The community of faith is a place of worship. In worship, unity and healing recur as the church remembers that the community was born of a divine act of deliverance. As the church experiences community, it is renewed by that same gracious act.
In the exodus event, God created a people and brought them into a covenant relationship. The covenant specified that Israelite worshipers display loyalty and faithfulness both to Yahweh, the King of the covenant, and to their fellow Israelites covenanted to that same King. In a corresponding way, God has created a people through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ; these people are bound together with him and with one another in a new covenant community. Jesus’ commandment for this community, or church, is that they love him with their entire being, and their covenant brothers as themselves. It is out of this relationship with God and one’s fellow believers that worship arises. Biblical worship is intended as a corporate expression of the covenant relationship.
In the Holiness-Pentecostal tradition of worship, the key element is praise. Praise is not only the praise of song but the praise of or testimony to God in this life. In worship, the Christian praises God for his character and for the deeds of salvation and healing God has wrought in the life of the worshiper.
African-American theology of worship arises out of a deep sense of oppression and a high anticipation of liberation. In worship, African-Americans experience the redeeming work of Jesus Christ, which liberates them from sin and the power of the Evil One.
Wesleyan liturgical theology is deeply concerned to define worship as more than public acts. Worship has to do with all of life, with relationships, and with vocations. In deed and thought believers continually act out their relationship to Christ.
The roots of the traditional Quaker theology of worship are found in George Fox’s experience of the Inner Light—that sense of the divine and direct working of Christ in the soul. He came to believe and subsequently taught that the same experience is available to all. The purpose of worship, therefore, is to wait in silence and then respond to the presence and power of God.
Anabaptists see the church as a radical body of believing disciples. Worship arises out of this community of faith and is simple and egalitarian. It recounts God’s story of redeeming love through the ongoing experience of the community of faith.