Worship While You Work
An earlier blog suggested that the current exodus from work opens a door for churches. In that article, I briefly described seven Kingdom-of-God reasons for working. This will expand on the fifth reason: We can offer our work as worship.
How often do you hear worship linked with our daily work? Mostly, we use the word to describe an activity that takes place in the gathered church. We have worship services, worship leaders, worship teams, worship songs, worship centers, worship experiences —and even worship software! Curious, I googled the word worship and clicked the “images” tab. Out of the first hundred pictures, five showed people in a church meeting. And almost all the rest—92—showed what occurs so regularly in church buildings—hands being raised toward God.
What explains this near-exclusive linking of worship with what happens in church meetings? It may surprise many of us that the New Testament never paints Christian church gatherings as primarily for worship. (Check it out.) Old Testament worship was fastened to particular places—the Tabernacle and later the Temple. But in his exchange with the woman at the well, Jesus untied worship from special places. He told her the Father seeks spirit-and-truth worshipers. This kind of worship can and should happen everywhere. So we can offer New Covenant worship as we work.
What is Worship?
We can worship while working, that is, if our idea of it is inclusive enough. What is worship? Can it involve praising, adoring, bowing down, lifting hands, and so on? Definitely. But for these, our minds must be focused on God. A Christian friend put it this way: “Worship is a time of focusing all of our attention on praising and glorifying our God.” These in-church expressions of worship are hardly appropriate while driving a bus, researching a news story, or programming a computer.
Thankfully, in addition to its in-church forms, worship also includes serving God. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word abad is sometimes translated as worship, sometimes as work, and sometimes as serve. The same word refers to worshiping, working, and serving. To serve is to do something that someone has asked you to do or that carries out their purpose. We offer this kind of worship through what we do.
Hebrews 13:15 and 16 describe two kinds of sacrifices—a word always associated with worship. “Therefore, let us offer through Jesus a continual sacrifice of praise to God, proclaiming our allegiance to his name. And don't forget to do good and to share with those in need. These are the sacrifices that please God” (NLT).
So there are sacrifices of “saying” and sacrifices of “doing.” The latter kind fit right into our workplace contexts. The Message elaborates on these “doing” sacrifices: “God takes particular pleasure in acts of worship — a different kind of ‘sacrifice’ — that take place in kitchen and workplace and on the streets” (Heb. 13:16, MSG).
When Paul wrote to those in Colossae and Ephesus who were doing slave work, he told them that in their work they were serving the Lord. And because, as we’ve seen, one biblical word wraps in working, worshiping, and serving, he could probably have urged them to see their work as worship.
How Can We Worship While Busy with Work?
But how can we worship when our minds must be laser-focused on chores like cleaning a carburetor, changing a diaper, or filling a tooth? Think again of what Jesus said to the woman at the well. Worship, he said, is to be “in spirit and in truth.” So if we are working in harmony with the Holy Spirit within us and if what we are doing lines up with the truth, then we may offer that work as spirit-and-truth worship that pleases God, even while our hands and brains are occupied elsewhere.
For a slave in Ephesus or Colossae, working “in spirit and in truth,” meant complying with what the master asked, working wholeheartedly and sincerely—and not just when the boss was watching (Eph. 6:5-8; Col. 3:22-24 ). In his letter to Titus (2:9), Paul added no back-talk and no stealing. Those are just a few examples of what it means to offer work as the kind of worship the Father is seeking.
So there is no need to make our workplaces into mini-chapels where we try to engage in those worship activities that take place in church meetings. As long as we are doing our work from a true spirit—that is, led by God’s Spirit—we may offer it while our minds and bodies are fully engaged with the tasks that our work requires.
Work as Worship Can Transform
In Work and Worship, Matthew Kaemingk and Cory B. Willson say, “Gathered worship in the sanctuary must become scattered worship in the streets.” Can you imagine the difference it would make if all who say they are Christians were to offer their daily work as worship?
Take the U. S. as an example. Roughly half its population is in the labor force. If that percentage holds true for the 167 million or so professing Christians, that would mean half of those—80-plus million—serve as Christians in the workplace. If every one of them were to see and do their work as worship, how might God use the lived-out demonstration of godly practices to influence the culture of the nation?
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From Chapter 4, “Work as Worship”:
“Have you ever thought of your human body as a worship instrument?”
