It takes a massive amount of work to put on even one worship service. That’s right, the dull and sleepy Sunday morning service you attend every week takes a large number of people and planning to achieve. Think about. (Appendix A)
What is amazing is that all these things are nothing to do with worshiping.
They help us draw a picture of worship, gain an understanding, but none of these are what worship is about.
A long time ago someone drew a diagram of the Atom. At the time this was the smallest the world knew of. You have probably seen it. Depicting a nucleus of positive and neutral protons surrounded by a dizzying arrangement of orbiting electrons, this is the picture that has been used to build sciences understanding of the amazing world we have been been gifted,
Here’s the hitch…that is not what an Atom looks like!
Now that some of you have stopped reading and thrown your ipad or phone at the wall in disgust, I’ll explain.
The Atom diagram or model is the best way we have found to explain a building block that everything we know is built from. Scientists tell us that the Atom uses electrical forces to glue together. Electrons as we know them, are weightless, massless and indeed do not exist in a touchable sense. They are a definition of a negative charge. The nucleus is where it’s at. This is where mass and structure can be defined. The nucleus is at the center of everything.
There is a danger that I am about to fall into a full thesis on the existence of atomic energy but rather than sending you to sleep, I think I should move on.
The use of this picture to help explain something that we can not see but can only experience and indeed have our very existence rely on in every moment and is not only limited to professors in white coats.
This same diagram can be applied to worship. We can not design and model worship. It is not something that we can see or touch, it comes from a direct connection between you and God. An experience. A life line that we must rely on.
Not the action of lifting hands or falling on knees (although that may be a reaction to worship in the same way atoms can have different numbers of electrons).
The music, prayers, sermons, flowers, welcomers, tea makers, crosses, organs, congregational statements, and just about everything you see on a Sunday morning are like the electrons that spin around the nucleus that is worship. Without some of them we would struggle to grasp the meaning of worship.
But electrons can change in number. They are shared between neighbouring atoms in much the same way that churches will share new ideas for their worship services. (See Appendix B)
With so many electrons buzzing around it can be hard to see the nucleus of worship so it is our responsibility as Christians to ensure these electrons we use to describe worship are not distractions and continue to focus us on the heart of worship…God.
We are not able to diagram the exact image of an atom but perhaps that is so that we can continue to strive to learn more about the amazing world God crested for us. Perhaps not being able to diagram worship is God giving us the excitement to keep digging, to keep learning how amazing he is and ultimately, how far beyond our understanding he truly is.
As science is the exploration of how amazing Gods creation is, worship is the exploration of how amazing and infinite God is. A chance to gain greater appreciation of God and his grace that let’s us have a relationship with him.
Appendix A
There’s the ministers sermon, the running order, the band rehearsal, the sound guy, projection controllers, coffee and tea makers, welcomers, Sunday school workers, church officers, congregation members, readers, prayer-ers, small group leaders, parking attendants,
Appendix B
When electrons trickle through a chain of atoms, we call this electricity. What if sharing our electrons of worship with other churches created the high voltage electricity, a tactile representation of the power that exists in the Atom?
Observations of the Obvious 