The Lost Discipline of Personal Worship

How is your worship behind closed doors?

Do you know the importance of a personal worship time?

I believe your ministry will rise and fall on it.

My hunch is that we just don’t carve the time for it because, in our fast paced culture, our minds are trained to constantly process information. From checking facebook, to updating Twitter, to checking the news, to listening to a few podcasts, we feel the need to stay occupied and connected.

But God calls us to rest. He calls us to worship. Has personal worship become a lost discipline? Has it been replaced with an onslaught of media?

Perhaps it has. But I would love to offer some suggestions for taking it back. If you want your heart to be spiritually alive, you need to worship God…on your own.

But what does one do if there’s no worship leader, no congregation, and no light show?

Glad you asked.

1. Carve out a few minutes – while I love the idea of ‘worshiping on your way to work’ or ‘sing while you do the dishes’, I think it’s important to have times dedicated to being with Jesus. Try once a week for now and gradually build up to more.
2. Get alone – I’m always distracted if someone is in the room. Even if they’re being quiet, it’s difficult for me to really ‘let go’ because I’m always thinking about that person.
3. Move around – this has been incredibly helpful to me. I typically like to worship in the early mornings. If I don’t pace, I’m tempted to fall asleep. Put on some good worship music, or my preference, great ambient/instrumental music and begin to worship.
4. Read Scripture out loud – this is what really gets me going. If I’m being honest, sometimes I just don’t know what to say or pray so I’ll open the Psalms, read a verse, and then close my eyes and worship God based on that particular verse. It’s amazing to worship God with the Bible. It can give voice to a distracted heart like mine.

This will not always ‘feel’ emotionally charged like a Chris Tomlin concert in the XCel Energy Center. But it is always time well spent because the more you do this the more inclined you are to praise God when difficulties arise. You’re re-capturing the lost discipline of personal worship.

Would you add anything? What do you do in your personal worship times? You can leave a comment by clicking here.