As a pastor, I kind of have a thing for worship. I believe it’s important to say the very least. As a matter of fact, I think we should all find a place to connect with God in worship with other people who believe what and how we believe! But that’s not all worship is. For so many Christians, worship is something that has to happen in a place at a certain time. It can only last a certain length of time and we have to act a certain way while we’re there. But what if worship was more than a 60 minute time slot on Sundays?

This week at the church I’m privileged to serve, we’re in our first solid week of something called the Red Letter Challenge. And the theme of the week is being with Christ. The idea is simple really. We spend all of our time looking at what we can do for Christ that we forget what he’s already done for us. If we had to boil the whole thing down to one simple sentence, it would be our being flows from our doing.

Today’s portion of our Red Letter Challenge is about worship. Where do we do it? What does it look like? Who’s welcome? Who’s not allowed? These are questions we ask when we have a narrow view of worship. When worship is about a time on a Sunday and a building that sits vacant 6 days a week, that’s when we argue about styles and times and methods. But when worship is about God coming to us and us responding to God in faith, then worship can be at a street fair or in a sanctuary. It can be filled with the richness of the historic liturgy or a more modern and free-flowing approach.

The point of worship isn’t us! It’s Jesus. And perhaps when we get our focus right in worship, we’ll stop the silly bickering nonsense and get back to the worship God calls us to live out. Stop what you’re doing and take a moment of worship – whatever that looks like for you.