Gareth Bezett

What a tasty topic. How much time does your church spend talking a bout worship style? Mine spends a lot. I never hear anyone talk about outcomes.

What is the point of worship? The discussion I hear seems to imply that it's about how the experience makes the worshipper feel. Someone I know dismisses talk of style as irrelevant and consumerism and backs this up by claiming that lots of worship styles produce a good buzz in them. "I love a quiet prayer book service just as much as the band at the youth service." I'm almost certain that worship is not about the buzz or what we like, even if we like lots of stuff.

What is the outcome that expect from worship? For many, worship is all about weekly services. They probably think that worship is the singing we do in a service. The leadership probably reinforce this when the say "we will now enter a time of worship". What were we just doing? I felt sorry for the band at the Changing World, changing Church conference after Mark Strom said "please Lord, not another soppy love song to Jesus". The worship leader the next morning didn't bother trying to snig.

So what's the point, the outcome, the goal? I think conventional thinking would tell us that we are bringing our sacrifice of praise. I have a suspicion that worship is actually a little for our benefit, but we won't get that benefit if we don't think it's all about God.