New Song: Come Praise and Glorify

We are learning a new song at ECC this weekend and I’m thrilled.  I’m thrilled because one of the primary reasons to sing in corporate worship is to help us connect what we know (our heads) with our passion (our hearts).  This song, I believe, does just that.  And not only that, the lyrics are straight from Ephesians 1:3-14.  Now if we can just play it well!  :->

But first, I wanted to share a few thoughts…

1.  You can’t tell it in English, but in the original Greek this was one, elegant sentence telling us that the triune God initiated and accomplished cosmic reconciliation and redemption.  Why?  Is it just for us?  No!  It’s for the praise of HIS glory.

2.  Again, you can’t tell in the English, but this passage starts the same as a first-century Jewish prayer to God.  These prayers would be said at various times throughout the day.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

3.  This song helps us see our place as adopted “sons of God”.  Adoption is close to my heart as we grew our family through adoption and I’ve come to better understand that none of us are natural sons or daughters of God.  We were all unwanted orphans.  But now, all Christians, male and female, are “sons” in the sense of being heirs who will inherit blessings from their Father in heaven.  As the song reads,

…pure and blameless in his sight
he destined us to be
and now we’ve been adopted through
his Son eternally

4.  I think it’s great that in Vs. 2 the song keeps the word “Mystery”.  We tend to forget as 21st century Christians that mystery, as it’s used here, refers to the revelation of something that was previously hidden or only known vaguely, but now is more fully known.  Jesus was a mystery before he was revealed.  Abraham didn’t know about him in detail.  Moses didn’t know about him in detail.  King David didn’t know about him in detail.  Paul is telling us that the “mystery of the messiah” has finally been revealed…and we know the details!

5.  I know I already said this, but it bears restating!  Please hear me…God’s ultimate purpose is not redemption for you as such but the praise of his glorious name through redemption.  Too many times, I think we focus on God dying just for me!  And it’s true.  He did.  But Ephesians clearly tells us that even our redemption wasn’t just for us, BUT FOR THE PRAISE OF HIS GLORY!

Let me encourage you to read the passage.  I’ve also included the lyric and a video below so together we can all sing TO THE PRAISE OF HIS GLORY / HE IS THE GOD WHO SAVES!

V 1. Come praise and glorify our God
the Father of our Lord.
In Christ he has in heav’nly realms
his blessings on us poured;
for pure and blameless in his sight
he destined us to be
and now we’ve been adopted through
his Son eternally

     To the praise of your glory, 
     to the praise of your mercy and grace, 
     to the praise of your glory, 
     you are the God who saves.

V 2. Come praise and glorify our God
who gives his grace in Christ.
In him our sins are washed away,
redeemed through sacrifice.
In him God has made known to us
the myst’ry of his will
that Christ should be the head of all,
his purpose to fulfil.

V 3. Come praise and glorify our God
for we’ve believed the Word
and through our faith we have a seal:
the Spirit of the Lord.
The Spirit guarantees our hope
until redemption’s done,
until we join in endless praise
to God, the Three in One.

What I Learned from Starbucks-Prt 1

I recently finished the book, Onward, written by Starbucks founder and CEO, Howard Schultz.  I don’t read a lot of leadership books, but I really enjoyed this one.  First off, my wife and I love coffee houses and affectionately refer to Starbucks as St.Arbucks.  But I also had a number of take-away thoughts for the church.  So go get your own…

Grande coffee in a venti cup with 2 pumps hazelnut, 2 pumps vanilla, 2 pumps caramel, 2 equals and 4 sweet and lows filled to the top with cream, with extra cream on the side, double cupped with no sleeve, a stir stick, and a stopper put in the top

…and enjoy reading what I learned from Starbucks…part 1…

1.  I loved the fact the Howard Schultz identified writing as a way to connect with the other people at Starbucks.  He writes, ”Writing helped me stay in touch with myself as well as our people, and I resurrected one of my favorite modes of communication:  composing frequent memos to Starbuck’s partners.”  I hope you know that this is what I do every week via WorshipNotes.  It helps me stay in touch with myself and with you.

2.  He identifies a coffee house as a “3rd place” and I think the same applies for churches.  A 3rd place is not your home and it’s not where you work.  It’s a “social yet personal environment between one’s house and job, where people can connect with others and reconnect with themselves” (13) and I would add that in the church we also are able to reconnect with God, our maker, redeemer and restorer.

3.  When he talks about merchants he has a great perspective on how the ordinary can point us to the extraordinary.  Again he writes, ”We take the ordinary – a shoe, a knife – and give it new life, believing that what we create has the potential to touch others’ lives because it touched ours.”  Later he says something similar except he points out that we take the ordinary and “infuse it with emotion and meaning” and then we tell the same story over and over and over again…This is the goal of believer artists.  I am not extraordinary.  And no offense, but you aren’t extraordinary either!  We work with soundboards, instruments, mics, music, props, costumes, projectors, computers…this things are just ordinary things.  Most of what we use isn’t even cutting edge technology.  But we give them a new life, emotion and meaning that points to the creator.  We believe that this story that we tell over and over and over again has the power to touch others’ lives because it touched ours.  Not through anything we do.  We are ordinary.  But because of who he is…he is an extraordinary God.

4.  ”We are genuinely interested in educating our customers.”  (11)  That’s a big part of why ECC exists.  We are a teaching church because we believe that you need to have basic knowledge of God to be in a right relationship with him.  We also believe that ”…knowledge can breed passion…” (78)  It’s not always true, but when you know the truth…it will set you free and that is inspiring.

5.  We have talked about the need to work on our talent/craft because it is a God-given gift and something we try to offer back to him in worship.  We’ve also talked about how people will know quickly if we are true or false.  Shultz identifies these two key ingredients when he writes ”…quality and transparency are prerequisites to participating.” (20)  We must work to hone our craft to remove distractions and we must do this with transparency or you might say authenticity.

6. As I was reading Onward, I was struck by this quote because it reminded me of the importance of you, our volunteers.  ”Our partners’ attitude and actions have such great potential to make our customers feel something.” (117)  We do want to educate people who attend ECC, but a big part of what we do as believer artists is help those people connect their head knowledge with their heart’s emotion.  We can’t just sing the truth.  We have to sing the truth as if it is life itself and is the most important thing to us.  So important that it’s changed our lives and we believe EVERYONE needs to experience that same transformation.

 

This isn’t scripture.  These are just some thoughts from a book that I found inspiring…and I don’t think it was just the caffeine coursing through my veins!  It was a chance to re-envision what we do and also realize that we are doing so many things right.  The most right thing being that we are working to help people learn HIS WORD so we can apply it to OUR WALK.  Next week…we’ll order a

Venti Non-fat, no foam, no water 6 pump extra hot chai tea latte

…and jump into Prt 2…

What Do Different Church Traditions Think about Worship?

Have you ever wondered why ECC worships the way it does?  Or have you wondered why different churches worship the way they do?  These were compiled by the late Robert Webber of IWS fame and WorshipTraining.com. (Ancient-Future Worship)

Approaches To The Theology Of Worship | WorshipTraining

Theology is a reflective discipline. That is, people who do theology reflect on the truth of Scripture and the insights of the church in a systematic way. Systematic reflection on worship results in a theology, or rather, theologies of worship. In this section, theologians of various Christian traditions reflect on their worship and attempt to articulate the words and actions of this worship in a systematic form. Interpreters bring their own experience to the subject they interpret. One who constructs a theology of worship is not exempt from this hermeneutical method. Personal perspectives can often illuminate the broad and varied patterns of Christian worship. This section offers three views on the theology of worship: a liturgical approach, a free-church perspective, and a charismatic interpretation.

Liturgical Worship Approach: Enactment Of Salvation History

For those who approach worship from a liturgical and sacramental point of view, Christian worship is an action which recalls the events of the history of salvation. This recollection, which is based on biblical models of worship, is not simply an intellectual remembering; it becomes an actual participation in the saving event through forms of worship empowered by the Holy Spirit and received in faith.

Free-Church Worship Approach (ECC): Ascribing Worth To God

Free-church worship occupies a middle position between the liturgical/sacramental forms of worship and the informal worship of many charismatic churches. Whereas free churches may follow a formal order of service, their worship does not conform to historic Eucharist-centered liturgies. This worship has three objectives: to speak to God, to listen to God, and to respond to God—a sequence based on the ancient biblical structure of proclamation and response. This style of worship is found in evangelical and fundamental churches as well as in many mainline Protestant congregations.

Worship is the ascription of worth to God for who he is and what he does—just as the psalmist expresses it:

Ascribe to the Lord, O families of nations, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.  Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name. (Psalm 96:7–8)

Charismatic Worship Approach: Responding To The Spirit

Worship, for Pentecostal and charismatic Christians, is an expression of the experience and empowerment of the Holy Spirit—an event which for many brings the Scriptures to life and continuously incarnates Jesus Christ in his church. The release of a life of praise, of intercession, and of spiritual gifts for ministry takes place in the setting of the body of Christ at worship.  Although tongues and interpretation are an important manifestation of the Spirit in the worship of Pentecostals, emphasis is also placed broadly on others gifts of the Spirit, including those of healing and prophecy.

And for a brief overview of theologies…

Reformed worship focuses on the majesty of God’s transcendence and the frailty and sinfulness of humans. Reformed worship captures, proclaims, and enacts the gospel.

Lutheran worship calls people to faith again and again through the proclamation of the Gospel through Word and Table. In this service, God acts and the people respond. In form, Lutheran worship is both evangelical and Catholic.

Baptist worship seeks to develop a worship rooted in Scripture, it is more inclined to rely on general principles for guiding worship rather than on literalist model of worship based on Scripture texts alone.

Anabaptists see the church as a radical body of believing disciples. Worship arises out of this community of faith and is simple and egalitarian. It recounts God’s story of redeeming love through the ongoing experience of the community of faith.

Wesleyans are deeply concerned to define worship as more than public acts. Worship has to do with all of life, with relationships, and with vocations. In deed and thought believers continually act out their relationship to Christ.

A New Ministry Year is Here!

The summer always gets crazy, but this summer has gone especially fast!  The Worship Center remodel project is coming along and we are excited for the Grand Opening next Sunday.

MUSIC

We also have music auditions next week on Wednesday, August 10 from 6-9 PM.  We want EVERYONE who is gifted and called in music to come AND BRING OTHER BELIEVER ARTIST FRIENDS WITH YOU!  We would love to have at least 40 believer artists serving in the music ministry this coming year!

We will be unveiling a new tiered serving schedule to allow more people to join us and still make sure we’re able to make excellent music to glorify God and help others worship.  It will look like this…

LEVEL #1

• -52 weeks/year with scheduled breaks for vacation for one ministry year (Sept-Sept).
• -This group will be chosen based on gifting and calling and have preference for special music and seasonal productions.

LEVEL #2

• -1 month on/1 month off with no scheduled breaks for one ministry year (Sept-Sept).  Teams will rotate between the Sanctuary and FLC on Sunday mornings.
• -Artists in this tier find their own sub.
• -This group will be chosen based on gifting and calling and have preference for special music and seasonal productions.

LEVEL #3

• -2 weeks on with 1 1/2 months off with no scheduled breaks for one ministry year (Sept-Sept).  Teams will rotate between the Sanctuary and FLC on Sunday mornings.
• -Artists in this Tier will find their own sub.
• -The weeks an artist serves will be selected in advance.  For example, an artist in Tier #3 will serve either the first or second half of the month for one ministry year.
• -Artists in this tier will be placed as other volunteers are available.  For example, it will take two believer artists in Tier #3 to equal one artist in Tier #2.
• -This group will be chosen based on gifting and calling, but will NOT have preference for special music and seasonal productions.

LEVEL #4

• Alternate musician or vocalist.  Serves as need for one ministry year.

Obviously, we would like as many people as possible to serve in Level 1 or Level 2, but having Level 3 and 4 will help us round out the musical bench and get more people into the ministry.  Please be praying how you might serve this year, but especially pray that God will continue to call new believer artists to serve at ECC in Music.

DRAMA

We will be kicking off our ministry year with the Emmanuel Theatre Co. on August 31st in the Worship Center at 6:30.  We would love to have as many dramatists there.  We will be playing some basic theatre games and talking through the season.  This year we will be adapting our performance schedule a little bit to make sure we can do LIVE drama in ALL our venues!  It’s going to be exciting…

TECH

The Tech Ministry is getting a new booth and will be hosting an Open House to check it out this Tuesday night at 8PM in the Worship Center after music rehearsal.  Come join us for a good time of hanging out and getting familiar with our new digs!  See you there!

New Song: All to Us

I’m sitting in the airport watching rain hit the windows.  It’s so easy to allow trivial things like rain effect my mood.  I say that Jesus is life and breath, but then I complain about the weather.  Isn’t that pathetic?  We are going to challenge that…and that is going to challenge me…

This weekend we are learning a new song written by Matt Maher, Chris Tomlin, Jesse Reeves and Matt Redman.  (You can check out the YouTube video and instructional at the end!)  That means the song is an interesting fusion of lyrical depth and hymn structure with a modern worship chorus.  It begins with a meditation on the person of Jesus and ends with another quiet meditation on living in heaven with Jesus face to face.  The middle declares the basic gospel message culminating in a cry of commitment that Jesus is “all to us”.

As in other Worship360 posts, let’s just jump in and see some of the biblical basis for the song lyrics.

All to Us - Verse 1

Precious cornerstone, sure foundation
You are faithful to the end

The songs starts by focusing us on Jesus drawing directly from Isaiah 28:16.  I love the phrase Isaiah uses here…if we trust in God we won’t be driven to panic.  So there is no need to push that panic button until…no, not now and not ever…
” …this is what the Sovereign LORD says:

“See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone,
a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation;
the one who relies on it
will never be stricken with panic.

We are waiting, on You, Jesus
We believe You’re all to us

The song continues with another tough faith skill:  learning to wait.  Already, this is hitting my buttons.  I tend to panic and I tend to be impatient.  However, Hebrews 9:28, reminds us that all believers are waiting…
“…so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.”  We move onto the…

Chorus
Let the glory of Your name be the passion of the Church

This is straight from the Psalms.  ”Help us, God our Savior, for the glory of your name; deliver us and forgive our sins for your name’s sake.” -Psalm 79:9

Let the righteousness of God be a holy flame that burns

We read in 2 Corinthians 5:21 that Jesus’ work in us brings out the righteousness of God so that we BECOME the righteousness of God.  ”God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  But we CAN’T STOP THERE.  Paul continues, “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.  For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.  So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord.” -2 Timothy 1:6-8  In other words, we are saved to become the righteousness of God and to fearlessly tell the story of God with our gifts and LIVES!

Let the saving love of Christ be the measure of our lives
We believe You’re all to us

Are you ready to be challenged?  This lyric is straight from Paul and he has a whole can of challenge to open on you!  ”And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” -Ephesians 3:17-19   Can we do this and honestly sing, “You’re ALL to us”?  Are we filled with all the fullness of God?

Verse 2
Only Son of God sent from Heaven
Hope and mercy at the cross

Moving onto the middle of the song, this is the basic gospel message as found in 1 Peter 1:3.  ”Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…”

You are everything, You’re the Promise
Jesus, You are all to us

Throughout the OT, the people of Israel anticipated the coming Messiah and referred to him as the coming “promise”.  Then in Ephesians 3:6, the same language is used to refer to Jesus.  ”This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.”  Did you catch that?  THIS IS THE AMAZING PART…now the promise of Jesus is for all people…Jews AND gentiles like you and me.  It’s only because of Jesus that we get to claim the promise of God promised since the beginning of time.  Onto the bridge and Verse 3…

Bridge
You’re all to us
You’re all to us
You’re all to us
Yes, You are

Verse 3
When this passing world is over
We will see You face to face                                                                                                                                                                                                                And forever we will worship
Jesus, You are all to us

We started to the song with Jesus and now we end in heaven with Jesus fully revealed as God and we are face to face.  ”For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” - 1 Corinthians 13:12  

The rain is still falling and I’m still waiting, but today I’m working to trust Jesus knowing and hopefully living like he is all to us.

8 Thoughts for Working at Art

After five years of reading, papers and yearly trips to school, I’m finally finished with grad school.  But before I start congratulating myself and feeling masterly, I want to invest those same energies into artistic projects that have been sitting on the back burner.  I might regret this later when you ask me about them, but here is my working list now…

1.  Create a one-man show from the gospel of Mark.

2.  Create another wood-block print to hang in my house.

3.  Continue to take photos of iconic signs here in Fort Wayne that help make it home.  Again, the goal is to have something to hang in our home.

These are just a few ideas I’m working on now and they are in various stages of development.  However today as I was scanning my blog reader, I came across a post from Christian playwright Jeff Berryman who listed some of the things he’s learning as an artist.  The spurred me on to get off my padded rear-end and begin creating for the Kingdom again.

• Stop speculating about art’s mysteries.  Be a craftsman.  Make the work.  Every day.  The mysteries will show up.
• Be a pro, and be ruthless about it.   You may or may not get paid, but that’s beside the point.  Really beside the point.
• Learn to enjoy being miserable.  Pro athletes know they will play with pain every day.  You thought it wouldn’t hurt?  Dumb.
• If I don’t work, inspiration won’t bother.   If I do, power gathers around, hovering, nudging, gifting, pouring out.
• “I’ll start tomorrow” is a lie.  The only when is now.
• Do what you’ve been given to do.  Spending time figuring out what the market wants is the hand of Resistance encircling your neck.
• This work is not selfish, it is serving the earth and its people by playing your role in the inch by inch movement back to God.
• Finish.  Finish.  Finish.

So that is what I’m working on now…showing up on a regular basis to do the work that God has given me even when it’s hard and trusting that inspiration (that’s the creative gift of God and possibly the Holy Spirit?) will come so that I can finish, finish, finish the race.

So my question for you is this:  what are you doing this summer to build the Kingdom in a creative way?  Doesn’t have to be an art project…it could be a neighborhood cookout…but be intentional…really, what is it?

Check out my last project to vent creative juices on Twitpic

Being a friend in hard times

I want to share a very short thought with you based on the book of Job and the story of the blind man that we are talking about this Sunday morning.  In Job, the so-called friends come to “comfort” Job and instead tell him that his troubles are all because he has sinned.  Job denies this through out the whole book and in the last few chapters, God shows up to confront Job, but also to affirm that he was right the whole time.  His problems WERE NOT due to his sin.  (Sidenote: It’s interesting that when you read that last chapter, God tells Job’s “friends” to ask Job to pray for them.  Job does exactly that in Job 42 and it is THEN after this restoration of community and ONLY THEN that God begins to restore his fortune.  Still thinking on that…)

In John 9:17-34, the Pharisees tell the blind men that same exact thing.  They accuse him of being blind because he sinned.  God, this time in the person of Jesus specifically, says again that the blindness WAS NOT due to sin, but that God would be glorified.

…the blindness WAS NOT due to sin, but that God would be glorified.

I am intrigued by this.  When I had cancer, someone came and told me that I brought it upon myself through undue stress.  When my son was diagnosed with a genetic brain degeneration, I had people asking me if his birth mother was on drugs throughout the pregnancy.  It seems that in these two biblical stories, God tells us that these physical issues were not due to sin.

All that to say that while our actions do have consequences, I’m going to remember this the next time someone I know is going through a hard time.  I don’t want to be like the Pharisees or Job’s “friends” and insinuate that someone’s physical ailment is due to sin.  That is God’s job.  I’m going to focus on just being there and demonstrating God’s love and goodness in a hard situation trusting that God will be glorified through it.

worshiptraining.com

As you know may or may not know, our church‘s focus is “His Word, Our Walk” and that means we dig deep into God’s Word and they try and apply it to our lives.  For us in the worship ministry is can be hard to find time to attend a Small Church or learning environments b/c of the time commitment to leading others in worship.  This has been an ongoing discussion between Dan and myself. How can we help to continue to equip people in the Worship Arts Ministry as they work to give glory to God and to help others worship?

Enter Worshiptraining.com…

We think we’ve found a possible solution.  It is the world’s first entirely online worship “conference in the cloud” (with an online Campus and training based on the internet) serving the ongoing worship training needs of churches globally. Basically, it is an online conference running 12 months a year, 24/7 on the Campus through On Demand media:

• Online Essentials* Courses (theology, values, skills +)
• Keynotes (guests inspire us)
• Live Breakouts (practical instruction)
• Devotionals (spiritual formation sessions)
• Clinics (instrument training sessions)

This training content is at your fingertips so our worship community can continue to grow using these online resources.  We’ll be also be using them for Tuesday night rehearsals and other special training events!

If you are serving in a band/vocal/drama/tech team then you probably already received an email about this.  The email gives you a log-in and gives you access to the online campus.  If you don’t want to be apart of this, please let me know and I’ll remove your name from the list OR if you aren’t involved, but would like to be again let me know!  Below is a video from Dan Wilt, the Director of Worshiptraining.com.

We are hoping this will give us another tool to help us grow in His Word, apply it to Our Walk so that we can better give glory to God and help others worship!  (Did I get enough focus phrases in there?)  See you online!

more about “worshiptraining.com“, posted with vodpod

What Does it Mean to be a Worship Leader?

Have you ever thought about the term “worship leader”?  We use it all the time and at ECC it mostly refers to me and my job in putting services together and leading the congregational singing.  But have you thought about it?

If I am the worship leader and what we do is worship then what does that make Pastor Denny and the message?  Just talking?

If you are in the worship choir and are leading worship then what does that make the rest of Sunday after you leave the building?  Just a day off?

If you are a tech, dramatist or usher serving during the worship time, then what does that make the rest of your life at work and with your family?  Just free time?

If you look at the NT, you can’t really find anyone who fits the label of what we call a “worship leader”.  To find that, we have to go back to the OT and start with a group of people called “the Levites” who were the “worship leaders” of ancient Israel.    They did everything from sweeping the temple to guarding it’s doors to leading the people in singing.  The Bible gives us a glimpse of their worship gatherings.  “The choir and orchestra of Levites that David had provided for singing and playing anthems to the praise and love of God were all there; across the courtyard the priests blew the trumpets.  All Israelites were on their feet…” (2 Chronicles 7:6- The Message)  These Levites were a family team with deep values that applied to their whole lives…over the next few weeks we’ll take a look at a few of them…first.

UNITY

Remember the story of Moses on the mountain.  He goes up Mt. Sinai to get the 10 Commandments and as he comes down he sees the Israelites going crazy in front of a golden calf.  Moses is horrified and angry.  He stands in front of them and shouts,

“Whoever is for the Lord, come to me.” (Exodus 32)  And the Levites, all of  them, come running to stand with Moses.  To stand with the Lord.  What an amazing scene for the “worship leaders” to lead the people in worship by standing together as a group for the Lord when their friends and family were running the opposite way.

For us, we need to have unity as we lead on Sunday morning.  The unity comes from one place and one person.  And let me tell you…that’s NOT me.  Our unity comes from Jesus and our faith in Him.  He binds us together as a unified team that leads ECC in singing praise.

God uses everyone, but since we are the ones who stand up front on Sunday morning, we are the most visible example of unity people see.

Now I’m not pretending that this comes easily for anyone.  It takes hard work and is everyone’s responsibility.  You might remember that at the beginning of the year we looked at our covenant together that outlined the DNA of who we are as a ministry.  That’s just the first step to this kind of unity.  It means that we say…this is the kind of people we are trying to be and we’re committed to helping each other get there so we can honestly lead others on Sunday morning.  That’s worship leading.

**content from “The Worshiping Artist” by Rory Noland and http://www.worshipmatters.com

Learning to be a Private Worshipper

I’ve realized that over the last few weeks we’ve been focusing on the public side of worship.  That’s where most of us connect and it’s a great Godly thing to come together in public worship, but there is another side too.  That is the other side of worship…the part we don’t talk about as much and the part that doesn’t have pictures to illustrate it.  It’s the private worship life that feeds your public leading of worship.

 

God is a personal God who wants to have a relationship with us individually.  David wrote tons of songs to sing publicly, but this was all shaped by his time alone with the sheep as a shepherds in the fields.  Because personal worshippers worship more regularly, they are able to engage more fully with God and contribute more to our corporate worship times!

 

Personal worshippers take Sunday morning worship home with them and bring their private worship back the next Sunday.  Sunday morning enhances their private worship and their private worship enhances the Sunday morning service!  Can you imagine a Sunday service filled with people who have been worshipping God all week through prayer, singing, meditation and godly living?  It would be so much easier for everyone to engage with God…in fact, we probably wouldn’t need a worship leader!

 

God is the one who calls us to worship because worship only comes out of a relationship with Him.  Our first act of worship is accepting Him into our hearts and lives.  He reveals and we respond.  So how can we do more to engage with God if he initiates?  Rory Noland, in his book “The Worshipping Artist”, gives us three ideas…

 

1.  Make yourself increasingly present to God. God is always present and with us…the question is how present are we to God?

 

2.  Set aside time regularly for private worship. I’ve realized that I need to sing to God one-on-one outside of rehearsals and Sunday morning.

 

3.  Offer yourself completely to God. “Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus.” -Col 3:17

 

So this week, ask yourself:  which one of the 3 suggestions can best help you grow as a private worshipper?

 

___________  Make yourself increasingly present to God.

 

___________  Set aside time regularly for private worship.

 

___________  Offer yourself completely to God.

*adapted from The Worshipping Artist by Rory Noland