Seven Steps Into Worship

1.Learn to practice the presence of God daily. Really follow Paul’s words, “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17). Have personal times of inner worship, confession and attentiveness to Christ; have God with you in every corner of your life.

2.Have many different experiences of worship. Worship God when you are alone. Have home groups or little groups of two or three and learn to offer up a sacrifice of praise. Try a small group at Holy Trinity – Monday evening or Thursday afternoon.

3.Find ways to prepare for the gathered experience of worship. Prepare Saturday night by having inward experience and examination and confession. Go over Sunday readings (see Taking Faith Home inserts each week). Gather early and let go of inner distractions by focusing on the presence of God filling the sanctuary.

4.Have a willingness to be gathered in the power of the Lord. As an individual, let go of my agenda, my concerns, my desire to be blessed or even to hear the word of God. The language of gathered worship is not I, but we. There is submission to the ways of Christ and submission to one another in Christian fellowship in the desire for God’s life to rise up and fill the group.

5.Cultivate holy dependency. Learn to become completely dependent upon God for anything significant to happen. Look forward to God acting and moving and teaching and wooing and winning.

6.Absorb distractions with gratitude. Become willing to relax with distractions – they may be a message from the Lord. Receive what happens in a gathered worship experience, rather than feeling distractions somehow deter your worship of God.

7.Learn to offer a sacrifice in worship. Many times you will not feel like worship. But you need to go anyway. You need to be with the people of God and say, “These are my people. As stiff-necked and hard-hearted and sinful as we may be, together we come to God.” So go, even if you don’t feel like it. Go, even if worship has been discouraging and dry before. Go, praying. Go, expecting. Go, looking for God to do a new and living work among us.

From Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth by Richard Foster, pp. 170-173.