WORSHIP
Our Mission: Adirondack Baptist Church seeks to glorify God in all we
do. Therefore, we endeavor to reach the lost with the gospel of Jesus
Christ, faithfully proclaim God's word, and be obedient to the clear
commands of scripture as our sole authority of faith and practice.
Our Worship: We welcome visitors to join us at
any of our worship services. Our time
together in worship is central to who we are as a community of believers in
Jesus Christ.
What is Worship:
The Bible doesn’t give a formal definition of worship. But we can start
by looking at the derivation of the word." Our English word "worship" comes
from two Old English words:
weorth, which means "worth," and
scipe or ship,
which means something like shape or "quality." We can see the Old English
word -ship in modern words like friendship and sportsmanship – that’s the
quality of being a friend, or the quality of being a good sport.
So
worth-ship is the quality of having worth or of being worthy. When we
worship, we are saying that God has worth, that he is worthy. Worship means
to declare worth, to attribute worth. Or to put it in biblical terms, we
praise God. We speak, or sing, about how good and powerful God is.
This is a purpose for which we are called:
"But you are a chosen race, a
royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you
may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his
marvelous light" (1 Peter 2:9). We were called for the purpose of praising
God; worshiping God. That is one of the job descriptions of a Christian. We
should declare that God is worthy, worth more than everything else put
together.
Now let’s look at the biblical words. In both Hebrew and
Greek, there are two major uses of the words used for worship. The first
usage means to bow down, to kneel, to put one’s face down as an act of
respect and submission. Our body language is saying, “I will do whatever you
want me to. I am ready to listen to your instructions and I am willing to
obey.”
The other kind of biblical word means to serve. Roughly half
of the time these words are translated as worship, and the other half as
serve. It carries the idea of doing something for God — making a sacrifice
or carrying out his instructions.
Of course, word meanings don’t
prove what worship is, but they do illustrate three kinds of worship.
1 |
2 |
3