Worship is in you, not a building

"...a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

Jesus' words with the woman at a well in the gospel of John are probably some of the most striking that shook loose my ideas about church, God, and all things religious.

There's a long history between the Jews and the Samaritans between the exile and regional power struggles with non-Jewish nations that's worth reading into - and it set up the history for a part of this exchange between Jesus and a woman that had a lot of husbands.

The basics are that the Samaritans had their own temple/worship facility they'd made up because the Jews had refused them access to the one in Jerusalem because they differed over how to keep up with their family trees and thus, how to prove you were a Jew or not.

This was a very divisive issue sitting on a stew of pride, betrayal, anger, and a lot of other "he said, she said" kinds of things between people groups.

In the middle of a different discussion, this is brought up, kind of as a hopeful, conversational off-ramp - "Hey, I'm uncomfortable with where this is going, let's change topics to where a person should go to church" - see the gospel of John chapter 4 for exact detail.

Right in the middle of a conversation where Jesus would officially reveal that he is indeed the Messiah, the Christ, he brings up that there is going to be this other, massive, overlooked change that comes with him - the idea of worship, location of worship, and how God and people relate.

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Before Jesus, worship was about showing up at a place, doing the things you're supposed to do, and doing it on the prearranged, scheduled basis.  

After Jesus, worship is about the relationship between people - in spirit and in truth - rather than any kind of location.

It is a heart that sees and honors or acknowledges the source of something good or valuable and says, "That is excellent!  You did that!  Thank you for being you and doing that!  Wow!  That's so amazing."

It reminds me of a scene where Jesus had healed a blind guy and there was some controversy with the religious people about it and, when he found out it was Jesus and actually saw him, John 9 says he worshiped him. 

He didn't sing a bunch of songs, take up an offering, have a meet and greet period, take communion, offer a blood sacrifice/burnt offering, pray, or do other things we'd often list off as worship.  He worshiped him.

He might have bowed down or taken Jesus by the hands or done some other physical thing, but the point of "worshiped him" was what was going on in his heart toward Jesus. 

Again, it was likely something more along the lines of "That is excellent!  You did that!  Thank you for being you and doing that!  Wow!  That's so amazing.  Thank you, thank you, thank you - you get all the credit.  You did that and I am grateful for it."

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Growing up, worship was = to go to a worship service or church service.  It was doing "the five acts of worship" and doing them correctly, whether or not you had any heart felt connection to God or knew God in any way through those "five acts".

Looking back, the perspective was a valiant effort put together by people long before me who were trying to correct some other messed up ideas that people had about worship and church.  Their "corrections" were, "let's get back to the basics of what early believers did and just do that."

And people came along after them and took their corrections and re-made them into a new set of activities you could do without knowing God, at all.  We just do that generationally - we forget about knowing God and turn our attention to what we can do and how it depends on us doing things right.  Like Pharisees.

I remember times in my early years literally straining inside, trying to worship better or more, sing louder or nicer, listen harder to a sermon, etc - trying to do the things right and harder, in the hopes of making God happier, etc.  

That was messed up.

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There's certainly nothing wrong with "going to worship services" - I like a good worship service!  I like good songs, messages, etc.  But as often as not, it ends up being uninspiring, rote, boring, irrelevant, and such because the message and activities beat around the bush and rarely get to God and good news.

I have had some amazing times where being "in a worship service" genuinely felt like a worship connection to God.  But more often than not, those moments of "You are amazing!  Thank you for being you, God!" have come at very different places.

Like at an outdoor concert where the sound was large and amazing, the crowd was huge, and everyone was focused on what was going on.  It was like, "This is what worship is God!  You deserve all this kind of attention.  This is amazing.  I wish everyone could see how amazing you are!"  And it wasn't a "Christian concert".

Or at the edge of the Grand Canyon, while walking from our parked car and looking ahead to where we were going - strolling through the parking lot behind my family and looking up in shock and amazement to see what seemed completely unreal, overwhelming, and unbelievable ahead of me.  Tears came to my eyes and "worship" to God flowed - amazement, wonder, acknowledging that he did that.

Or in line at Kroger one day or walking through the mass of people at the State Fair when it was like God opened my eyes to all the people and busyness going on around me and he said, "I made all these people and I love them and you more than you can know."  Having to stifle back tears and ridiculous, joyous love so I didn't seem like a weirdo to the people around me.

Lots and lots of events or moments like that.

Some of which happened in the context of a worship service, but most not anywhere close to "church".

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A time is coming and now is already here that God connects with us - both in spirit and in truth.  

Yes, emotion is a part of it and, very importantly, the acknowledgment of the reality of what he is doing and has done - his creation, his love, the amazing things he's provided for us, the simple things, etc.

I am grateful to be freed from the idea that worshiping God just means going to a building or a location.  

If he had to use that building-activity-centered-worship-service-setup for years to get me to a place where I'd understand more and better, so be it.  I am grateful for that too.

Thank you God!  You did that!  You get all the credit for that and for everything amazing.