Is Worship an Experience?

I'm reading a book right now by two guys I really respect in ministry (Simply Strategic Growth, by Tony Morgan and Tim Stevens). The book is incredibly helpful in thinking strategicaly through different aspects of church ministry and church administration. It has 99 short chapters on how to think through everything from communicating vision to dealing with the out-of-tune soloist. I've really enjoyed reading it - if you're at all involved with administration or leadership within a church, you should buy it. But they keep using a certain phrase that I'm not altogether comfortable with even though I've caught myself using it before.

The book talks several times about inviting people into a "worship experience."

To me, that language speaks of worship as something that happens to you, rather than something in which you are an active participant. I'm not denying that worship involves experience, but I'm not sure the thing we want to be inviting people in to is primarily about our experience. We should be inviting others to participate in such a way that God experiences our worship, and that outsiders observe that.

I'm familiar with the church these two guys served at the time they wrote the book, and don't think their church reflects their wording. Although there are churches out there where worship is a spectator sport, I don't think their church is one of them. But I think the language is important enough to point out. What we're inviting people to on Sunday, I hope, is not a worship experience as much as a worship opportunity.