But what is it really?

I wonder how much people who lead worship music think about the foundation of what they're doing? When I began to play music in my youth group's worship band, the leaders actually did a pretty good job of talking often about why we did what we did the way we did it, and what we were, in fact, doing.

We heard all the things that were popular to say about worship in the late 90's "Worship is not about us," "Worship is not a concert," "We lead worship by worshiping," "Worship is a lifestyle," etc. Now, all these things are true, but imagine talking about something else the way worship is often spoken of.

"You see, running can be for enjoyment, along with providing exercise. It's great to do with music, and you can do it outdoors, or if you have the equipment, indoors as well. It's best to start small, then build up. It's also best to buy running shoes instead of wearing just a street shoe or something."

See what's missing? If you don't know what running is at its most basic level (moving at a speed faster than a walk by use of the legs, never having both or all the feet on the ground at the same time) then nothing else you say about it, however true, is going to make any real sense, or have any real application.

The same is true of worship. if we do not know its core meaning as well as we would know the meaning of something like running, if we don't know what it is to worship at all, then all the thoughts and advice about how to worship well or rightly will fall flat.

What, then, is worship?