Sung worship is a great way of entering into God’s presence. But sometimes you may not have the finance to invest into smooth sounding online worship or your very own professional band for live music. That doesn’t mean worship has to be put on hold, here are just a few ideas to help you engage with worship in other ways:

Write out the Psalms: The Psalms is a book completely devoted to worship. One of the ways we can engage with the Bible in worship is by writing them out and praying through them as you go. You can even try paraphrasing them or even writing your own. Share them together when you’re done and use them to engage with prayer. 

Hearing God for one another

Worship is a way of helping us meet with God’s Spirit and a doorway to hearing what God is saying for someone else. You could take some time to write down what God might be saying to other people in your group, then share with each other. 

Lament

This can be a tricky one as it is not generally practiced by most churches. Lamenting is a way of engaging with the brokenness we see and experience in the world around us. In the Bible, we see time and time again that people come to God crying out for change and justice. You could spend some time as a group focusing and praying into some of those areas. 

Be generous

God loves a cheerful giver and one of the ways we can worship God with what we have is by giving it away and blessing others. You could pray as a group and think about how you could bless members of your community or maybe even people you’ve never met before. A great way to show God’s love to others! 

Social Action

Similar to the last one, you might want to think about how you can help the less fortunate in your area. Could you hand out food to those in need? Could you shop local and be more ethical? Is there a specific need your small group could meet in your community? 

Celebrating and feasting

In the Old Testament God commands his people to celebrate on a regular basis. That meant bringing out the best food, spending time with each other and being in God’s presence together. Jesus gives us a more specific command in the New Testament, to take communion with each other and remember that God has saved and forgiven us. 

Repentance

This often leads from times of communion and may link well with times of lament too. No matter who you are, no matter what stage of life you are in, repentance is for anyone. It’s a way of saying to God, ‘I want to turn around and put you back in the centre again, please forgive me’.