Religious worship can be performed singly, inside informally unionized groups, or even when the share of an organised service by owning the intended leader (when inside a church, synagogue, temple, or mosque). Around its older feel in the English language of worthiness or respect, worship could periodically refer to actions directed at members of higher social classes (like lords or monarchs) or to particularly prestigious souls (like the lover).

Average acts of worship include:

prayer; sacrifice (korban in Hebrew); rituals; meditation; holidays, festivals; pilgrimages; hymns or psalms; the construction of temples or shrines; the creation of idols of the deity.

Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy distinguish between worship (Latin adoratio, Greek latreia, [λατρεια]) which is due to God alone (see latria), and veneration (Latin veneratio, Greek dulia [δουλεια]), which may be lawfully offered to the saints. A external acts of veneration resemble people of worship, however differ in their object & intent. Protestant Christians wonder whether such a distinction is universally maintained within actual devotional practice, especially at the level of folk religion. Orthodox Judaism and orthodox Sunni Islam hold that for all practical purposes veneration should exist when considered a equivalent as prayer; Orthodox Judaism (arguably by having a exception of a select few Chasdic practices), orthodox Sunni Islam, and virtually all sort of Protestantism forbid veneration of saints or angels, classifying these actions as akin to idolatry.