Worship. If we’re honest with ourselves, we can easily have a reductionist view of that word. That is, for most American evangelical Christians, worship is primarily about music and preaching. Like it or not, all of us are in some way shaped by this cultural ethos in the American church. So, when we evaluate a worship service, we typically ask ourselves questions like, “Did I like the music and was I moved by it? Did I like the sermon, and was I personally challenged, motivated, convicted, and (as a plus) entertained by it?” In other words, knowingly or unknowingly, we tend to evaluate worship based on our private or personal experience of it. What did I get out of it? How did it make me feel? The problem with this is that a worship service of the church is not private worship. It is corporate worship. It is the gathering of God’s people. The focus of the worship service in the New Testament is not upon self-edification and self-gratification but upon worshipping God and building up the church (edifying others). Gathered worship on Sunday is not something for us to consume or observe or from which to seek a “feel good” experience. Rather it is something we enter into and in which we participate by faith.