Successful New Testament church requires that we successfully re-align our concepts of “worship” with the New Testament.
That’s because what most people call “worship”, isn’t.
At least, according to what the New Testament calls worship.
Yet we project our post-New Testament traditions and contemporary experiences back onto that word …
And make it a requirement for our gatherings, rather than taking the time to see what it really is according to the New Testament.
Yes, we are encouraged to sing praises together when we meet, but only in four passages in the New Testament.
Two of those passages say why.
It is not to “worship” as we now define that word, but to encourage one another.
That destroys the modern narrative of “worship” being some intense personal experience of God’s presence, driven by some separate “worship” band that ushers us there.
Rather, “worship” in the New Testament is a life of obedience and obeisance, 24-7. That’s it.
It is not a Sunday service. It is an ongoing lifestyle.
We singing God’s praises when we assemble together, however, to express to one another God’s presence already in us because of that lifestyle …
So as to encourage each other in that lifestyle.
New Testament church will never work until we define worship as the New Testament does, and sing together as the New Testament commands …
Rather than projecting our fleshly desires borne of religious traditions back onto God’s Word.
