Try This Definition On For Size

Right now, I'm working my way through D.A. Carson's (editor) Worship By the Book in my "in-between-times." It's a biblical/theological study of worship (chapter 1) and a development of the theology of worship in three different traditions: Anglican (chapter 2), Free Church (chapter 3), and Reformed (chapter 4). Very interesting.

I'm still in the first chapter which is an exposition of Dr. Carson's definition of worship:

Worship is the proper response of all moral, sentient beings to God, ascribing all honor and worth to their Creator-God precisely because he is worthy, delightfully so. This side of the Fall, human worship of God properly responds to the redemptive provisions that God has graciously made. While all true worship is God-centered, Christian worship is no less Christ-centered. Empowered by the Spirit and in line with the stipulations of the new covenant, it manifests itself in all our living, finding its impulse in the gospel, which restores our relationship with our Redeemer-God and therefore also with our fellow image bearers, our co-worshipers. Such worship therefore manifesst itself both in adoration and action, both in the individual believer and in corporate worship, which is worship offered up in the context of the body of believers, who strive to align all the forms of their devout ascription of all worth to God with the panoply of new covenant mandates and examples that bring to fulfillment the glories of antecendent revelation and anticipate the consummation.

Aside from being way too long, I think this is a great definition and worthy of meditation.