Hopefully the title of this post caught your eye and you thought to yourself, “Impossible!”  If so, you are correct.

Worship is the reason that we exist –to actively take pleasure in God.  Why?  Because God created us to worship, God commands us to worship, and God compels us to worship through the gospel.  So no, we cannot make worship “too big a deal.”  The title of this post is referring to the church’s weekly Sunday morning gatherings (or Saturday nights if you go to a hipster church that serves coffee and people wear blue jeans).

So you’re saying that church can be TOO important?

It’s not that we can necessarily enjoy a worship service too much.  “Welp there goes my pastor  again -preaching Jesus and being too faithful to the Scriptures.”  No one says that.  The problem isn’t that we are finding too much value in the weekend worship service but that we tend to put more weight on the weekend worship gathering than it was intended to have.  For instance, I love my wife; I would even argue that I can’t love my wife too much.  BUT it is very possible for me to love Lauren wrongly.  If I hang my ultimate hope on her instead of on Jesus, I heap an unbearable burden on her and our relationship is distorted.  In the same way, if we focus all our energy on worshipping God only when the weekend service rolls around, we will find ourselves dissatisfied, discouraged, and we will miss God’s intentions for the gathered church.  Here’s some symptoms to help gauge weather or not you are putting too much weight on the weekend service:

1. Song selection becomes SO important that you have “worship wars” over styles and preferences.

2. If you don’t “feel” it during the service, and you start to wonder if God’s calling you to attend another church. You’ll say things like, “My needs just aren’t being met there.”

3. You start to feel like church is more about taking and less about giving.  Since you haven’t been feeding on God’s Word during the week, you find yourself completely ravished by the time Sunday morning rolls around. You think, “It’s not DEEP enough for me.”

4. You find that you’re not really encountering God’s presence when you show up for worship, and quite frankly, you quit expecting to meet with Jesus at church.

When we don’t put weight on personal, day-to-day worship, we will wrongly view our weekend worship time as a church body.  God wants you to serve the church and be served by the church.  Time together on Sunday morning is meant to be a good time of worshipping Jesus as a collective bride as you love your brothers and sisters.  Weekend worship is not the ultimate time of worship where pastors and church leaders are meant to entertain you and/or meet all of your felt needs.  How unrealistic is that?  Do you not know that your body is a temple for the Holy Spirit of God? (1 Cor. 6:19).  Do you not know that the same power that raised Christ from the dead dwells in your mortal flesh? (2 Cor 4:11).  Jesus tore the veil so God’s presence can be freely accessed at all times, by all people, in all locations.  Why not worship God now?  As you do laundry, give the kids a bath, decide which movie to watch with your spouse, every moment is opportunity to enjoy God’s presence uniquely.  If you worship God during the week, then maybe -just maybe, you will find your continued celebration of God and his gospel on Sunday morning becoming sweeter and sweeter.