Making Worship a True Experience

When we think about going to church to worship, what comes to mind? For many of us, images of praise teams or choirs singing, musicians playing, people praying, videos rolling and handclapping and dancing come to mind. All of those may be part of a worship service, and if prayerfully planned by those leading the worship ministry at church, can be effective elements to enhance worship, but they are not worship in themselves.
Worship, by definition, is bowing down, feeling and expressing deep love and closeness for God. The church part, is simply a bunch of Christians doing that together. Without meeting God on that personal level, attending a worship service can be a lot like attending a great party. You can enjoy the music, mingle with a bunch of friends, but never see the host giving the party through all the noise and crowd. (I have attended a couple of services where the music or other elements of worship were great, but I wondered where God was in the service).
Before you go to church this Sunday, make a promise to meet Jesus there. If you're responsible for leading worship, make a promise to make Jesus so visible in all that takes place that the people in your church can't help but see and be drawn to him.
There is a great resource available to worship leaders to help make this happen. It's Rory Noland's newest book "The Worshiping Artist" (Zondervan 2007). The author of "The Heart of the Artist" comes through with another excellent resource to help worship directors and teams lead others in worship.
The book is divided into three essential parts:

"Worshiping in Secret" and the need for continued personal worship all week, not just on Sunday

"Worshiping in Truth" making sure we know who God really is and what it is to make everything come together to worship him

"Learning from Ancient Worship Leaders" some history for what we tend to think of as a modern tradition.

There are terrific questions for group discussion and some personal action steps.