Worship: What are you bringing to the table? Thoughts from URBANA

At first I couldn't help but compare URBANA to other conferences I'd been to. Bear in mind that most of these conferences were homeschool conferences. So as you looked out over the crowd everyone looked just like everyone else. Ladies wore their long navy blue skirst without slits, and guys wore their navy suits and white shirts and a tie. Homeschool mom's had their denim jumpers and all their little girls dressed alike. Homeschool dad's looked just like their older sons in their own navy blue suits. The goal was to fit in, to conform, to not stick out, to look just like everybody else. As you looked out over the crowd the only thing that really did stand out was the fact that it was predominantly white. Maybe a few scattered African American families, but for the most part predominantly white. As far as worship goes, forget clap happy shake your booty songs, it was all hymns with no room for anything else.
As far as the sessions went, you could skip a session but you were made to feel like a realy jerk if you did. So you ended up making a concerted effort to kill yourself trying to keep up with the day. If you missed a session, you apparently weren't spiritual enough and thus ostracized.
Now compare this with URBANA. I was amazed at how different people at URBANA were. At URBANA there were people from 140 different nations. Africans, Americans, Australians, Canadians. There was no majority in this crowd. It didn't matter where you were from, you were all brothers and sisters in Christ. We sang songs in Haitian Creol, in Spanish, in Korean, and in English and that's just what I remember. As I looked over the crowd I realized that everyone was different. Replace the navy blue skirts with all different types of attire. No longer was it one set dress code because we are all different.
In the same manner styles of worship were different. I began the week very critical of the styles of worship around me. I saw it as being performanced base and too showy. I realized as the week wore on and God set me free from things in my life that were weighing me down that worship wasn't about what I thought of people. In fact, worship wasn't about me at all. Worship is about what I bring to the table to glorify God. The Westminster shorter catechism says that the cheif end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. One of the ways we do that is through worship. I realized that in looking around at everyone else and criticizing their style of worship, I was not glorifying God. Rather I was glorifying myself. While it is true that some clap happy, shake your booty songs leave something to be desired in worship, think about what you're bringing to the table to glorify God. Because that's what counts. It's not how much you look just like the next guy, it's how much your individual style of worship is glorifiying to God because worship isn't about you, it's about the glorification of a truly awesome God.