The Heart of Worship
Originally Shared on Medium: Jul 30, 2025
The Loss of Prayer
I recently had to make the hard decision to step back from co-leading a night of worship due to realizing I had overbooked myself not in the sense of their being too much on my calendar, but more in the sense of my physical health was already feeling overwhelmed from the hot and humid, mid-western days, plus the allergy battles I was constantly dealing with as the combination began to trigger severe asthma attacks sometimes several times a week.
On top of all of this I had a surgical procedure involving getting my right shoulder replaced (a procedure I already had done once with my left shoulder, and would soon be happening with both of my hips shortly after), that was putting my level of overwhelmingness physically at a severely high level that if I Was not careful could end up triggering a severe seizure response from my body. Something I did not want to push myself into doing. So I spoke with the co-leader, and we agreed to have another one of the members of this event step up and take my place.
The Frustration of This Setback
Needless to say this triggered some frustration inside of me. You see I use to severe on several worship teams across ministries, churches, and in other means. But with several physical, mental, spiritual, and relational issues that I had at one point faced I walked away not only from worship ministry, but I also walked away from music for nearly a decade. The co-leader of this worship event had done some decent work in getting me to even consider returning to the music life, though this started out by me helping them publicize their first written song by playing drums for them at an event at their church. I then proceeded to take on the role of being their producer for their first single (which as of writing this is still being produced).
That frustration for me though was the fact that I had indeed moved back into the music world. I forgot how much I loved it, how much it meant to me, and how much in ministered, counseled, and was therapeutic to me directly. My love of music not just in listening, but also in playing had been rebooted, re-fertilized, and grown strong, and quickly through the weeds that once held it back. This frustration, was having to step back from this event, which would of been the first time I would of led worship since the strike I went on sometime ago. This didn’t just frustrate me, it also opened up my mind to God reminding me what it truly means to worship, not just from the church perspective, not just the biblical perspective, but how it worked and what it meant with my relationship with God directly.
How Worship Works for Me
If I were to address to the church how worship worked for me and what it resulted in for me, I would say this:
“Worship is more than just singing. If you are here today and are just singing during service because that is what everyone else is doing. You are not worshiping, you are simply going through the motions of looking like you belong. In Matthew it is made clear that Worship is not just singing, but it is an action. It is to love God with all of your heart, mind and soul. In Romans it talks about how worship is to is the idea of offering our bodies as living sacrifices, meaning that what we do with our bodies, the actions we take, the words we speak, when done for God’s glory, is worshipping Him.
Worship is a response to the character and actions of God, acknowledging His ways, His Truth, His light, and that all He does though we may not understand it, is an action of Grace Love, Mercy, and His Glory. Worship through external actions (such as singing) is not alone Worship. Our Worship needs to be combined with our inner-self. Our Worship is aligning our affections, our thoughts, and our actions with God’s will in showing and surrendering to Him our love, our sacrifice, our strengths, our actions, EVERYTHING!”
Prayer with Praise & Worship
I truly believe that Praise and Worship are of lesser value without prayer. Yes, there is a time to acknowledge God with affirmations of faith, and acknowledgment to God, and the generalization of surrender to Him is of value too.
Prayer is directly communicating to and with God.
We pray / speak with God when we are showing Him adoration, the action of expressing reverence, love, and awe.
We pray / speak with God when we confess that which we need to seek forgiveness for, our thoughts, and actions.
We pray / speak with God when express gratitude to God for His love, mercy, gracy, and blessings.
We pray / speak with God when we are seeking protection, and strength.
We pray / speak with God when we are praying for others, whether it be for healing, blessings, direction, protection, and deliverance .
When we are worshipping, we are praying, so why do we not combine the direct intention of the two as they are meant to be? Are we not speaking to God both in our praise or worship to Him, as we do when we have a conversation with Him?
The Fear of Prayer as a Conversation
I believe the the biggest reason why prayer has become so weak and detached from being recognized as a form of praise, and worship is because we fear recognizing prayer as a form of conversation. Within this form of conversation with God there is several types of prayer that often go unnoticed today, that only a few pastors have I ever heard acknowledge when teaching.
Multiple Forms of Prayer
Pastor Kurt Barnes explains how Elijah gives us a good example of the several ways in which Prayer is like:
Word-Based Prayer
“Elijah’s prayers were rooted in God’s promises. Both the drought and its end were foretold in Deuteronomy 11, where God warned of the consequences of idolatry and promised restoration upon repentance. When we pray according to God’s Word, we align ourselves with His will and purposes.”
Spirit-Led Prayer
“Though God had promised rain would return after repentance, the timing was not specified. Elijah discerned through the Spirit that now was the moment. As believers today, we have the Holy Spirit to guide our prayers and give us insight into God’s timing and purposes.”
Unglamorous, Slow, and Persistent Prayer
“This is perhaps the most overlooked aspect of Elijah’s prayer. While the contest on Mount Carmel was public and dramatic, the prayer for rain was private and persistent. Elijah bowed low to the ground, his face between his knees, and prayed repeatedly. Seven times he sent his servant to look for signs of rain before the smallest cloud appeared. This kind of prayer is often unseen, unglamorous work that requires perseverance and faith.”
Audacious Prayer
“Even when the first tiny cloud appeared, Elijah acted with bold faith. He sent word to Ahab to prepare for a deluge, demonstrating unwavering confidence in God’s answer. This audacity culminated in Elijah outrunning Ahab’s chariot to Jezreel — a supernatural demonstration of God’s empowering strength.”
The actions of Prayer in which Elijah executed, brought Praise and Worship to God, in Elijah’s obedience, and faith in which he practiced.
Prayer and Fasting
Pastor Phillip Anthony Mitchel discusses the importance of prayer, and recognizing that we are called to pray often, and for long periods of time, and in fasting which often goes mis-defined and practice out of context.
“…Fasting is not just getting rid of things such as social media, that is a lazy fast. Fasting is not just getting rid of music, that is a punk fast. Biblical fasting is the abstinence of from food for a period of time for the sake of consecrating the heart to grow closer to God through prayer. It is not a hunger strike. It is the denial of the thing the flesh wants most. Food and pleasure. No food, no sex. No food, no social media. No food, no fill in the blank. It is telling the flesh ‘I have authority over you! And I will deny you what you want most for a period of time. I will weaken you so that who I really am, a spirit inside of a body, can grow strong in intimacy with Christ.’ And when you fast, you hear God more clearly.”
The Struggle of Prayer in Life
We as children of God have become so distant to the fact that prayer is not just something we do before breakfast, lunch and dinner. Prayer is not just something we do when someone says “I need prayer I feel down today.” Prayer is not just something we do when we will the need to ask God for something. Prayer is so much more than any of that, prayer is rooted in the foundation of every aspect of our life, and yet we do not recognize it.
This is why we do not understand the concept of how the thoughts in our mind control how our future will proceed, and we do not understand that how we speak controls those thoughts, and we speak when we pray, and we are having a conversation with God when we PRAY!
Getting back into prayer can be a real honest struggle. Fear NOT, you can start simple. Pastor Phillip continues to speak about prayer stating,
“…Practice His (God’s) presence . Get visions of Him raised and visions of Him glorified, and fire in His eyes. Think about the person you are talking to, think about where He is seated. Just sit in His presence for a little while and just warm up yourself to Him… Every now and then when you go up to His presence get a flashback of where He has brought you from and to where you are today. Like man you took me Lord from dirt, You took me from the street, You took me when I was a knucklehead, You saved me. Just get a flashback of what He has done for you…”
He continues to speak about how what you may feel like was 15–20 minutes that you were skeptical you would have anything to say during, suddenly becomes and Hour or more. Because you are having a conversation, you are thanking God, you are seeing how you got from point A to point B, and are able to converse about it with Him.
Start small, and grow into longer conversations.
Honesty within prayer, explaining how you truly feel to God about your job, about your family, about your relationships, friendships, health, and so much more, speaking these things with God is one of the best ways you open up to let God speak with you, work with you, open or close doors for you. — Source
Conclusion
I could continue on and on about the importance of studying God’s worship, praise, worship, fasting, and so much more, but the key part of our lives, is to be able to pray because prayer is in the foundation of all of these things, and without prayer we will move a lot slower than we would with prayer. Because when we do not pray, we severely limit the amount of communication we have with God, and when we do not take action in multiple methods of prayer, when we choose to not fast and pray, to hear God better, to speak clearer to God, to surrender more to Him, we lose a part of our opportunity to grow closer with Him.