Revelation 15:3

Revelation 15:3New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb:

“Great and amazing are your deeds,
    Lord God the Almighty!
Just and true are your ways,
    King of the nations!      

It's easy when reading the book of Revelation to get lost or confused or even worried or alarmed.

But when I read it I try to remember one of the things I learned years ago in a study I did on Revelation: at its heart, Revelation is a book of worship.

The choruses in Revelation sing and praise God unceasingly, and give us perhaps a foretaste of what is to come.  

As a kid, I remember thinking "Is Heaven going to be like church all the time?" (and I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only kid - or even person that ever said that). 

And that made me think about what it is we expect out of worship.  What is it we are moved by in worship? What is it that worship is for?

Lately I've seen lots of blogs and posts on Facebook that seem to be keeping the worship wars going on, and it makes me sad.  Worship - the thing that Scripture seems to be moving ever toward - the ceaseless praising of God - is the thing that ultimately will bring us together.

Yet we still seem pretty divided about it.

Worship is an act of the people - it literally means "work of the people" in Old English.  So it is us - the chorus of believers - driving forward to worship God.  And I am firmly convinced that God is pleased by all kinds of work that his people do for worship.

I've felt part of authentic, meaningful worship experiences - ones where I've been connected to every person in the room - in all forms and styles:

In traditional, organ led worship with liturgy that I knew by heart;

In quiet, meditative healing services where no music played at all;

In boisterous contemporary services where praise song after praise song played;

In African Lutheran churches where I couldn't understand a word spoken but felt the Holy Spirit moving;

In sensory Emergent services where movement and art played a strong part of the experience;

And in a huge arena where I sang with 20,000 other people as Bono from U2 led us in song and prayer.

All completely different and all glorifying God.

So, it seems to me that if Heaven is going to be like Church all the time - praising God unceasingly - there's going to be plenty of variety and ways to do it!  How wonderful that we have so many different ways to practice now!

God of glory, help us to remember always that at the center of our worship is you.  Move us to find all manner of ways to praise you!  Amen.