Worship

At CrossRoads we enjoy fabulous worship with great music and preaching. It is our chance once a week to gather and connect to God and each other. While we worship all through the week on a personal basis, once a week, we gather in celebration of Jesus in our lives and hearts. We are a casual group and welcome all to “come as you are” without worry for dress or manners.

BUT, what is worship?

In Psalm 42:1, the writer says, As a deer pants for streams of water, so I long for you, O God.

Breathing is hard to explain. It’s hard because it is first nature to us and something we hardly ever think about. We can describe breathing as a movement of air in and out of our bodies, and we know that it supplies life-giving oxygen to our blood. So, while it serves a vital function to life, we hardly notice it when it serves us well. If breathing becomes difficult due to illness or panic or extreme exercise, then we think about breathing. But, in the norm, we don’t think about breath because it is such a natural part of life. We only think about it when it is missing.

Worship is like breathing. We can describe the movements of worship and the forms of worship that have developed over history and through out traditions. We know when worship is not happening and when our form of worship is not connecting to our souls. Be because God created us to pant after and to worship God as first nature, it is sometimes hard to put words to the moments of connection that we call “worship.”

Worship literally is translated, “worth-ship,” which is a condition of giving worth and value to someone, in this case, to God. People worship God in different ways, but when we strip away the form we are just falling forward before God (falling into God instead of away from God) with our heart, mind, body and soul. We are humbling ourselves before our Creator and remembering who we are and who God is, as we become comfortable in our natural position of “created.” We are praising the Creator above all else, worshipping only One God, and adoring the One who loves us enough to be present in our lives. God is the One we cry out to when we end up in a heap of trouble! And the One we go to for wisdom and peace.

Our souls pant for God, and the panting is like breathing. We were born for this kind of panting. It is a life-giving, hope-sustaining, toxin-removing movement of life that we can’t even begin to explain…