What is Contemplative Worship?

Contemplative Worship is not about music and songs, worship is position of the soul; a plumb line from which all decisions are made and life is lived.

Our whole lives can be lived as a response of worship unto Him. We don’t need to be musical, have a great voice, or see ourselves as ‘creative’ (though I think we all are), to live a life of worship. All we need is a belief in Jesus and all that He did for us, and a genuine desire to live out His will.

Eugene Peterson puts it this way:

Take your everyday, ordinary lives- our sleeping, eating, going to work, and walking around lives and place it before God as an offering. (Romans 12:1, MSG)

The word Contemplative means ‘to express or involve prolonged thought’.

Contemplative Worship exists to provoke musing, reflecting and pondering over what we believe about Jesus and how we can best embrace the lives that He has designed for us. We may never arrive with a list of absolutes but instead, a life of contemplation is a journey of collecting ideas, experiences and convictions as we allow God to infuse more and more of our being.

A little Worship Theology for your day…

Ok let’s get deep for a moment:

In the Old Testament, worship involved an ongoing once-per-year animal sacrifice that atoned (paid the price for) our sin so that we could be made righteous and reconciled to God.

In the New Testament, Jesus fulfilled this act of worship ‘once and for all’ (Hebrews 10:10). This meant there was no need for humanity to do anything further (sacrificing animals included thankfully) to gain reconciliation with God. If we believe that Jesus paid this price for our sin (past, present and future) and we accept Him as Saviour, then it is no longer us who live but Christ who lives in us. We can now be a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1).

Contemplative Worship is about YOU!

This journey would not be complete without you. By sharing your thoughts, we can inspire and learn from one another. Share posts that you find interesting, so we can include others on the journey and inside them to think about their own lives of worship.

The following 3 posts have sparked much conversation around worship: Fear that Leads, Convictions about Worship, A trip down memory lane And the most viewed blog Faceless worship.

Subscribe here and join us on a journey of discovery.

A life of worship is:

A Spirit led life, surrendered to His will;

A life lived fully awake to all that He has purposed;

A life continually growing in revelation of who He is and who we are in Him;

And a life poured out for others in the hope that they may come to know His love.

Love lots,

Photographers

The landscape photographs used throughout this blog have been taken by local photographers who have personally inspired me.

Other more personal images are my own taken on my faithful iPhone.

For more information about any of the images featured, please see below.

Gareth McGuigan

www.instagram.com/mcguigan_visuals/

Email: [email protected]

Ezra Davies

Email: [email protected]

www.instagram.com/ezradaviesphotography/

Tessa Mihaly

Web: www.tessamihaly.com

www.instagram.com/tessamihaly

Email: hello@tessamihaly