Worship Is as Worship Does
Worship Is as Worship Does is a spoken word poetry piece based on the message of Isaiah 58, encouraging the Church to worship in action as well as in song.
Worship Is as Worship Does
(Based on Isaiah 58)
Worship is as worship does –
Swelling louder than a Sunday’s chorus,
reaching far beyond our outstretched hands of praise,
filling spaces left empty in the prayers half-prayed
of church-going sinner-saints.
God is not interested in our pretty songs,
or polished prayers, or Sunday’s best
if our every day bows down to worldly things.
He wants it all –
The quick tongue and hot temper.
The broken dreams and shattered hopes.
The not-yets, maybe-laters, and someday-soons
of a people still finding their place in His story.
The fears that feed our stresses and anxieties that make a mess
of the way we know our God-song ought to sound.
He wants a worship well that lives and breathes
beyond the fast of minutes and hours, meals or ways,
into a life that lives loud for His glory,
day after day, poured from melodies of joy
and offered up to the King of Kingdom things –
The work of our hands.
The bread on our tables.
A slowing down and leaning in to listen.
A humbled heart that loves –
And does what worship does.
This worship God can hear, that’s rhythmic and clear-
Cannot hold the dissonance of injustice
or stand on top a fellow image bearer to build their own.
Kingdom worship is freedom worship –
Throwing off the chains of rattling metal
that choke hold of all that’s good.
It is love made real in simple ways –
In feeding the hungry,
and housing the homeless,
and clothing the naked poor.
It is looking into the eyes of those we say we love the most
and doing just that –
Showing up, standing still, and loving with abandon,
as we have been so loved.
Worship is as worship does –
And this kind of worship is what moves the heart of God –
Inclining His ear to hear our cries,
tuning our hearts to heaven’s harmony,
clearing the way, bringing clarity to our days,
sending springs of living water running through
to soften ground of dry and weary souls.
This kind of worship partners us to Kingdom work.
Orchestrating a full and vibrant chord of lives
to sing redemption over this wounded world,
revealing the refrain of restoration as it crescendos into glory.
This is worship – doing what worship does.
Author’s Note
Isaiah 58 is a powerful word on what it means to truly worship God.
If our worship is only as deep as the songs we sing on Sunday morning, we are missing the entire point. God is looking for a people that worships with full lives, living loud with Kingdom purpose in all the ordinary moments of the day.
Our worship must be accentuated by holy action. We must stand for what is right and pure. We must fight for the oppressed, and speak for the silenced, and serve the world that He so loved.
When we worship, truly worship, He hears us. He sees us. And He blesses.