The second core value at Crosstown is all about worship. But we don’t call this second core value worship because many people think of worship as the 30 minute musical aspect that typically begins a church service on Sunday morning. But that is not what we have in mind. What we have in mind is what is described in Romans 12:1.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

The kind of worship described here is the only kind of worship that is acceptable to God. It is all-of-life worship, the offering up of one’s body as a living sacrifice. This is called our “spiritual worship,” but this does not refer to some sort of inner attitude toward God as if there is no external requirement. Notice it involves the offering up of our bodies. What is being described here is “true worship,” over against false worship. In other words, the only kind of worship that is acceptable to God is the kind that involves every area of our life and not a mere 30 minute song-sing on Sunday. This is what is later described in 1 Corinthians 10:31.

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

You can’t get much more basic than one’s eating or drinking and yet this Scripture says that even in these activities we are to worship God. This is a radical way of thinking. It involves a transformation in our thinking as the next verse in Romans 12 explains.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2)

So our second core value at Crosstown is transformation and it follows on the heals of our first core value, truth. Here’s what we mean by transformation: A heart gripped by spiritual truth transforms a person so that all of life becomes an act of worship. In other words, we believe that the reason why many professing Christians never know this type of transformed worship is because they have not been sufficiently gripped by the wonders of God’s truth. Notice that the appeal of Romans 12:1, the appeal to offer the entirety of one’s life as a living sacrifice to God, is made by means of the mercies of God. The mercies of God become the instrument by which one willingly lays down his life in worship.

It’s like smelling the aroma of fresh coffee beans and by means of your smelling it desiring to buy the bag or drink the cup. True worship, the only kind that God accepts, is not forced or grudgingly offered. It is joyfully done having been won over by the delights of God’s mercies. Once our heart is gripped by spiritual truth, we become transformed persons who joyfully offer up our bodies in worship to God in everything that we do, in our eating and our drinking and our everyday living. Not just in corporate worship, but in the ordinary moments of life.

That’s what we value at Crosstown. We want to become those kinds of Jesus followers. We don’t want an atmosphere of obligatory, boring, joyless worship that is hypocritical at best and legalistic at worst. We want spontaneous, heartfelt, joyous worship that results from pondering the truth of God and all that he has done for us in Christ.

May God help us all to offer up to him true worship, the worship of transformed people.