Almighty God, and to sense His wonderful love and forgiveness embracing you?
A relationship with God cannot exist without praise and worship. You cannot divorce emotions from your Christian experience. Look at the Old Testament saints, their worship included extreme joy, tears, they shouted to the Lord, longed for the Lord, danced before Him, cried out to Him, their worship included passion, surrender, love and commitment. There is no impersonal way of expressing praise to Almighty God. Worship is the atmosphere in which unbelievers will sense the greatness and glory of the Living God. Ephesians 3:21, "Unto Him be glory in the church…"
The most common word for praise in Hebrew is "Chabod," used 375 times in the Old Testament. It means "weight, heaviness, substance, wealth, dignity," and in some instances, "radiance, and splendor." "Glory" is the "Shekinah," the bright cloud by which God manifested Himself. In Romans 9:4 God is referred to as "The Glory." It is the same glory that guided the children of Israel by cloud and by fire; the same glory that filled the Tabernacle and Temple; the same glory that sat in cloven tongues of fire on the disciples of Pentecost…that’s the same glory that is displayed today in our worship. Isaiah 60:7, "I will glorify the house of My glory,” and in verse 13, "I will make the place of My feet glorious." The glory of His presence draws the hungry soul into the very presence of God. Our dynamic worship creates a church environment that is so powerful and life-changing, that people will bring their unchurched friends to experience the glory of God.
