bad worship

I was watching the draft last night. My team (THE Kansas City Chiefs) didn’t have a pick in the first round, so I wasn’t really focused on all the possibilities for them. Instead, I was able to play the, “If I was the GM of team______ I’d pick____________.” (I wouldn’t have picked Pitts) Which is so stupid. I don’t even watch college football, so the only thing I learn about a player comes from the 1-minute highlight package.

How did your team do on round one?

I really like the draft. In a world of so much negative news, it’s cool to watch guys hear their names called. The excitement is real. It’s contagious. You get to see entire rooms celebrate with the player. It makes sense, this is something they’ve dreamed about forever!

Think about this, no matter how hyped and pumped up they are in this moment, they know this isn’t it. They didn’t put in years of effort just to hear their names called on draft day. That’s just the start of it all. Now it’s time to get to work.

Can you imagine if draft day was the thing they hung their hats on? Imagine on Sunday instead of getting ready to play, they just watched tapes of the moment their names were called. Imagine if this was it for them.

Imagine them just chasing that draft day feeling over and over again.

I mean sure they would have had a good college career, which is fine, but if they just kept going back to draft day and living in those emotions, they’d end up missing out on the potential of something so much bigger and better!

I’m starting to think this is how the church is sometimes. At some point we’ve developed this habit of chasing that Sunday morning feeling of “amazing worship” (whatever that means), and when worship doesn’t hit a home-run we walk away feeling a little disappointed.

My argument is, a lot of the church in America has gotten in the habit of worshiping worship….and when we do that, we miss out on something so much better.

We love to chase those feelings of a really good worship setlist, we want to raise our hands and celebrate because it “feels good”, our songs beg for God to “fill the room”, but what if all of that stuff misses the real stuff of being a Jesus follower? What if all of that is just like draft day. It’s fine, but it’s just a sliver of what’s to come.

Look at this passage,

“I can’t stand your religious meetings. I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions. I want nothing to do with your religion projects, your pretentious slogans, and goals. I’m sick of your fundraising schemes, your public relations, and image making. I’ve had all I can take of your noisy ego-music. When was the last time you sang to me? Do you know what I want? I want justice — oceans of it. I want fairness — rivers of it. That’s what I want. That’s all I want.” Amos 5:21–24 MSG.

Jesus says, “Come follow me.” He didn’t say, “Come worship me.” I’m starting to think the best form of worship actually has nothing to do with music. What if the best way to worship God is to actually love his people?

How can you worship God today?