Fred Brown again (Secular Evangelism)

"There can be no doubt that true worship of God consciously offered in love and faith expresses itself in caring for our neighbour. Our worship, let it be noted, is not motivated by such a concern; as though, wanting to be more sensitive, more lovingly involved, we engage in worship as preparation for service, our real business. We worship God for his own loving sake; we escape our habitual self-centeredness in self-forgetful adoration and thanksgiving. Our aim is to give, not get; and to avoid the insidious danger of using worship as a pious means to a selfish end. Any subsequent caring is the spontaneous by-product of soul vitality, vitality not directly sought but made inevitable by true worship of God. In other words, the reality and depth of our worship is the degree and spirit of our caring; of our self-giving, our personal relationships, our sensitivity. We love God only to the extent that we love people. We pray for people only to the limit of our commitment to them. If ... the test of our worship is the nature of our subsequent service to Christ in the hungry, the naked, the homeless and the prisoner, surely such service is simply another expression of the same authentic spirit of worship. It works both ways. Worship is real when men learn to care; and men learn to care when worship is real."