Across the Pastor’s Desk by Don Rose

Don Rose is the pastor of Mansfield Lutheran Church in Alden and United Lutheran Church in Walters.

To ask the question, “What does worship mean for you?” is to expect a variety of answers, perhaps as many as individuals asked.

For many, the answer will be a reference to time spent in a church building — typically on a Sunday morning. An hour, perhaps, but not much more seems to be the weekly quota for many. Others might describe an experience in the outdoors as a time of worship, when the power and creative activity of God was seen in a particularly dynamic way.

Whatever the answer, most will be but a dim reflection of what worship is to be.

For Christians, one definition of worship is the primary part of the Christian life lived in response to what God has done for human beings in the Savior, Jesus the Christ. The primary part would suggest that the majority of the Christian life is, in fact, worship.

Worship is not the time left over from other interests and pursuits, but rather the essential way in which faithful followers of God live in the world. Such a life of worship is finely balanced between a relationship to God and the great things that God has done and continues to do, as well as relationships with others and God’s creations. To focus on one over the other is to be out of balance and to miss the message of the Gospel.

For believers, life itself is to worship, lived in thanks and praise to God. Grounded in the security that God provides, God’s people are then free to live lives of hope and promise for the sake of all. To be sure, believers will face trials and difficulties, just like all others do. However, faith will allow believers to respond to life differently than non-believers. Certain of God’s love and grace, believers can then live lives that are, in fact, filled with praise and thanksgiving.

Lives shaped by worship are lives lived for the sake of the other rather than solely for oneself. Lives shaped by worship share hope and joy with a world that is in great need. Lives shaped by worship are lives transformed by God’s forgiveness and grace, and by the work of God’s Spirit, which transforming power flows out to change the world.

Hopefully, when you think of worship you will not just think of a short period of time spent in a church building sometime during the week. Rather, think of a way of life that marks you as a follower of the Savior in each and every moment of each and every day.