It was a huge honor and quite the experience for me to work side by side with Missouri’s Most Worshipful Grand Master and other Grand Lodge officers, in this temple.

Since it’s relevant, and I’m sure many have the question, as did I, I’d like to clarify and explain the naming convention of “Worshipful Master” we use in Freemasonry.
Firstly, we do not worship any man. The term Worshipful comes from ancient England and was an honorary title that simply meant “respected” in the past. The structure of each individual lodge/temple consists of a Worshipful Master at the top and a few offers that support him. Basically, the WM (Worshipful Master) serves as the chief officer and oversees all lodge functions, lodge officer duties, and presides over each lodge meeting. He ultimately has the last say on matters but we are all considered equal.

Now, if you define worship as what most people see in the Abrahamic religions (ie. singing, prayer, sermon, praising God directly, etc.), I’d say Freemasons do not worship anyone or anything period. I know this was my definition of worship, basically just praising/kneeling to God directly in different ways.

My definition of worship has expanded though. If you define worship as: a wwide-rangedavenue to give adoration and respect to diety, a personal act of the heart rather than outward actions, and that worship can be expressed in all areas of life –
then you could argue we do worship.

But I would say what we worship more specifically isn’t diety per se, but the divine spark that resides in each of us. So worshipping the sanctity and power of the individual. Something I clearly support and stand behind.

So long story short: Missouri has many individual temples/lodges (city to city), in each, a Worshipful Master presides over it. Each state in the U.S. has a Grand Lodge, which is the overarching governing body over all the individual lodges in the state and functions just as the rest of the lodges do. So, the Grand Lodge’s Worshipful Master title is “Most Worshipful Grand Master.”