Tripp Almon introduces his new STR University course, “Building the Body,” explaining that spiritual formation begins when we worship with our heads, hearts, and hands.
Transcript
If the church is weak, divided, or lacks credibility with non-Christians, the solution isn’t better strategies. It’s better spiritual formation. The church doesn’t grow strong because its members are busy. It grows strong when its members are faithful. That’s what this course is about. Over the next five sessions, we’re going to reflect on the significance of a simple sentence that will help us understand how formation actually happens: The church worships together with heads, hearts, and hands.
In the first two sessions, I want to slow down and help us see clearly who we are and what we’re made for as God’s people. In the final three sessions, I want to get practical, looking at how we think, how we speak, and how we live as ambassadors for Christ in the specific places that God has placed us.
Worship—because what we love shapes everything. Together—because we’re not meant to follow Christ alone. Head—because truth and knowledge matter. Heart—because wisdom shapes how we relate to others. And finally, hands—because character gives credibility to our message.
This is how the church becomes a place where truth is clear, love is real, and lives are changed.
That’s all good, but remember, there are no shortcuts.
My name is Tripp Almon, and I’m glad you’re here.
So, with that big picture in place, let’s start with worship.
Before we talk about the church or truth or relationships, we need to ask a more basic question: What are we made for? Because if we misunderstand that, everything else eventually gets distorted. The Bible’s answer is simple and deeply challenging: You and I were created for worship. Not just on Sundays. Not just in singing or prayer. Worship is about what we love most, what we trust most, and what we build our lives around. So, in this first session, we’re going to explore why worship is the foundation of the Christian life and why getting this right is essential if the church is going to be strong, faithful, and fruitful.
Every human being is a worshiper. You may not think of yourself that way, but your life is always oriented around something.
The word “telos” means goal or ultimate purpose. Your telos identifies what you were made for. What is the telos of mankind? The Westminster Catechism asks it this way: What is the chief end of man? The response is, “To glorify God and enjoy him forever.” Your telos, my telos, what we were made for, is to worship God.
Creation displays God’s glory automatically. The mountains show his strength. The stars reveal his order. They don’t choose to do this. They simply reflect what they were made to display.
But we’re different. We choose what we worship. And that choice brings both a benefit and a danger. If we don’t worship the Creator, we will worship something created. We take good things and turn them into ultimate things. As John Calvin said, “The human heart is a perpetual factory of idols.”
Romans 1 tells us that people “exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible mankind and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.” They worship created things instead of the God who created them. We still do this today. We substitute idols for God with careers, relationships, status, comfort, success.
Here’s a diagnostic question: What are you tempted to put in the place of God? Are you leaning on something that, if you lost it, your life would be no longer worth living? I’m not asking what would deeply grieve you. I’m asking what would collapse your entire sense of identity and purpose. Your answer to that question will identify where an idol is hiding.
C.S. Lewis offers a simple illustration to help us understand worship. He described standing in a dark tool shed with a beam of sunlight streaming through a crack in the door. When he looked at that beam, he could see dust particles dancing in the light. But when he stepped into the beam and looked along it, he saw the source of light—the sun itself. Lewis said looking along the beam and looking at the beam are very different experiences. That’s the difference. We can either fix our eyes on the things of this world or we can follow the gifts back to the Giver. That’s correct worship.
I love riding my dirt bike in the mountains with my son. In autumn, we climbed the Treasure Falls Trail—golden aspens, cool air, leaves spinning behind us as we rode. It was one of those moments where everything feels alive. Now, I have a choice in that moment. I can focus only on the experience, or I can let that moment lead me to the source of the experience. The beauty points somewhere. The joy comes from somewhere. The experience points to someone. Proper worship is following that trail of light back to God.
Worship isn’t confined to singing on Sunday. Every moment of our lives—whether work, play, rest, family, study, service—provides an opportunity to honor him. There is no gap for us between the sacred and the secular. If you belong to Christ, the Holy Spirit goes wherever you go. Every place is holy ground, and every moment is a holy moment. Worship is offering your whole life back to God.
To worship God fully, we present our whole selves—our heads, our hearts, and our hands. We worship with our heads by knowing the truth about God. We worship with our hearts by loving God and others. We worship with our hands by living faithfully and obediently. Each one fuels the other. If you only focus on head, then you grow cold. If you only focus on heart, then you grow shallow. If you only focus on hands, then you burn out. Worship is an integrated life. All of you for all of him.
You were made to worship God in everything you do and with everything you have. So, until next time, don’t stop at the experience. Don’t settle for the gift. Let the beauty, the work, the relationships, and the moments of joy draw you up the beam of light to the source.
When your heads, hearts, and hands align in worship, that’s when real transformation begins. And that’s what strengthens the church, because you are the church. The church is not a building you go to. It’s not something you do on Sundays. The church is you—the people of God—every single day.
In our next session, we’ll look at why friendship with God was never meant to be a solo journey. After all, the church worships together with heads, hearts, and hands. We were made to worship—not just individually but together. God designed us to live this out as his body, as his temple, and as his priest to the world.
So, I’ll see you in session two, together, forming the church as one.