Liturgy, that old word for old worship, comes from the Greek words for “public” and “working.” Through the centuries, many in the church have made use of these root words to define liturgy as “the work of the people.”

This definition grows out of the understanding that the church’s most basic calling, or vocation, is to worship, to receive the truth of the Word, and then embody that Word in spiritual practice. Liturgies, then, are simply the forms we use to do the work of worship, to provide the ongoing rhythm that shapes the church, and builds it up until it finally reaches maturity, and truly becomes what Christ died to make it—His very own body.

My aim here is not to promote traditional forms of worship over new forms and liturgies. My aim is simply to convey the idea that worship is work, and it is in doing the work itself, not necessarily in the feeling the work gives us, that we are shaped and renewed over a long period of time, remaining true to our calling in and out of seasons of fruitfulness.

I often hear Christians speak with somber, prophetic concern over the sin of prayer and Bible reading done for the purpose of the “checking the box,” where we just do what we’re supposed to do without the elevated experience of truly “connecting” with God. It’s as if the lack of feeling within prayer is a greater evil than ignoring prayer altogether. After all, the prophet Isaiah, speaking in the voice of Yahweh, says that to sing and worship with lips while the heart is far from God is worthy of God’s hatred. So, if my heart isn’t really feeling the truth I’m proclaiming, it would be better to not proclaim it at all, right?

“…worship is work, and it is in doing the work itself, not necessarily in the feeling the work gives us, that we are shaped and renewed over a long period of time…”

We tend to think of the heart as the seat of emotions, and if that were the whole truth, then it would be difficult to defend any other reading of Isaiah other than the one given here. But, Old Testament references to the heart seem to make the most sense if it is understood not only as the seat of emotions, but as the center of our whole being. Or, we could say that the heart is the source out of which worship flows, directing our entire lives to move, breathe, touch, and do—all as acts of worship. In Isaiah 29:13, Isaiah is not condemning worship without feeling; he is condemning the life that is devoted to fake and alternative gods and then speaks to Yahweh, perhaps with great sincerity and feeling, and asks for the resources to continue worshiping idols. Isaiah is calling for a whole life shaped by the worship of Yahweh, a life molded into the shape of worship that God has prescribed.

When we use this language-—molding and shaping—we could just as easily substitute it with the language of building, forming, and cultivating. We are talking about practice. We are talking about work. But these words lead to other words, like contemplation, stillness, pilgrimage, and ritual, and nothing sounds quite as dead as the word “ritual.” And yet, these are the very words and practices that, though often misused, have sustained the church through millennia, and have infused it with life, vigor, holiness, and yes—even feeling.

Honestly, I imagine most people reading this have been warned about the dangers of emotionalism, that is, making emotion the mode and goal of our faith. Most Christians would not say that practices of spiritual discipline are bad. But, if I ask myself why  I do not practice these things or why I give up on them after a season, I think the answer would be that I am functionally an emotionalist. I stop getting the good feelings for one reason or another, so I quit. It may be boredom, hurt, distraction, or that I don’t feel better somehow, or that I have begun to feel inauthentic in my worship—something like this makes the decision for me, the decision to not come back to the well. And this leads me to believe that it is our feelings that call the shots, not our devotion. It is important to say here that we are not anti-emotion. It is just that in comparison to deep, authentic emotion that comes through time and effort, the kind of emotion that usually leads our hearts is cheap indeed.

Ironically, when we are led by cheap emotion, we are actually stifling our ability to enter into more potent emotion that is rooted in rich practice. In terms of emotion, we have exchanged the deep, wild, and wide-ranging for the shallow, tame, and narrowly defined. We have become poor in lamenting and longing, rejoicing and standing in awe, and the sea of everything in between that we were created to feel. We’ve become content with a tingling sensation at the clever turn of a phrase, and perhaps this is because that is all we’re capable of feeling, and this is because we are not well-practiced in worship. We are not offering to God the full-orbed humanity he gifted us with. This is the work of worship. And because work is not ennobled in our culture, our worship has suffered, and because we have looked down on “the work of the people”, it is the very thing we are desperate for.

“But it is not our task to create the sustenance we are seeking; it is only our task to open our mouths wide and receive what is given.”

It may be that our greatest act of hope and courage is to keep coming back to the well that, eternally flowing though it truly is, nevertheless leaves us feeling thirsty still. In these acts of hope and courage, we can ask our good Father to come and give us something to drink that will sustain us, and we believe that many, many times He will. But it is not our task to create the sustenance we are seeking; it is only our task to open our mouths wide and receive what is given. The greatest skill we can learn is to be able to receive, listen, eat and drink, but these are most certainly skills, practiced skills.

What might we call this long obedience in the same direction, this sustained pursuit of orienting our lives to the worship of God through the church? Well, we could call it work. But it is the kind of work that cultivates the raw substance of our Spirit-indwelt life, that speaks to the very center of our beings, and creates the flourishing we crave.

Consider this possibility: if the church is called to worship, and this worship is what shapes us into the likeness of Christ, then perhaps you may be a member of the body who comes to the well and very often finds a refreshing draft, who in turn builds up the body with that blessing. But, perhaps you may be a member of the body who comes often to the well and finds no water, no whispers in the silence, no food in the fasting, no consolation on the pilgrimage. And this person, too, in her turn, blesses the body by following in her Savior’s steps, pleading for the life of the world, and feeling forsaken on the cross she has taken up. Both of these do the work of worship. Both fulfill in their own lives what it means to be the body of Christ. Both lead us as a church closer to the glory of Jesus’ likeness, which is, after all, our truest vocation.