i am an offering

Fred McKinnon just shared a link to his answers to five questions on worship he was asked by The Worship Journals and asked that we comment on his post with the answers to our questions.  I thought this would make a better blog post than a comment so here we go:

Five Questions on Worship

1. What does Worship Mean to You?

Worship means exalting something greater than we currently or previously have exalted it in our own mind.  We could worship a situation.  We could worship an experience.  We could worship a thing.  To me, I try above all else to worship God.  This means surrending myself, my thoughts, whatever I might be exalting at any given moment in time and exalting Him above it all.  This means letting myself decrease and Him increase.  This means letting God be the object of my worship every minute of each day.

2. What Causes You to Worship?

Ultimately - the Holy Spirit.  I can’t worship without the power of God prompting me to do so.  It’s impossible, so the Holy Spirit is what causes me to worship.  But as far as what the Holy Spirit uses to prompt me to worship:  music is a given for me.  So many types of music are used to prompt me to worship.  It helps immensely if the music directs my thoughts toward God and who He is, but I can also be prompted by the beauty and design of orchestral music or the spontaneity and skill of jazz music.  I can see the Creator’s hand in the creativity and complexity of both of these types of music.  I am also prompted by seeing people honor and glorify God in decisions they make and situations they’re in.  Mountains also prompt me to worship.  They show me how puny I am and how amazingly huge God is.  If the mountains are that majestic - how much more the One who Created them!

3. How is Worship Displayed in Your Life?

I hope that it is displayed in the way I live it.  I desire to live a life that exalts God every day and puts to death everything that doesn’t.  I want to offer my life as a living sacrifice to Him.  I hope that worship is displayed in my marriage, my relationship with my daughter, my relationship with my church and pastor, my relationship with my co-workers and through every interaction I have with people.

4. What is Your Favorite Song and Why?

Can it be the top 50? :-)  I think at the moment the song that the Holy Spirit is using most to speak to me would be “Let Your Kingdom Come” by Sovereign Grace Music off of the Valley of Vision album. I keep coming back to it and it keeps replaying in my mind.  It is such a good declaration to lift God’s cause higher than our own and to get my priorities out of the way and make my life about His priorites.

How would you answer these four questions?  (You can be brief, if you like!)

One of the things that can keep a congregation from worshiping God is being distracted by unprepared musicians or teachers. What are some things that keep us from getting more skillful at our instrument or voice technique?

• Lack of desire to get better. This can come from thinking that you’re already good enough or it can come from believing that it doesn’t matter to do things with skill and that “God accepts us just the way we are.” While that is true, it is a Biblical concept to play with skill and also a Biblical concept to do things to the best of our abilities, doing everything we do for the Glory of Jesus. There is always room for improvement and it is so important that we are life long learners. If you are struggling with a lack of desire to get better, you might want to take a listen to this great message from Ken Boer and Pat Sczebel.
• Not practicing. So many worship team members think that it’s okay to just show up for rehearsal without preparation and then show up for the service without practicing. Why do we expect the pastor to spend literally hours upon hours preparing for the message but we’re fine with the musicians putting in only practice with the team but not any personal preparation? Not only does practicing make you a better player or singer, it’s makes you less of a distraction during a meeting because you are confident at what you’re doing and can look like you’re enjoying yourself and worshiping God instead of being buried in the music.
• Not listening to a variety of styles and genres, or just plain not listening to anything. It is so important that we constantly listen to music for inspiration and examples. Listen to new songs, listen to old songs, listen to rock songs, listen to jazz songs, listen to chant, listen to everything you can listen to (as long as it does not focus your mind away from God with its message.) Pick out your specific instrument or listen closely to how the vocals blend.
• Along with that, we limit our skill by declaring that we only like a particular style of worship. It is just as dangerous to proclaim that we can only worship “contemporary” music as well as proclaiming that we can only worship with hymns. Take in both and take in a lot of both.

Can you think of any more skill lids?

For the rest of this week, I want to look at what keeps us from reaching the next level in any aspect of worshiping God - what lids keep us stuck in the box we’re in instead of letting us break out and move forward. Today, our pastor and I are meeting to talk about the lids that are currently at our church and what we can do to break out of them. I’m looking forward to the discussion. But here, we’ll look at these things tomorrow through Friday:

• Personal Lids - what keeps you from worshiping God?
• Corporate Lids - what keeps your congregation from worshiping God?
• Skill Lids - what keeps you and/or your congregation from moving to a higher level of quality and excellence in your musical and/or technical skills?

Have any lids you can already think of?

We had a great Sunday at Living Word. A great Sunday. We’re in the midst of slightly redesigning the worship service, which is exciting, but in the meantime, this is how yesterday looked:

• Blessed be Your Name (Redman)
• Hosanna (Baloche/Brown)
• Hosanna, Loud Hosanna (Traditional Hymn arranged in a modern style)
• All Glory Laud and Honor (Traditional Hymn)
• Offering (Baloche)
• Closed with Sovereign Grace’s arrangement of Come Christians Join to Sing.

Some highlights of the music were when the children walked through the congregation with palm branches during “Hosanna, Loud Hosanna” and had a wonderful moment of teaching from one of our awesome Sunday school volunteers. Another highlight was that my mother-in-law was playing from chord sheets from the first time after years and years of being a classical piano player (nice work!!). The only glitch was that the words for “Come Christians Join to Sing” weren’t the right words, so we had to look off the screen. But it still worked great.

The best part of the day, for me though, was Pastor Wade’s teaching on worship. Wow. What a great sermon. You really should take a listen. And I’ll give you a hint, it had little to do with music.

We also had the privilege of hanging out at Pizza Ranch and watching the movie “Amazing Grace.” Great food, great movie, great fellowship. Great time.

A great day on Sunday at Living Word.

Songs:

• Sing to the King (Foote)
• Marvelous Light (Charlie Hall)
• Jesus, Thank You (Pat Sczebel - Sovereign Grace Music)
• Jesus Paid it All

I will never get sick of Jesus, Thank You. What an amazing song to sing. Pastor Wade taught on four curses that came about as a result of the fall. One of the has been a very tricky subject for many Christians - the curse that man would rule over woman. He did such an awesome job explaining these things and pointing out that if men don’t step it up in there own lives and be a true spiritual head that is willing to die for his wife as Christ died for the church than it will never work. I’d encourage you to take a listen to the sermon. It was phenomenal. One fantastic quote from Wade:

Whoops, did I just do the stereotype of the American sitcom? Dad’s you want to get down about your role in life, just watch TV. Men, you will start to see that the cultural expectation for you is to commit adultery and to buy beer…we men are easy bait…God wants you to step up and lead your families…He wants you on your knees, taking your family before the Lord, doing battle. He wants you on your knees, He wants you in His word, to step up and be a man!”

Truth Project in small group was awesome. We looked at “Who is God” and El Qannah, one of the Hebrew names for God rocked my world. Study that name sometime. It will challenge, change and blow your mind on who God is.