Worshipping Together Is More Than Just Singing

Photo by Cherry Laithang on Unsplash

Here is how I see it: worshipping on your own is great and something I do daily but worshipping with a room full of people is just different. Corporate worship is about connection. Connection with each other and also a deeper connection with God. Corporate worship is coming together and worshipping together at the same time. It is powerful.

The word corporate makes it sound so formal. It is actually more a collective coming together of a community. So for the remainder of this article, I will call it collective worship.

Worshipping in the church is people coming together. It is your friend from school, the one who took part in Idols and your grandma's sister Ruth, she turned 89 last month and wants everyone to know she still hits her high notes. They sing together every Sunday, and the paint doesn’t peel off the walls. WHY? They are worshipping collectively. That’s why.

Collective worship is powerful. Alone I am still worshipping but together we are simultaneously proclaiming worship into the heavenly realm. We are changing the atmosphere. God is moving between us and often heals supernaturally without us even being aware of it. (I have even experienced Angels singing with the congregation).

Collective worship isn’t something you can do alone with a webcam on your computer. It just isn’t. 

Photo by Txus Garcia on Unsplash

So be kind to your worship team friends. We are suffering. We feel this disconnect keenly. We miss practice and we miss Sunday services. We know about the wonderful initiatives that fill the internet with worship leaders leading from their homes around the clock. It is a great way for us to worship together while we can’t meet. And in these days of dangerous pathogens, collective worship is as much a contact sport as rugby. We will retreat to the sidelines. We will learn to use Zoom and "Whatsapp video calls". We will record our voices, send them “Into the Unknown", more now than ever before. We will think of creative ways to do the things we took for granted. Thankful for the consolation that is social media... We will keep on worshipping on our own and with our families as before because that is powerful too. Because God is also in the midst of us then.

We retreat willingly and listen to our president. Because at the end of the day we love each and every one of our worship team members and their families and the congregation. Their lives might be on the line, and collective worship. 

(for the time being) just. isn’t. worth. the. risk.

But these days won’t last forever, my friends. We will make it through this, and when we worship together again, it will be amazing!

Inspired by the "because the choir is greater than the sum of its parts" blog at
https://joanieriddle.wixsite.com/solveforxmusical/blog

written by Melissa Viljoen

a tiny spark can set a great forest on fire #nationinspiration