Sometimes, Cake is Worship.

My sister (Jini, she is awesome and if you have never met her, you should) told me about some cake she had recently at a Church Lunch. She said it was divine and tasted like heaven in her mouth. Not being satisfied with simply consuming one portion of cake, she decided to trace the cake back to it's source. At the end of her quest was a lady that had baked the cake. Jini explained to the lady how grateful she was that she had used her God-given talent for baking, to serve in the Church. Oddly, that lady was worshiping God with her baking.

What a crazy cool way to worship your creator right?! We were created with certain talents and all God asks for is that we use them to give back. Worship is simply paying homage to God. We can do this by giving him our best efforts with the talents he has given us and laying those at his feet. What a beautiful way to worship.
I think that I have been guilty in the past of thinking of worship as the song service on Sunday morning. That was wrong. This way of thinking is flawed because true worship is to pay homage (Homage:  something done or given in acknowledgment or consideration of the worth of another. In this case it is given to our God.) to our creator. 


I have come to realize that the truest forms of worship may not even be experience in a Sunday Worship Experience. Think about this, when a band prepares for the Worship service, they are giving God not just their talent, but also their time, their energy and their passion. This means that they have been worshiping while preparing to lead worship! The guy that sets up the sound and mixes it? He was worshiping before the service by giving his knowledge and best efforts to the sound setup. The same can be said for the Pastor preparing for the service, the door greeter that wears his best smile, the guy that cleans the building, the set up crew worships with their ability to move large objects quickly. I can go on and on, but the basic point is this. Worship has nothing to do with music. It has everything to do with taking your talents and abilities that God has given you or given you a passion for and giving those back to God. That is worship.

I have heard much cacophony (loud useless noise) about the distinction between worship leaders that give every ounce of talent they have to the worship experience, and those that put on a show. It seems to me that if we are worshiping correctly by giving every bit of talent we have back to God and we all pour it out simultaneously on a given stage on a particular Sunday morning, it had better look like a show! How can we give a half-hearted recreation of another mans work and look up at God and act like he should be happy with that!? If we give everything we have back, I assure you, God has given us enough collective talent to put on a pretty awesome show. 


So, the lady that bakes the cake? She makes worship taste pretty fantastic!