Member-only story
What Do I Get Out of Church?
Better yet, what do I give back to it?
Read for free @ What Do I Get Out of Church? — by James M. Dakis.
Why do we go to church?
A man walked up to the pastor after church one morning, an unsatisfied look on his face: “I don’t want to offend you, pastor, but I didn’t really get anything out of today’s worship,” he declared.
“None taken,” the pastor answered. “We weren’t worshiping you.”
It may seem like a strange question: Why do we go to church? We go to worship God, right? After all, we go to “Worship Service(s).” OK, but what exactly is worship?
What exactly does this word that we, as Christians, toss around so freely mean? If asked, how many of us could give an honest definition? I must confess that even I had to look up a dictionary definition, only to find that the word has an interesting origin and doesn’t always fit with what Biblical worship is.
The Old English origin of the word means to give worthiness or meritoriousness to something — essentially, to provide exceptional value above everything else. As such, worship can be given to anything or anyone: your car, your job, your money, or a celebrity, to name a few.
