John 4:21-23Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.

It seems many folks are confused on the matter of what worship, even is. It is often mistaken for praise. Jesus tells us that true worshippers worship in spirit and in truth. He says this in contrast to the idea of going to a place or a building to worship. Worshiping in truth should be easy enough to understand that it’s without deception. However, it the worshipping in spirit that many misunderstand.  The spirit is quite simply, something that you cannot see. It is inward. Now worship, in the Bible, literally means to fall prostrate before. What Jesus is describing is a falling prostrate before God, in the heart. This is something that is not limited to one hour on Sunday morning, but should be a regular occurrence in the every day life of a Christian. Jesus expressly states this is the worship that God desires. Singing songs is not worship God desires, nor is lifting your hands, or swaying back and forth, and the like. These are an expressions of praise. There is no such thing as a worship song. Praise song? absolutely. Let’s rightly call worship, worship, and praise, praise. The reason this is important is that it is a dangerous idea to exchange what God desires for what we desire to give Him. Just look at Cain. This is a horrible idea. When we come together for church,  we praise God in song, prayer, and in the preaching/teaching of His Word; that we might encourage one another and build one another up. It is also when we do that thing that we have been doing during the week (falling prostrate before God in spirit and truth) with one another. Of course that is not all there is to church, but as it pertains to praise and worship. Praise is something we do outwardly, worship something we do inwardly.

If you were to visit our church you would find that we sing the old hymns. Not that there is something evil about the modern praise songs. There are good modern praise songs and bad ones. The same is true for the hymnal. There are good songs there and bad ones. It is simply our preference to sing hymns as they tend to hold profound biblical truths that need to be remembered. Whereas the praise songs have a tendency to be shallow and repetitive.

You would also find that we preach and teach the Bible expositionally, verse by verse. Nothing in this world is as important as a relationship with Jesus Christ and you can’t know him without knowing what he said. Your faith can’t grow without knowing His Word. You can’t even possess faith at all without it. The Bible is taught at each one of our services and it is our heartfelt conviction that the truth of His Word is in great deficiency in our society and in our churches. The need is great to turn back to it.