I love my church’s worship team. I love how they glorify God through incredible musicianship and singing. I love how they bring so much energy to the service and elevate the name of Jesus. But at the end of the day, if it’s about them and their talents leading the way, then it hasn’t been true worship.

I do think that singing hymns and praise songs are a part of worship. I do think there’s something about declaring the worth of God in song that gets us closer to the heart of God and makes us more aware of His presence. But if it’s been just about us singing songs about God, then it hasn’t been true worship.

True worship doesn’t start at 9:00 AM on Sunday morning and end at 10:15. True worship doesn’t exist solely in 4/4 (or sometimes 3/4 time). True worship begins when we open our eyes in the morning and declare the worth of God. How we talk to and treat our family as we get ready for church, how we navigate traffic as we drive to church, how we treat the servers where we eat after church are all a part of worship.

We can’t sing to Jesus for 30 minutes on Sunday and live for ourselves the rest of the time and call it worship. Granted, we all fall short of God’s glory every single day, but when we confess our brokenness and declare our dependence on Jesus, that’s worship. When we present ourselves — our very bodies — to God for the purpose of being transformed instead of allowing ourselves to be conformed to the world, that’s worship. When our world as we know it is falling apart and every visible sign of God’s comfort and presence is gone, yet we still declare with Job, “Though He slay me, yet I will hope in Him,” (Job 13:15, NIV), that’s worship that is acceptable and pleasing in the sight of God.