By Paul Hammons
Sept. 9, 2018
We often stress in churches of Christ that there are specific acts that we are to include in our Sunday worship services, and most of us have probably heard them referred to as the “Five Acts of Worship” at some point:
- The Lord’s Supper
- Praying
- Singing
- Contribution
- Preaching
And while all of these are scriptural ideas, and we have authorization for all of them, it’s important to remember that the Bible doesn’t describe our worship as a series of rituals, but rather as an outgrowth of the attitudes we have toward God and to each other! We can’t expect that we can judge ourselves as a “sound congregation” by simply looking at a checklist of activities that we engage in once or twice a week while we’re gathered together.
In John 4:24, Jesus said that “God is spirit, and they that worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” That means that our attitudes of joy, faith, zeal, reverence, and love have to be what drives everything that we do when we come together in the Lord’s body. Otherwise, our worship to God is empty!