What is worship for?

A question was raised on the Coalface Network mailing list about "What is worship for? Is God insecure?". This is my response.

The purpose of worship is to re-connect with God as the Source of Life and Ground of our Being. It is about remembering who God is and what God's purpose for our lives is. It is about re-focusing: shifting our centre of attention back to what really matters. It is about screening
out the noises and voices in our society that ceaselessly demand our attention.

It is about doing this in *community*: learning from each other, supporting each other, knowing there a people who will journey with us to discover God.

It differs from bible study or mission/justice activities, although it is not separate from them. Worship is about the mystery: ritual, liturgy, prayer, meditation, singing, music, candles. Things that may not make sense ("why bother praying as we know God does not miraculously intervene in the world") nor directly bring about the realm of God ("how does lighting candles and incense help the poor and disadvantaged") but which we somehow know or feel through experience to be critically important in aligning ourselves with God.

I think to get it "right" you have to have:

* the head (a theology informed by the latest science and philosophy, expressed in relevant language and imagery)
* the heart (rituals and practices to re-connect us to God and "filter out" the noise)
* the hands (social justice and caring actions to change the world and bring about God's realm)

Unfortunately, it is hard to find all three together.