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By Joseph Daniels

What is joy? I can offer one definition.

Joy is the external expression of praise and thanksgiving to God because of an internal confidence of God's victory over any and every obstacle keeping us from being whole.

It is living with the quiet and unfailing confidence that Jesus grants victory over any and every trial, a confidence that the Bible teaches us is expressed with enthusiasm, emotion, excitement and spiritual ecstasy.

You cannot manufacture joy. Joy ultimately defines your character. It is part of your spiritual DNA. It cannot be controlled, planned or scheduled. Joy happens.

But it doesn't always happen in our worship services. How do we create joy in worship? I believe there are six elements that the people who plan, prepare, lead and participate in worship need to address.

First and foremost, we must understand the human condition. The reality is that people in our pulpits and our pews are hurting, broken, and need their joy restored. Too many of us have lost our joy, had our joy suppressed or have never even experienced joy; and joy-less folks planning and leading worship will guarantee the production of joy-less worship.

Joy-less worship leads to boring worship, boring worship leads to dead churches, and dead churches produce hopeless people.

We who are responsible for worship need to be sure we're taking steps to have our own joy restored so that, in the name of Jesus, we can produce worship that infects folks with joy. It should be contagious.

Second, to create joy in worship, we must actually bring joy to worship. My daddy used to tell me that what you put into something is what you get out of it. Are you bringing joy?

The third essential element for creating joy in worship is ensuring that there is time for praise. This may mean tinkering with, or even changing, the current order of the service. Praise is an essential element of joyful worship.

I like the message on the marquee of an Ethiopian church across the street from Wesley Seminary. It says: 'Praise is the overflow of a joyous heart.'

It is said that worship happens when heaven hears our praise and then comes down to kiss the earth. When God comes down, things happen. Miracles unfold. We must make time for praise.

For joy to be manifest there must also be intentional time for prayer and confession. We can't rush through a printed prayer in the bulletin. We need to lay before the Lord for a little while. When this intentional time for prayer, confession and thanksgiving is made, we can release the stuff that blocks our internal and external expression of joy. We can be forgiven. We can be healed.

The fifth essential element for creating joy in worship is that there must be a joyful noise. We ought not be dependent upon the choir alone to do this for us. Everybody has a song to sing and we ought to sing it from the depths of our souls.

We also need to know why we're singing. We sing to glorify God. We sing to cast out demons, we sing to share the joy of Jesus with others in our midst. We sing so that our song can transform lives.

And finally, to create joy in worship there must be joyful proclamation. There must be a word from the Lord. Preachers must preach with power and people must stand up and testify to how the Lord is at work in their lives. There must be a word from God, for the word of the Lord rebukes us, corrects us, heals us, lifts us and brings joy to our hearts.

It is my prayer that our joy will be full and that all of our churches will be on fire for God. John Wesley said, 'Nobody is going to come to watch an icehouse freeze, but everybody will show up to see a house burn down. I set myself on fire so that others will burn.'

As a conference today we celebrate because whatever comes, God will make a way. We celebrate the joy of a risen Christ, a joy that money can't buy, that position can't give, that appointment can't provide. The world didn't give us this joy and the world can't take it away. God's joy. Let us celebrate the joy.

The Rev. Joseph Daniels is pastor of Emory UMC in Washington, D.C. This commentary contains excerpts from the Bible study he led May 27 at annual conference in Baltimore.