"Worship is the most important thing we do," we like to say at JCPC. Bringing glory to God grounds us in the faith, and Sunday worship  is where it all begins.  As I once heard, "It's about Sunday, stupid." 
 
I do get it.  For the vast majority of people, the Sunday service is the one time we are all together as the body of Christ.  It is the initiation point for visitors.  It is the hub around which the church revolves and the culmination of a week of staff planning and rehearsing.  It all begins with worship.
 
There is, a danger, however, in too much focus on worship.  Worship is not the only  thing we do.  Equally important is the task of being equipped for discipleship and mission.  Worship equips us to go into the world and live out our mission to be disciples. Worship is breathing God in; mission is breathing God out.  Worship is the yin, and mission is the yang. 
 
I love those Sundays each month (this Sunday beginning at 5:45 a.m.!) where a group from our church goes and serves the homeless in downtown Atlanta before we return to Johns Creek to gather to worship God.  Worship and mission...like peanut butter and jelly.
 
I'm afraid too much focus on worship can anesthetize us and diminish or obscure what our real mission is as a body.  No wonder many people come to church for an hour on Sunday and then fail to live out their faith once off the church grounds.
 
As I once heard, church is not an hour on Sunday. Faith is not a staged show. Evangelism isn't the act of parking butts in pews. Discipleship isn't the process of dispensing oratory to passive spectators.  We don't "go to church." We are called to be the church. Every day. Everywhere. 
 
The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the works of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.
-Ephesians 4:11-13
 
Prayer for Today 

O God, may our worship on Sunday lead to faithful mission and discipleship throughout the week.  Amen.