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!)

Well, as you’ve noticed, I haven’t been writing a lot lately. To be completely honest I’m a little bit dry.

Enter scribit.

At the top of the right sidebar is now a nifty little widget that you can easily and anonymously tell me what to write about! So, if you have a burning question about worship ministry that you’ve been wondering about, go ahead and type it in.

The cool thing is that others can vote on the suggestions. So if I get a handful of votes for one suggestion, I’ll definitely write about it. Fire away.

Hello all!   I’d like to try something a little different.   I’d like to get to know the readers of this blog a little bit better, and get a feel for what you’d like to know.   So, if you’re a regular reader, someone who’s lurking in the shadows or someone who just happened to stumble upon this site, would you be willing to ask a question that has to do with any aspect of leading worship within the church?   We can learn together as we do this.   So fire away!