“A good shoe is a shoe you don’t notice. Good reading becomes possible when you need no consciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling. The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God” (C. S. Lewis).

I’m looking forward to worshipping with my church in a couple of days. The music is always top notch and the sermons are always on point. But I confess that sometimes I take myself out of worship when I critique the songs.

Back in the day, my gripe was that the songs were too old and not current enough. Now, I prefer the older songs and don’t care as much for the newer ones. And don’t even get me started on the sometimes wonky rhyme scheme and rhyming words that don’t actually rhyme.

All that to say that in those moments, I am not worshipping. If anything, I can be guilty of worshipping worship or worshipping the experience instead of worshipping God.

Worship happens when I become so focused on God that I’m almost unaware of anything else. It could be the newest worship song or a 400-year old hymn. It doesn’t matter. It could be the perfect sermon or just an average one. It doesn’t matter.

I think the key to worshipping in a church service is that your worship doesn’t start at 9:00 am when the church service starts. My whole life should be an act of worship, and Sunday is just a continuation of that.

Plus, sometimes I need to remember that in worship, it’s really not all about me. Sometimes, the songs and the sermon will feel like someone was reading my diary. Other times, it might be meant for someone else. Some Sundays, I’m called to give more than receive. But in all cases, it’s always only about God and not me.