Everybody Worships

You don’t need to be religious to worship.

That might sound strange, but it’s true. Worship isn’t a Christian thing. It’s a human thing.

In his now-famous commencement address, professor David Foster Wallace said it like this:

“There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.”

That quote wasn’t delivered in a church. It was given to a crowd of college graduates at a liberal arts school in Ohio. Wallace wasn’t trying to preach—he was just being honest. He recognized something deeply true about the human condition: we all build our lives around something. We all give our devotion, our affection, and our energy to something. 

That’s worship.

For some, it’s money or success. For others, it’s beauty or intellect or power. But whether you worship money, sex, fame, power, comfort, safety, or beauty, the real god behind all of it is actually YOU. 

That’s why none of those gods can deliver what they promise. That’s why they leave us feeling empty, anxious, or afraid. Because we were made to worship something—someone—better.

I love what Paul says in Romans 12:1:

“In view of God’s mercy, present your bodies as a living sacrifice… this is your spiritual worship.”

In other words, true worship isn’t about a genre of music or an hour on Sunday morning. It’s about how we live in response to the mercy of God.

Yes, singing matters. Gathering as a church matters. But if worship stays inside the church building, we’re missing the point. Worship is not just singing, and it’s not just Sunday.

Worship is how we respond to God with our whole lives—in how we work, parent, rest, serve, pray, give, and love. It happens in two contexts: when we gather and when we scatter.

When the church gathers, our worship is powerful. It glorifies God, encourages each other, and—even more surprisingly—it speaks to those who don’t yet believe. That’s why your worship matters more than you think. When you smile, sing, and pray alongside your church family, it’s not just for you. It might be for the person sitting beside you who really needed it. It might even be for someone watching who’s wondering if Jesus is worth following.

But worship doesn’t stop when the service ends.

You worship when you pray and read Scripture each day.

You worship when you share the gospel and work with integrity.

You worship when you resist sin and fight to please the Lord.

You worship when you live all 168 hours of your week for Jesus.

Everybody worships. Make sure you worship the only one who is worthy.