In many Christian traditions like my own, the Sunday worship service is the high point of the week. We gather to bring God our praise, offer our prayers, engage with God’s Word, be nourished by the sacraments, and find renewal in our walk with Jesus.

A few years ago a diaconal leader challenged our congregation to think about our Sunday gathering from a different point of view. What if, instead of thinking about our Sunday experience as a worship service, we flipped that around and thought about it as “service worship”? What if we considered that acts of service can be just as worshipful as the other activities of traditional worship?

That started a beautiful new tradition in our church. Several times a year on a Sunday morning, we now gather for a short time of singing, prayer, and reflection, and then we disperse in teams throughout our city. Our teams volunteer at local schools, women’s shelters, food banks, and more.

What we have discovered in this simple change is that worship is so much more than what happens in a typical worship service. To love God not just with our heart, soul, and mind but also to love God and our neighbor with all our strength is a beautiful expression of worship. This is also a powerful expression of holistic mission.