What Does it Mean to Worship?

What Does it Mean to Worship? What About to Worship as a family?

The term worship is a heavy and complicated word. It has so many definitions and uses that when someone tries to sum it up or identify it there is usually great debate on whether the example is thorough enough to include all the variations and interpretations of the word. Famous theologians have argued and debated about the meaning and the proper forms and uses of the word worship and modern day bloggers whose education and discipling status is unknown offer a multitude of explanations and/or examples. All of this information however, just complicates the the question, 'What does it mean to worship as a family'?

To save everyone some heart ache, I'm going to define worship in the simplest of terms that I (a non-theologian) is capable of. I believe that worshiping is when you show people you love Jesus with your words and actions, affecting the world around us for the better. And to do that as a family means we do that together. We do not exclude anyone (especially the children).

We've been reading Mark the last two weeks as a church and as a family and in Mark 10:13-16 my bible says this:
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The Little Children and Jesus

¹³ People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. ¹⁴ When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. ¹⁵ Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” ¹⁶ And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.
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So I look at this and I think a few things. First, I've heard this before, in most of the gospels I believe (of which our church and family has read all of in the last 4 or 5 months). Second, the familiarity of this passage doesn't make it less puzzling. I've always felt, when reading this passage, we are missing something... but I've never been able to put my finger on what. Was it a call to be child-like? That is an easy desire to fall into, but that has just never seemed quite right.

No, today when I read this passage I noticed this:
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The Little Children and Jesus

¹³ People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. ¹⁴ When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. ¹⁵ Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” ¹⁶ And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.
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 WHOA!!! There it is. The thing that I've been looking for in this passage. The answer to my question, "what am I missing here, I don't get it?" Well, now I get it.

Us, the grown ups, the ones in charge, the dignified people, with our rules and expectations and our outstanding ability to complicate everything... we are to get out of the way! Stop hindering the children and allow them to come to Jesus. Allow His blessings to flow and be abundant in their lives.

Of course, this is another one of those easier said, than done type of things, but I personally think that phrase is a cop-out. It's an excuse to not change or improve. A reason to feel good about being convicted but do nothing different and let's just all hope that the arrow of guidance we shoot in the dark rooms in which these children live, growing up in this world, hits them. The statistical chances of success in that scenario probably justifies the decline of Christ like disciple making individuals in our world today.

So how do we worship as a family?? We work together to impact the world around us for the better. I believe that children are amazing at impacting the world, naturals! They can bring both joy and destruction in mere seconds and some have the special talent of going between the two extremes while making pit stops between the two in just a few minutes. The reality is, we have been told to get out of the way! So let's get them involved and take some cues from them, "because the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."

Our exercise for the evening is to brainstorm (using markers and poster board). We will come up with ideas on how we as families can impact the world around us through the following avenues:

 Generosity       Thanksgiving         Encouragement                Enthusiasmm           Kindness         Obedience         Respect               Reliability 

p.s. for those of you that might be interested in our discoverings, i do in tend to post our findings.