Missions and Worship
by Judi Chow

I remember a missionary came to my church in San Francisco during one Sunday service a long time ago. He used an overhead projector and placed a transparency with a big hand-written letter “M” on it saying we will be talking about “Missions” today. Then he turned the transparency upside down; now it looked like a “W” which stands for “Worship,” and he continued to say “Missions” and “Worship” are two of the same depending on how you look at it. That trick fascinated me and the concept stuck with me. Missions and worship - would it be like one of those two-in-one products mixed together such as shampoo and conditioning, coffee and cream, or toothpaste and mouthwash? They are somehow mixed together and cannot be separated. This is exactly what the Psalmist tried to say about worship and missions in Psalm 96.

1. Sing a new song to the LORD! Let the whole earth sing to the LORD! 
2. Sing to the LORD; bless his name. Each day proclaim the good news that he saves.
3. Publish his glorious deeds among the nations. Tell everyone about the amazing things he does. 
4. Great is the LORD! He is most worthy of praise! He is to be revered above all the gods. 
5. The gods of other nations are merely idols, but the LORD made the heavens! 
6. Honor and majesty surround him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. 
7. O nations of the world, recognize the LORD; recognize that the LORD is glorious and strong. 
8. Give to the LORD the glory he deserves! Bring your offering and come to worship him. 
9. Worship the LORD in all his holy splendor. Let all the earth tremble before him. 
10.  Tell all the nations that the LORD is king. The world is firmly established and cannot be shaken. He will judge all peoples fairly. 
11. Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice! Let the sea and everything in it shout his praise! 
12. Let the fields and their crops burst forth with joy! Let the trees of the forest rustle with praise 
13. Before the LORD! For the LORD is coming! He is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness and all the nations with his truth.

If we look closely, we can see that every verse in this psalm is telling us what is in God’s heart. He desires our worship, not just those of us who know Him, but all of His creation in all the earth including all nations, peoples, and tribes. How could it happen? God’s intention is for His servants to go and proclaim the good news and to declare His glorious deeds among those who have not heard. Here we have the first intertwine of missions and worship. Think about it, both of these words involve action, one moves towards the Lord and the other the lost. Yet it should happen simultaneously, and eventually the goal is for the lost to join in worshipping the Lord also. I believe the secret to the success of this mission is on the Lord’s servant’s or the missionary’s concept of worship.

If you ask different people what is “worship” to them, you will probably get answers such as: it’s church service; it’s something we do on Sunday mornings; it’s singing hymns of worship; it’s exalting God in our singing, sharing, preaching, and giving; it’s personal as well as corporative; it’s adoration and praising God; it’s serving… the list can go on and on. But what is worship really? The former Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, defines it beautifully: "To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God." Worship is not just what we do with our body, but our whole being (the conscience, the mind, the imagination, the heart, the will) as we focus on God’s attributes such as His holiness, truth, beauty, love, and purpose. 

The most important thing in worship is not how good or even how moved we feel, but has God been lifted up due to our praises and adoration. It is so easy to allow our worship to slip into a ritual or performance without really aligning our heart with God’s heart. If God’s children really worship Him in spirit and in truth and if God’s servants truly worship while proclaiming His greatness to the lost, then the world will surely come to know Him. That’s why the Psalmist calls us to sing a new song to the Lord. I don’t think it necessarily means to compose or make up a new song as we worship, but implies our worship should be fresh and open, not mandated or stale. This freshness indicates new discoveries of our Lord as we worship and have a close encounter with Him each day.

It is God’s desire for us to get to know Him a little more each day, and in the process of His revelation and our relationship with Him, we can’t help but share His love with those who still doesn’t know Him. True worship cannot occur without truly knowing God and making Him known. Missions and worship are two-in-one of the same in God’s design. You cannot have one without the other.