I was sharing with a group in St. Albans in Hertfordshire and made a reference to a weekend get-away that we're planning and said that among other things there'd be a time of worship. It was Tim, oh what a precious soul he is, that asked me "What do you mean by worship?" I'm not often stuck for an answer but I realised that I didn't know or at least I couldn't articulate what I felt about it. The realisation was profound. I had used the word to distinguish between an activity that I call teaching and what I guess is an activity that I call singing.
My response, or rather lack of response bothered me. I realised that my definitions of 'worship' were from the old paradigm of separation from God and one another.
What I wondered is worship in the new world? Music for me will always be at the heart of how I worship because as it has been famously said "Music is what feelings sound like". Someone said that "Music speaks what cannot be expressed, soothes the mind as gives it rest, heals the heart and makes it whole, flows from heaven to the soul".
In the old paradigm worship is often defined in terms of singing slow songs as opposed to praise which in some circles is singing faster songs, which they call praise. However, in truth worship feels to me like the rivers of living water that flow from the soul. Worship is "Loves response to the Lover."
Will there be any music?
Oh yes, for sure, because music expresses that which cannot be put into words and cannot remain silent.