A HUGE mistake churches make …

While visiting a church I was very familiar with, I noticed a young couple I wasn’t familiar with at all.

Before the church service began, they were actively engaging others in conversation, laughing, and smiling lots. But during the worship service, they were straight-faced, appeared visibly bored, rarely sang a word, and were so dis-engaged I thought they may bolt for the doors at any moment. However, during the sermon, they re-engaged via active listening, and finally, after the service, were the personable couple I initially viewed.

After the service, I was surprised to hear the couple say, “We love this church, we’re so blessed by the worship here.”

This couple demonstrated something that goes to the core of a HUGE mistake made so often in American churches … that of mistaking fellowship for worship.

Many churchgoers seem to think of the church as their personal “spiritual ATM” machine. They go each Sunday to withdraw their blessing and then move on. Little or nothing is brought, and it’s not often that something of great value is deposited. But a withdrawal is always made.

People often like to “go to church” as an avenue of making and interacting with friends outside of the workplace. They get a warm, comfortable feeling of being with people who take them as they are and they enjoy the positive, family environment.

But that is not worship!

You don’t have to “go to church” to worship God. In fact, we express “worship” every day with how we live out our lives, especially with regard to what we ascribe value and worth to on a daily basis (which really is what worship is). But the heart of the genuine Christian experience is fellow believers coming together to worship as the family of God.

Jesus once responded to Pharisees complaining about public worship of Him, “He replied, ‘If they kept quiet, the stones along the road would burst into cheers!'” Luke 19:40.

When you know and love Jesus Christ, your heart longs to cry out in worship to Him! You yearn to adore Him and express reverence toward Him. You are moved by His grace, and love, and kindness, and you simply must express yourself.

We need fellowship with other believers, but it’s very easy to become self-indulgent with fellowship. Worship is quite an opposite experience as it is more than having fellowship with God. It is seeing our worthlessness and the awesome experience of being made worthy by our Creator. That reality is so profound that it demands a reaction from us … in lifted voices, raised hands, and a host of other ways (in and out of church) that we express the real worth and value of Jesus Christ to our lives.

Have you ever noticed that the little church that never grows tends to have strong “fellowship” among its members, but staid (at best) worship? But when you look at the churches that are adding to their numbers nearly every week, you will usually find a congregation of believers who enjoy dynamic worship as a central part of their gathering together.

Is your church overly focused on “warm fellowship”? What is the worship life like in your local church? How could building genuine, dynamic worship into the life of your congregation spur your fellowship of believers to greater growth?

Scotty