Worship is a response to God's word in the context of the community of God's people. Worship in the biblical sources and in liturgical history is not so much something a person experiences, it is something we do, regardless of how we feel about it, or whether we feel anything about it at all. The experience develops out of the worship, not the other way around.
In the Bible, worship is defined and shaped by God's authoritative and clear word. Nothing is dependent on feelings or weather. All is determined by Scripture and Jesus. God has revealed who he is and demands obedience. Worship is the act of attending to that revelation and being obedient to it.
Authentic worship means being present to the living God who penetrates the whole of human life. The proclamation of God's word and our response to God's Spirit touches everything that is involved in being human: mind and body, thinking and feeling, work and family, friends and government, buildings and flowers.
Sensory participation is not excluded – how could it be if the whole person is to be present to God? But as rich and varied as the sensory life is, it is always defined and ordered by the word of God...
It is the difference between cultivating something that makes sense to an individual, and acting in response to what makes sense to God.1
Eugene Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus is the Way.
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