What does Sunday "worship" look like?

So this is Sunday. “A day for worship” you say, and I agree. My question at the moment is, “Just what is worship and how do we go about it in 2018?” In a general sense, worship is the honor we pay to God as a sacred being. Since we use the term on different levels (“I honor you for your service to our country”  / “That was an honorable thing to do”) honor needs to be defined in each setting. I am curious about how we “worship” the One we honor in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Certainly he is on the high end of the scale, in fact, there is no one greater than he. He is the one we worship above all else.
         Granted, I grew up a long time ago and early patterns remain firmly embedded in one’s outlook. When we met to “worship” we sang the choruses of Moody and Sankey with gusto. Our church, an extension of my mother’s bible study, was primarily interested in telling people about Jesus Christ and getting them to “ask Jesus into their heart.” Were we worshipping God on Sunday morning? I’d like to say Yes because many lives were changed and scores of people will be in heaven because of “Calvary Baptist” in Minot, North Dakota. There were other churches in town that had a more sophisticate service, but I always felt that they had, for he most part, substituted form for reality.
         How does my experience relate to today’s “worship” service where emotion runs high? It seems that attaining a high level of emotion is the way to prove that worship is in fact happening. If there is no strong inner response, the gathering is something less than worship. Music seems to be the major method to reach that emotional high. Standing with hands in the air helps, as does dramatic utterances by the pastor turned evangelist. Granted, there are many who find it not only difficult, but questionable as well, to release themselves to an atmosphere that has been created. Do I doubt their sincerity? As the one assigned to play the vibraharp back in Minot, I’m probably the wrong person to ask. I sure did my best to bring heaven down to that little church. Recently I’ve became more aware of the power of social media to create a people who think, look, and act like one another. And I believe that is what is happening in many settings where individuality has surrendered to group think. Most informed people recognize this danger.
         So what about the churches that we, in our uninformed youth, used to refer to as “Lutheran.” (Sorry, that was our way of identifying churches that had a more reserved approach to worship). I had the helpful experience of living in Aberdeen, Scotland for several years of my graduate study. During this time I preached almost every Sunday in a Church of Scotland church. Wonderful experience! I learned to love four hymns plus the Psalter, clerical garments, stained glass windows, reverence, the beauty of God’s Word, the quiet presence of the Holy Spirit.
         So, “That is the answer,” you say. I don’t think so because in almost every church it was obvious that people didn’t attend anymore. What good is a well-ordered service if no one is there to worship. The extreme for me was a sermon in a quaint Church of Scotland on a snowy Sunday. Apart from me, the minister, the congregation consisted of (1) the beadle (who did such things as to march to the pulpit and open the bible) and (2) the ruling elder. In my experience, pomp and circumstances do not provide what the hungry soul needs. If you want to see growth go to the more outwardly expressive congregations.
         It seems to me that my best moments of worshipping God is when he is consciously central in my life and I am engaged in some activity I view as significant. A son honors his father when the son wants more than anything else to be with his dad, working by side with one who means so much to him. If I can use the word, he “worships” his father. That does not means that the family doesn’t need to gather, it is only that a gathering without honor and love falls way short of what ought to be. Choose your worship setting with care. Beware of “music” that intends to supply you with a sense of God’s presence. Then lift up your heart and praise God. My only caution, “Don’t accept anything less than a genuine awareness that God, everlasting, omnipotent, King of kings and Lord of Lords, is there with you enjoying the “worship service.”