Worship: Intimacy with Godby John & Carol Wimber
Worship, the act of freely giving love to God, forms and informs every activity
of the Christian's life. Many people who visit Vineyard Christian Fellowships remark on the
depth and richness of our worship. This has not come about by chance:
we have a well-thought-out philosophy that guides why and how we worship God.
In this article I will communicate that philosophy.
To understand how we worship God, it is helpful to learn about our fellowship's history,
which goes back to 1977. At that time, my wife, Carol,
was leading a small group of people in a home meeting that evolved into the Anaheim Vineyard.
I'll let her describe what happened during that time.
"We began worship with nothing but a sense of calling from the Lord to a deeper relationship
with Him. Before we started meeting in a small home church setting in 1977,
the Holy Spirit had been working in my heart, creating a tremendous hunger for God. One day as
I was praying, the word worship appeared in my mind like a newspaper
headline. I had never thought much about that word before. As an evangelical Christian
I had always assumed the entire Sunday morning gathering was "worship," and in a sense,
I was correct. But in a different sense there were particular elements of the service that
were especially devoted to worship and not to teaching, announcements, musical presentations,
and all the other activities that are part of a typical Sunday morning gathering. I had to
admit that I wasn't sure which part of the service was supposed to be worship.
"After we started to meet in our home gathering, I noticed times during the meeting - usually
when we sang - in which I experienced God deeply. We sang many songs, but mostly songs
about worship, or testimonies from one Christian to another. But occasionally we sang
a song personally and intimately to Jesus, with lyrics like "Jesus, I love You." Those types
of songs both stirred and fed the hunger for God within me.
"About this time I began asking our music leader why some songs seemed to spark something in us
and others didn't. As we talked about worship, we realized that that often we would sing
about worship, yet we never actually worshiped - except when we accidentally stumbled
onto some intimate song like, "I love you, Lord, and I lift my voice." Thus we began to see a
difference between songs about Jesus and songs to Jesus.
"Now, during this time when we were stumbling around corporately in worship, many of us were
also worshiping at home alone. We noticed that as our individual worship lives deepened,
when we came together there was a greater hunger toward God. So we learned that what
happens when we are alone with the Lord determines how intimate and deep that worship
will be when we come together.
"About that time we realized our worship blessed God, that it was for God alone and not
just a vehicle of preparation for the pastor's sermon. This was an exciting revelation.
After learning about the central place of worship in our meetings, there were many instances
in which all we did was worship God for an hour or two.
"At this time we also discovered that singing was not the only way to worship God. Because
the word worship means literally to bow down, it is important that our bodies are
involved in what our spirits are saying. In Scripture this is accomplished through bowing
heads, lifting hands, kneeling, and even lying prostrate before God.
"A result of our worshiping and blessing God is being blessed by Him. We don't worship God
in order to get blessed, but we are blessed as we worship Him. He visits His people with
manifestations of the Holy Spirit. Thus worship has a twofold aspect: communication with God
through the basic means of singing and praying, and communication from God through teaching and
preaching the Word, prophecy, exhortation, etc. We lift Him up and exalt Him, and as a result
we are drawn into His presence where He speaks to us."
Our heart's desire should be to worship God; we have been designed by God for this purpose. If we don't worship God, we'll worship something or someone else. But how should we worship God? There are various ways described in the Old and New Testaments: Confession:: the acknowledgment of sin and guilt to a holy and righteous God. Thanksgiving: giving thanks to God for what He has done, especially for His works of creation and salvation. Adoration: praising God simply for who He is - Lord of the universe. As Carol pointed out, worship involves not only our thought and intellect, but also our bodies. Seen through the Bible are such forms of prayer and praise as singing, playing musical instruments, dancing, kneeling, bowing down, lifting hands, and so on.
The first phase is the call to worship, which is a message directed toward the people. It is an invitation to worship. This might be accomplished through a song like, "Come Let us Worship and Bow Down." Or it may be jubilant such as through the song, "Don't You Know it's Time to Praise the Lord?" The underlying thought of the call to worship is "Let's do it; let's worship now." Song selection for the call to worship is quite important, for this sets the tone for the gathering and directs people to God. Is it the first night of a conference when many people may be unfamiliar with the songs and with others in attendance? Or is it the last night, after momentum has been building all week? If this is a Sunday morning worship time, has the church been doing the works of God all week? Or has the church been in the doldrums? If the church has been doing well, Sunday worship rides on the crest of a wave. All these thoughts are reflected in the call to worship. The ideal is that each member of the congregation be conscious of these concerns, and pray that the appropriate tone be set in the call to worship. The second phase is the engagement, which is the electrifying dynamic of connection to God and to each other. Expressions of love, adoration, praise, jubilation, intercession, petition - all the dynamics of prayer are interlocked with worship - come forth from one's heart. In the engagement phase we praise God for who He is through music as well as prayer. An individual may have moments like this in private worship at home, but when the church comes together the manifest presence of God is magnified and multiplied.
Often this intimacy causes us to meditate, even as we are singing, on our relationship with the Lord. Sometimes we recall vows we have made before our God. God might call to our mind disharmony or failure in our lives, thus confession of sin is involved. Tears may flow as we see our disharmony contrasted with His harmony; our limitations, but His unlimited possibilities. This phase in which we have been wakened to His presence is called expression. Physical and emotional expression in worship can result in dance and body movement. This is an appropriate response to God if the church is on that crest. It is inappropriate if it is whipped up or if the focal point is on the dance rather than on true jubilation in the Lord. Expression then moves to a zenith, a climactic point, not unlike physical lovemaking (doesn't Solomon use the same analogy in the Song of Songs?). We have expressed what is in our heart and minds and bodies, and now it is time to wait for God to respond. Stop talking and wait for Him to speak, to move. I call this, the fourth phase, visitation: the almighty God visits His people.
Whatever I need to give, God inevitably first calls me to give it when I don't have any of it - whether it is money, love, hospitality, or information. Whatever God wants to give through us He first has to do to us. We are the first partakers of the fruit. But we are not to eat the seed, we are to sow it, to give it away. The underlying premise is that whatever we are is multiplied, for good or for bad. Whatever we have on our tree is what we are going to get in our orchard. As we experience these phases of worship, we experience intimacy with God, the highest and most fulfilling calling men and women may know!
(c) Equipping the Saints, Vol. 1, No. 1. Used with permission. Renewal Journal #6 (1995:2), P.O. Box 629, Strathpine, Brisbane 4500, Australia. 
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