We attended a 10-hour Christian worship concert today. I guess there were 10,000 people there, but I don’t know for sure; I’m not experienced at estimating crowd sizes. Heard a lot of excellent Christian artists.
Near the end, between two groups, we got a sermon. At least I was guessing it was a sermon, before it turned into a plea to return the Compassion International packets if we still had them. Regardless of that, it was still a sermon I guess. And I learned something.
Whoever it was speaking said, “There are 16 Hebrew and Greek words translated as ‘worship’ in our Bibles, and NOT ONE OF THEM implies MUSIC or SINGING. Not one. Mostly they address different aspects of SERVICE.” He took as his text Isaiah’s account of the throne-room of God, and he said Isaiah’s “Here am I; send me” statement was WORSHIP. Because he gave himself to accomplish God’s will. THAT IS WHAT WORSHIP IS.
And then the speaker (or preacher, or whatever he was) said, “That is not what I would LIKE worship to mean. I have degrees in church music, and have been a recording artist for 12 years, and I would like WORSHIP to mean MUSIC — but it doesn’t.”
I thought that was a very significant statement. I need to think about it some more.
Oh, by the way, as the speaker left the platform they said, “Thank you Shaun Groves for that message.”