Worship is response

Jared Wilson on "Call and Response: Life as Worship." Really good stuff:

I am losing patience with the phrase, in relation to church music times, "God showed up."

I understand what is meant, but the wording is so fuzzy as to be theologically useless. God is omnipresent, and unless one thinks their worship gatherings are Ichabod by default, God was there to begin with.

In a previous post on the contemporary worship culture of the church, I wrote:

The danger we face when we worship is coming into the experience assuming we are summoning God. Assuming worship is our initiative. Assuming we are somehow the ones in control, that we are bringing the best of ourselves and our holy desire to worship. When the reality is, worship does not begin with the worshiper. It begins with God. It is a response to God’s calling upon us.

Our community is learning to treat the time we spend in corporate singing as a response to God's person and works. The division between God and us cannot be bridged by us, although we often act (and sing) like it can.

But "worship music" is not the only place where we should keep this order in mind. It's all worship - prayer, study, work, meals and conversation, love and romance, sleep. What if we treated it all as our response to who God is and what he's done?

That is a worship that focuses on the object of worship and revels in the joy of grace. [more]

The Gospel-Driven Church: Call and Response: Life As Worship