Worship as Discipleship

When you hear the word discipleship, what comes to mind?

Maybe you picture a Bible study, a small group, a mentoring relationship, or sitting across the table from someone talking about what God is teaching you. Maybe you think about reading Scripture and praying on your own. All of those things can be important parts of discipleship.

But I wonder how many of us immediately think about Sunday morning.

Sometimes we unintentionally separate worship and discipleship into different categories. Worship is what happens when the church gathers on Sunday. Discipleship is what happens in smaller groups or throughout the rest of the week.

But corporate worship isn’t something we do in addition to discipleship. Worship is discipleship.

At Grace, we’ve recently been using three words to help describe the life of a disciple: Grow, Gather, and Go. These aren’t three boxes to check or three programs to attend. They’re interconnected dimensions of a healthy Christian life. We want to continually grow in biblical truth, gather in meaningful relationships with God’s people, and go faithfully into God’s Kingdom purposes.

When we gather to worship, all three are happening.

We Grow

Think about everything we encounter during a worship gathering.

We hear God’s Word read. We sing biblical truth. We pray. We hear Scripture preached and explained. We remember the gospel. We come to the Lord’s Table and are reminded again of Christ’s body given and blood shed for us.

Week after week, the truth of God is placed in front of us.

And we need that.

For six days, countless voices compete for our attention. Our culture tells us what matters, what we should desire, what success looks like, and where we should find our identity. Our own hearts aren’t exactly reliable guides either.

Then God graciously gathers us again.

We open His Word. We sing what is true. We remember the gospel. We are reminded who God is and who we are because of Christ.

That’s discipleship.

We Gather

But God could have designed all of that to happen individually. Instead, He calls us to gather.

There’s something formative about worshiping together.

Paul tells the church in Colossians 3:16 to let the Word of Christ dwell richly among them as they teach and admonish one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. In other words, when the church sings, we’re not merely singing atGod while other people happen to be standing nearby.

We’re ministering truth to one another.

Sometimes I need to hear the person behind me singing about God’s faithfulness. Sometimes someone walking through suffering needs to hear the church around them proclaiming that God is still good. Sometimes my faith is weak, and the voices of God’s people help carry me.

Sometimes the person God is using your worship to disciple isn’t you. It’s the person standing beside you.

We pray together. We hear the Word together. We come to the Table together. We encourage one another simply by showing up and participating.

Christian discipleship was never intended to be an individual pursuit.

We Go

And then the gathering ends.

But worship doesn’t.

We leave.

We go back into our homes, workplaces, schools, neighborhoods, and communities. And what we have rehearsed together on Sunday is meant to shape how we live throughout the week.

We sing about God’s holiness and then pursue holiness.

We celebrate God’s mercy and then extend mercy.

We hear the gospel and then carry the gospel with us.

We proclaim that Jesus is Lord and then seek to live under His lordship.

Corporate worship isn’t an escape from the world. It prepares us to be sent back into it.

We grow in truth. We gather as God’s people. We go into God’s world.

And then, the next Sunday, we gather again.

Week after week. Month after month. Year after year.

This is part of how God forms disciples.

Of course, Sunday morning isn’t the entirety of discipleship. We need personal time in God’s Word and prayer. We need relationships where we can be known, challenged, and encouraged. We need to serve, share the gospel, practice hospitality, make disciples, and faithfully follow Jesus in the ordinary places He has put us.

But perhaps we should stop thinking of Sunday as the thing we attend before getting back to the “real” work of discipleship.

If worship is discipleship, it changes the question we bring into the room.

Instead of simply asking, “Did I like it?” or even “Did I get something out of it?” maybe we should ask:

“How is God forming us?”

Because when God’s people gather around God’s Word, proclaim the gospel together, encourage one another, and are sent back into God’s world, we haven’t taken a break from discipleship.

We’re right in the middle of it.