Just recently I have been reading Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. One of the disciplines he discusses is worship. At the beginning of that section this definition of worship appears.

“To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God.” William Temple

Then Mr. Foster goes on to give these definitions:

“To worship is to experience Reality, to tough Life. It is to know, to feel, to experience the resurrected Christ in the midst of the gathered community. It is breaking into the Shekinah of God, or better yet, being invaded by the *Shekinah of God.” Richard Foster (*Shekinah means the glory or the radiance of God dwelling in the midst of his people.)

“Worship is the human response to the divine initiative.” Richard Foster

These definitions make us think, but how would you define worship of God? I would love to hear from you? I invite you to leave a comment at the bottom of this post.

This post is a continuation of the series "Preparing for Worship” in which I try to offer some thoughts that may help the congregation I lead, ClearView, prepare to join our faith family in corporate worship. Here are some songs that will be used in worship at ClearView this weekend. You can be better prepared to join together will gathered church by taking a few moments to listen to these songs.