Although the worship liturgy and music we shared were vaguely familiar to me and in English, they came straight out of an old, formal, British Methodism that was at least 100 years old and 3,000 miles away. The faithful pastors in their suits and clerical collars followed along and joined in the hymns and collects, but it all seemed stiff and cold, dragging through time, revealing an unspoken longing for it all to be over. Everything, including the praying, preaching and praising, seemed more natural and indigenous. There was a spirit of joy and expectation. This was Christian and Methodist worship in spirit and truth, pleasing to God and to the people involved even if not to the faithful Methodist missionaries who first taught them how to worship the true and living God.
Dead worship is death to evangelism.
In Mark 3 Jesus healed the man with a withered hand on the Sabbath. Jesus disrupted the traditions of worship in his day to meet the needs of the marginalized. Fifth, I believe worship is more a gift offered to us from God than it is an obligation we must offer to God. Christian worship is the privilege of intimacy that the Bride has with the Groom. It is more about love than about liturgy.