Worship and Study

I am nearing the end of The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard, and have continued to enjoy it and be challenged by it.  I would consider myself to be a pretty heavy thinker, but I don't think I am always a great articulator of my thoughts, observations and analyses, so I love it when someone is really good at that, and especially when they work through things that I have been thinking about, but really carry the ideas to completion (which includes steps for application of these ideas).  Willard has really done that with the issue of true discipleship and the need for it in the church today which is plagued by a consumer approach to Christianity.

I came across a statement while reading today that had special significance in regards to worship, our primary topic on this blog.  Willard is talking about spiritual disciplines and how they are a huge piece of the puzzle in growing as a student of Jesus and actually putting the flesh to death (the sinful patterns that live in our bodies) and truly living in The Kingdom of God.  He emphasizes two different types of disciplines, disciplines of abstinence (where we have to give something up in some way for a certain period of time) and disciplines of positive engagement (thing we actively seek to do, to add to our regular way of life).  Study is one of the fundamental disciplines of positive engagement.  Study helps us to "place our minds fully upon the kingdom and its peace and strength." 

The statement that brought worship into the picture said that "... study is brought to its natural completion in the worship of God."  I found this particularly affirming for me because I just filled in for my pastor here at Christ's Church to preach a sermon, and my message had a lot to do with our worship gatherings being an intentional time for us to set our minds on things above and model the kind of behaviors that Paul describes in Colossians 3.  In the consumer Christian culture, worship like that usually requires discipline.  Willard speaks to that as well (I wish I would have read this chapter before my sermon).  He says we must not worship without study, quoting Romans 10:2 which talks about people that have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.  That might look like people emotionally getting into worship music like a rock concert, but who could care less about the theology they are singing (and half the time those songs are even about God anyways, they're all about singing about what I'm doing to worship God).  

On the flip side, Willard says that "Study without worship is also dangerous," because then it becomes nothing but academic, and Jesus didn't train his disciples to be nothing but a bunch of brains (that would lead us down a gnostic path I think).  The knowledge we gain from study finds its expression in worship back to God, where the reality of what we've studied gets imprinted on our whole being, disrupting the powers of evil that are all around us in this world. Worship as the completion of our study flows into a life that will "hear and do" what Jesus taught.

I haven't really heard a lot of statements connecting worship and study in this way before.  Even the studying we do of God's word during a worship service is in my opinion, not viewed as a part of worship by many people, its like it is a separate entity.  I almost wonder if people did make this connection, and didn't just have zeal without knowledge that maybe more people would recognize the issues in worship and the lack there is in so much worship music in particular.  The ancient church definitely viewed hearing God's Word as worship in the same way that singing songs or praying was, if not more.  Do you?  Is your study finding its completion in worship?  What does that look like?