Lack of vitality very little to the fore in worship (10)

'lack of vitality' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I don't understand how they can define each other.

'very little to the fore in worship' is the wordplay.
'very' becomes 'v' (abbreviation).
'little' means to remove the last letter (the word is not quite complete).
'to the fore' becomes 'ere' (I've seen this in another clue).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'worship' becomes 'enation' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'ere' with its last letter taken away is 'er'.
'er' placed within 'enation' is 'eneration'.
'v'+'eneration'='VENERATION'

Can you help me to learn more?