WORSHIPING WITH OUR HANDS

Worship has many aspects. Worship is song. Worship is dance. Worship is offering. Worship is obedience. Worship is prayer. Worship is work. Worship is life. Life is worship.

Sometimes I think that we become guilty of singing our worship, thinking that we are done with worship when we finish. We sing about being dancers who dance upon injustice, and then we sit idly by while teens shoot each other just outside our building, or while judges reinterpret the Constitution, or while Christians are persecuted in China and people starve in North Korea. We sing about being one in the Spirit, but we do not, in fact, walk hand in hand or work side by side. We sing about standing and lifting our hands, or about falling down in worship, while we sit and sing, or listen while others sing. I think if I sing it, I have done it.

But singing is not doing. And playing in a worship band is not the same as doing a good deed. And planning or leading a worship set or assembly is not the same as demonstrating my faith by what I do. After all, a worship service isn't really worship until there is service.

Paul said that we put our religion into practice by taking care of our extended family. The word "religion" is usually translated "worship" in other places. James said that looking after widows and orphans in their distress is true faith. He said that even the demons believe in God, and shudder. So to sing about what I believe while doing nothing is, at best, incomplete, and at worst, hypocrisy. Michael Wilson calls picking up trash in the neighborhood "praying with our hands."

I don't want to sing about praying as a substitute for prayer. I don't want to be guilty of using words in my songs to substitute for the real thing. If the real thing is dancing upon injustice, then I want to join in the dance!
-ker