Tag Archives: praise

Albums 8 & 9

Continuing the “10 albums that influenced your musical taste” thing I got from my wife and daughter.

As I jot down the backstories associated with this pair of albums, I realize they aren’t probably going to connect with anyone but church folk… but that’s a risk I’ll have to take.

I grew up in church and learned to play a number of 80s & early 90s “church songs” – hymns, praise choruses, and occasional hits in the Contemporary Christian Music genre. A lot of that was to entertain or bless my parents and friends of the family.

Some of it was because our Associate Pastor was a phenomenal pianist who I’m told played backup keys for some high-profile names in the 60s and 70s before coming to Jesus. (I’m trying to find proof of this, but you don’t often see “backup keyboardist” listed anywhere.) Regardless, it was always a treat to see Pastor Bob get rockin’ on the baby grand, and I wanted to learn to be at least half as good as him.

But imitating someone’s style isn’t the same as pouring out your heart in a song. While I prayed a prayer at a young age and professed faith in Christ all my life, I went through an all-too-typical teenage back-and-forth of commitment and complacency or even apathy about my faith.

After joining the Air Force in late ’94, I went through almost two years of training before I got to my first duty station in September ’96. By then I had gotten myself into trouble with a combination of more credit card debt than I knew how to handle, and less responsibility or attention to detail on the job than the Air Force expected of its members. Everything seemed to be falling apart, and at what felt like the bottom, I turned back to God.

Basically, I admitted that if I was going to do this “believe in Jesus” thing, it had to be real or else what was the point?

There was a little church off base that welcomed me in even though I was smoking in the parking lot. They seemed to care more about me than about telling me off for how messed up I was.

When I said I wanted to go there again, the acquaintance who gave me a ride said, “I don’t go there often, but I know someone who goes every week, and she lives in the dorm next to yours.”

I met a lovely young lady named Jami that day who offered to give me a ride to church each week… and later allowed me to talk through a lot of the stuff I had to deal with in my heart in order to grow up (at least a little). She also happened to be one of maybe two or three sincere Christians I knew at the time who felt like peers, so we talked a lot about scripture and spiritual growth. Soon after, as we spent more and more time together, we decided to officially call it “dating,” and a few months after that, I asked her to marry me.

Jami had some albums by this guy, Dennis Jernigan, who sang songs that felt more honest and deep than a simple “This is the day that the Lord has made, let us be glad and rejoice in it” that we might sing in the congregation at church.

Jernigan is also a pianist, and something of a psalmist. He is prolific in his songwriting, and the subjects aren’t all the happy Christian music you might expect Ned Flanders to listen to.

All the Jernigan albums are great if you care for this kind of music and message, but this album, Break My Heart O God, particularly changed my musical tastes.

A friend of mine from my new church asked me to accompany him on “You Are My All In All,” which he wanted to sing as a farewell to the congregation before he moved back to the States. I was happy to play, but as we practiced in private, I also sang along.

“Dave,” he said, “you should totally sing too. We could harmonize. It would be great.”

I was convinced my voice was best left unheard, so I resisted at first, but eventually I agreed. That invitation and encouragement led to me joining up with the worship team, not just to play keys but to sing–and eventually to leadership positions and paying positions in music.

If I had to pick one album that represented the shift in both my heart and my musical taste toward incorporating praise and worship, it is “Break My Heart O God.”

However, not long after joining up with the team, the worship director introduced us to some new songs and a couple of albums that came out from some obscure Christian group with a website called WorshipTogether. Seemed like a bunch of (relatively) edgy stuff from churches and musicians in the UK.

There were these folks I hadn’t heard of before, like Matt Redman, Martin Smith and Delirious?, Stuart Townend, Tim Hughes… eventually David Crowder and Chris Tomlin, among so many others.

This music felt different than the book full of short praise choruses from labels like Integrity’s Hosanna! or Maranatha. And while Hillsong was taking over so much of that market share with what I thought was also good music and meaningful worship, all of this stuff being imported from the UK seemed like where it was at.

(Maybe I should make a Cutting Edge joke here, since that album from Delirious? is almost a tie for deserving the ninth slot. Anyone still reading probably does get that reference.)

This makes me think of one of the best periods of music ministry that I’ve experienced. We would jam out a worship set for almost an hour, listen to the pastor preach for about an hour, and then close with a song… which often turned into another half hour or hour of people just wanting to worship and praise God through singing, dancing, clapping, or just bowing there before the altar.

Not everything about that time was perfect, but it set the bar for what I think of as solid, spontaneous, Spirit-filled worship with a sense of the presence of God… and that’s a place I’ve been returning to as often as possible since.

What Worship is Not

How does something hardly mentioned in the accounts of the New Testament church become a driving force that dominates roughly half of the average church gathering, and determines, for many, whether or not a church feels good or right for them?

Let’s talk about “worship.”

Our chapel praise & worship team had an after-practice discussion on worship and scripture – the first of many, hopefully. We minister in a military chapel, so there is a lot of overturn and change of leadership. The worship leader and I have only been serving for a year now, and while Bible studies were on our “to do” list, unfortunately, life and distractions got in the way.

Our worship leader asked me if I’d be willing to share to get a conversation started. I was happy to do so, and thought, “Since this is our very first one as a team, what’s the most fundamental thing to me about worship and what we do?”

Despite my opening question, there are lots of scriptures that we use to define the importance of music ministry and praise — great stories from the Old Testament such as the musicians leading the army and the enemies destroying one another in confusion; teachings on the Tabernacle of David and how that might apply to us today; all the excellent verses in Psalms; New Testament moments like when Paul and Silas are praising in prison and an earthquake throws the cell doors wide; even instructions suggesting everyone should come to church with a psalm, hymn, or spiritual song so that the body might be edified.

What to choose?

What came to mind wasn’t what I expected.

“What worship is not.”

I felt compelled to look at verses about worship… how the Bible defines it, and how we often use the term today. I’m convinced that the two are very different, or at least that we should be more careful about what we mean when we say “worship.”

There’s the oft-quoted reminder that worship comes from Old English weorthscipe, which is basically “worth-ship,” the quality of being valuable or precious. It’s an expression of how much someone or something is worth to us.  

In other words, true worship costs something.

When I look at scripture and consider the life we’re called to lead, how much of what God instructs us is singing and playing music? In epistle after epistle, Paul writes a letter to churches or leaders where he lays out some theology – some truth about what God has done and what that means – followed by practical instructions for living a life of worship. So little of those instructions are about the “worship” we cherish and esteem so highly.

Paul tells us that offering ourselves as living sacrifices is our “spiritual service of worship” (Rom 12:1). Jesus tells us that “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me” (John 14:21). John later reminds us that the expression of love for God is our obedience (1 John 5:3).

Singing is conspicuously absent.

Imagine if your spouse said, “Honey, I need your help. Can you please do the dishes so I can use them to cook?” Would you express love and the worth of your spouse by singing to them?

I would always do the dishes out of love for you…
I would even take the trash out to the dumpster, too…
I would pick up all the laundry ’round our home… 
This is my love for you, my love for you alone.

Or maybe just do the thing that’s been asked of you. 

If there was a pie chart for what we’re called to do to live the Christian life, singing and playing music is going to be a pretty small slice among the many more practical responsibilities of ministering to the needs of others. If we took all of the commands of Christ and Paul and others in the Bible and tried to map out what’s covered, our current idea of worship as deeply emotional singing to God isn’t going to be big on that list.

If you cooked a worship pie using the Bible’s recipe, it wouldn’t taste like music.

When handling God’s Word, there are two important terms for how we approach and interpret the text:

Exegesis is the process of getting the intended meaning from the text – reading comprehension, informed by context, scholarship, other scripture, lexical aids, and the like. “What does this mean? What did it mean to its audience?”

Eisegesis is reading intended meaning into the text – reading with a bias or preconceived notion. “I want a verse that backs up what I’m saying, something that confirms what I already think is true. Oh, here’s one.”

I found the verse that says what I wanted a verse to say!
… More or less.

Sometimes this leads to well-meaning people sharing as fact or Gospel truth what they’ve heard from well-intentioned teachers, who themselves passed on what they were told by other folks who saw something in a verse or heard something profound and adopted it as a certainty. Then no one fact-checks the familiar teaching, because why would you? 

I’m not chucking spears at any of my fellow believers. We all get things wrong sometimes, and I’ve come up with some amazingly bad interpretations of Scripture. I am trying to chuck spears at some of the phrases and beliefs we accept in the church that aren’t readily apparent in the Bible which defines our faith. 

If we’re not careful, every verse that says anything about someone singing or praising will become a new “teaching on worship,” a new “revelation about the power of praise.” Very quickly, we end up with books and videos full of exposition on verses taken out of context, all feeding our understanding of the importance of new, fresh, anointed, powerful, expressive praise and worship music, much of which pushes us toward purchasing that new song or this new album from an industry of which there seems to be no end in sight.

Cynical, I know. Sorry.

However, the plain reading of scripture to me doesn’t give singing and music the central role in the Body that we do in the church today.

I love doing it, I love being a part of it, I love leading it, I love being in the congregation during it, I love everything about it… but I have to be honest that I just don’t see it at the forefront of what God’s Word calls us to do and be in our churches and our daily lives.

There are more important matters.

For me, getting on stage and playing the piano or singing a song is either an emotional stimulant or an emotional release. I can pour out my frustrations in “worship” and I benefit greatly from it. It’s definitely not some grand sacrifice I’m making, some selfless act worthy of commendation.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful that God gives us a means of expressing our adoration and praise which is so fun and so powerfully moving. It’s just not the sacrificial, selfless lifestyle I see the Bible calling Christians to live out in the day-to-day.

I shared this with the team and my wife, and I got some very important feedback. For some people, getting on stage in front of people is really hard. Being in the spotlight when you want to shrink into the shadows is a challenge. Having to perform or speak through your fears is difficult. I respect that, and don’t want to make light of the effort those people make to serve God in music and song.

Similarly, some worship teams have far more obligation and responsibility. If you’re running the music ministry for a big church with multiple services and you’re wrangling all the moving parts and conflicting schedules, that’s work, no doubt about it. Giving that your best might be a selfless sacrifice, for sure. I don’t want to ignore that either.

My concern is more for this concept that worship – specifically singing and playing music – is the main thing, or one of the main things.

Who was a worship leader in the early church?

Ephesians 4:11 doesn’t read, “And He gave some to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and worship leaders…” yet that’s a prominent role in our churches, with a whole branch of biblical teaching developed around trying to glean every insight from scripture about the power of music and praise.

Are we receiving the intended meaning from the text, or are we reading meaning into passages, hoping to find what confirms our existing assumptions?

Why don’t we read about more worship leaders in the Bible? Should I have to go all the way back to Chenaniah of the Levites in 1 Chr 15 to find someone “in charge of the singing” in corporate worship?

Arguably, Satan is another “biblical worship leader” based on some interpretations of Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14, but I’m not so sure scripture is clear on that. (Links to some interesting articles looking at what Scripture says, what it doesn’t, and what we might infer. Remember, exegesis is good; eisegesis is bad.)

What is the list of qualifications for a worship leader, if the office is so important? We have lists for overseers, deacons, pastors, teachers, and the like – practical instructions and standards for servant leaders who meet the practical needs of the Body.

Why doesn’t Paul give us a glimpse of what the worship leader’s role looks like? Did 100% of churches have that 100% correct, and so it wasn’t necessary in any of his letters? That would be a pretty amazing coincidence.

Again, I am not opposed to what we call worship music, and I’m sure I will continue using that term to describe it, whether out of habit, laziness, or convenience. I just got done playing some songs and singing with my wife, followed by looking into rapid paintings as expressions of worship as part of planning for an upcoming special Night of Worship gathering where all we plan to do is express our hearts to God, mostly through music and song. 

I also think there are fine “lead worshipers” in the Christian community who put some thoughtful and careful teaching out there for all the rest of us wanting to be the next Matt Redman or Kim Walker-Smith. (They’d probably respond with a teaching about “Don’t try to be us. God doesn’t need another Kim Walker-Smith. He wants you.”)

It’s just that I know my heart well enough to catch how easily I choose to “serve” in a way that I enjoy, to “minister” in a way that comes easy, to “worship” in a way that costs me nothing and actually only benefits me. 

So what IS worship?

For me, a convicting display of worship was when I chatted with my friend, a talented singer and passionate lover of Jesus who can easily hold their own belting out a beautiful melody in front of any crowd, who can expertly follow the leading of the Spirit to know what’s the right thing to say or sing at the right time, who has every reason to be up front in the spotlight leading the congregation in praise… 

And instead, they said, “There’s no one running the children’s ministry. This is a need in the Body. This is important. I don’t feel gifted in this, I don’t feel a desire to do this–but I do feel like I need to step up and serve to meet this need.”

That looks to me like biblical worship. That’s a sacrifice.

I get up to play and sing, and I feel like the rich people tossing wads of cash into the collection in front of Jesus, acting like their loose change is something special.

I’m not saying I won’t keep playing or singing songs. I just want to make sure that I’m being honest about what I’m doing, and what I’m not. 


What do you think?

Are we too focused on music when we talk about worship? Have we let new songs and emotional moments overtake practical obedience in what it means to do church and live the Christian life?

Or am I missing something crucial in the way I’m looking at this? Is there some key aspect or benefit of the songs we sing and the way we express our hearts to God which I have neglected? 

Let me know in a comment, or share your thoughts on the matter. I certainly don’t have a lock on spiritual wisdom, and I’d love to hear what God has shown you. 

Evidence All Around

There’s a line from the song, “Here As In Heaven,” by Elevation Worship, which gets me excited about the Body of Christ coming together to praise Him.

The evidence is all around … that the Spirit of the Lord is here.

We’re in the midst of planning a night of worship for the Protestant chapels on Kadena, and part of what’s on my mind for that is the reminder of what Scripture teaches us about the presence of God.

“Don’t you know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” – 1 Corinthians 3:16

Over the years, I’ve heard many lead worshippers and passionate seekers talk about how we approach God through music and corporate praise in terms of a process of “entering into His presence,” or a hopeful desire that “maybe God will show up in our time of worship.”

“Will You come and fill this place? Can we feel Your presence today?”

They’ll quote verses from Psalms and the Old Testament talking about entering His courts and they’ll refer to the three sections of the Tabernacle as if it’s a picture of gradual stages of worship.

“First we’re in the outer courts, kind of like the congregation meeting up in the sanctuary … then some of us will press in to seek God, and we’ll go deeper, further, into the holy place or the inner courts … but then a few might really pursue God and go into the Most Holy place, where His presence is.”

There’s even a song about it that I recall from the ’80s or ’90s. Take me past the outer courts, into the holy place… take me in to the Holy of Holies.

But we’re not living in the old covenant, where only the select ones can enter the presence of God. Those songs and ideas at least recognized that all of us are welcomed into God’s presence because of Christ, but I feel like they’re still lacking a key understanding of what has changed since we are now in Christ.

You are the Temple of God.

About two decades ago, I decided that this faith in Christ had to be the real thing in my life – not “I grew up in church,” not “I’ve always been a Christian,” not “I’m an American so of course Jesus loves me,” and so on. I rededicated my life to Christ about two decades ago and have stumbled and faltered my way toward Him ever since. One of the sermons I remember from early on in that time was framed around 1 Cor 3:16 and 1 Cor 6:19 which say very similar things.

The Spirit of God is in you.

Why would we be seeking to enter the presence of God, when He became Emmanuel – God With Us – to dwell among us forever? Why would we be striving to work up an emotional moment that we can call “entering the presence of God” when He is already here with us, wherever we go, whatever we’re doing, any time, all the time?

The pastor focused on Paul’s question, “Don’t you know?” It almost seems like a challenge: Hey, don’t you understand? Don’t you get it? Are you not aware of this?

Not a hateful or condescending put-down, but a caring re-emphasis on what matters. Don’t you know about this? This is important. This is crucial. You have to know this.

The Spirit of God dwells in you.

If that’s true, that changes things in worship. (It changes a lot of other things too.)

I don’t have to work up a passionate moment or a goosebumps feeling to know that God is already “here” in the room and in the moment with me. I don’t have to strive to make it through some stages or jump through some religious hoops to where now I somehow earned or deserve to access His presence – He already did all the work in redeeming me and putting His Spirit in me.

We know this is true of the Gospel – we don’t do good to earn Jesus points or secure some kind of hopeful “maybe” for salvation. God saved us through Christ, all our sin forgiven, all our debt paid, all the work done by Him so that “by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Eph 2:8-9)

My pastor years ago reminded us of the truth of what Scripture says (what’s true even when we don’t feel like it or don’t remember it). You are the temple of God. When you wake up in the morning, remember that you’re not asking God to show up sometimes during your day or hoping that maybe He’ll look your way now and then. He is right there, right then, with you always, wherever you go.

The problem isn’t that we need God to show up or that we need to enter His presence. The problem is that we often need to be reminded of what God has said and what He has already done.

He isn’t withholding Himself or limiting Himself, playing keep away or hide and seek with us. Sometimes, we get distracted or caught up in everything else going on, and we’re not staying aware of God’s presence.

We can choose to remind ourselves of this truth, though… just as we must often be reminded of the promises and the goodness of God.

A pastor I heard once preached a basic sermon, but pointed out, “The problem isn’t that we need to hear some new thing, some magic trick that will energize us spiritually or make us always successful. The problem is how easily we forget the basics, and how often we need to remind ourselves of what God says is true… which is nothing new, but something very necessary.”

When we look around our church sanctuary – or the living room of someone’s house where believers are gathered in His Name – then the evidence is right there all around you, hinted at in the myriad faces of the faithful, testifying:

The Spirit of the Lord is here.

Remind Me

A few weeks back, I wrote a song — something I haven’t done in quite some time — based on a similar theme coming to me from several angles.

I had been reading “Accidental Saints” by Nadia Bolz-Weber, a Lutheran pastor I had seen popping up on my YouTube feed. I don’t agree with everything she has to say, or how she chooses to say it… but when she starts talking about the grace and love of God, she is so on point.

Additionally, I had been playing keys for worship at a few churches, and singing songs like “Who You Say I Am” or listening to songs like Lauren Daigle’s perfect “You Say” which capture the theme of our identity in Christ.

Contrast that with the reality that I know how messed up I am and how often I blow it, how often I miss the mark, how often all my striving or all my lazy giving up just isn’t enough. And yet God’s love is there, even in the midst of my abject failure.

I thought of a great picture I saw where an artist captured the constant sense of “I should be doing X” whenever I am doing Y. I should be blogging, so I blog… but then I think I should be getting my work stuff done, so I get on that… but then I think I should be going outside and getting fit, so I do… but then I realize I should be at home spending time with my family, so I do… but then I remember I meant to write more of my book, so I do… but as I’m writing, I realize I don’t get enough sleep, so I go to bed early, but then I wake up and realize I should have been blogging…

It’s easy to dwell on all the voices in life that whisper ‘should’ and tsk-tsk every time I don’t. It’s easy to constantly reach for the next thing and the seemingly better thing and miss all the good things going on around me. It’s easy to think my worth is found in what I do and what people think or how many likes or shares or retweets I get (and thus it’s easy to despair when I don’t see those).

In those times… heck, at all times, I need Someone to remind me of what’s true.

Remind me of Your mercy, remind me of Your grace

Given to the undeserving, who are welcome in this place.

Remind me of Your patience for the weary and the faint,

Remind me of Your favor toward us sinners You call saints.

 

Keep me in that place of awe and wonder

Where the power of Your grace still pulls me under

Awash in Your mercy, lost in the thought

That the very One who died for is the One my soul fought

Yet You heal and restore me, the sinner that You sought

And transformed in Your glory, the life that You bought

With the blood You poured out for me, my sins have been washed

And exchanged for Your righteousness there upon the cross…

 

Remind me of Your promise, and of Your faithfulness.

Remind me that nothing I do will make You love me less.

Remind me of Your calling, and what You called me for.

Remind me that nothing I do will make You love me more.

Remind me of Your favor toward us sinners You adore

Remind me who You are

Remind me who You say I am

Compliments and Confidence

I had the privilege of singing the Japanese and American National Anthems for my unit’s Change of Command ceremony this week. It went well. I didn’t make any significant mistakes (that I’m aware of at least). I received several compliments. Some people seemed genuinely surprised.

It got me thinking about the distance between compliments for a job well done, and confidence that we can do a job well.

I spend a lot of time in front of other people–public speaking in the form of leading mission briefs and planning discussions, public singing and musical performance in church bands or for secular functions, and of course… writing.

At a recent writing group, we talked about how hard it can be to accept the compliments or to truly believe “My work is of sufficient quality.” People give compliments to be polite, right? It’s easy to shrug those off or downplay them… after all, that’s the humble thing to do, and no one likes an arrogant jerk, right?

“Oh, it’s no big thing, you know, I’ve been doing this for years… just another day to me. Glad you liked it.”

The reason these thoughts came to mind was because then someone didn’t say something to me about the performance. Immediately doubts and questions arose. Did they not like it? Did they think I sucked? Was I off key? Were they not impressed? Do they care at all? Do they know how good I am? Am I not that good? Why didn’t they say something when all those other people did? What did I do wrong that they didn’t like?

The truth is, none of those things are true.  I didn’t do anything wrong and I did just fine if not awesome (if the compliments are to be believed). Yet that brief moment of silence creates so many questions where none are necessary.

Early on, in singing or speaking or writing, I needed those compliments – I need some praise and assurance. “You are good at this.”  That can become a crutch, a dependency that nags at the back of my mind when I check site views or book reviews. When I participate in a critique group and put my work out there to other writers, I might come at that experience looking for validation instead of constructive feedback.

“Oh, you’re so good at this!”

*fake blush* Thank you, I know…

On the other hand, I don’t want to become arrogant or overconfident about how good I think I am. That’s the danger of believing the compliments a little too easily: acting as though I’ve mastered a thing when I’m really only an amateur.

So I presume and hope that there is a comfortable middle ground—a  place where I can be confident in my abilities while remaining grateful for the praise I earn. Something like the prophets in the Bible following the phrase “Don’t look at their faces.” Don’t try to figure out how everyone feels about what you’re doing–figure out how to do it, and just go for your best.

That’s a place where I’m not dependent on what others think to find my own validation. A place where I know I do pretty fine at X, Y, and Z… but I still want to get better at them.

Today, I’ll be signing books at the Base Exchange and shaking customers’ hands. I have no illusions about how minor a thing it is to get a story published in a Chicken Soup for the Soul book. It’s not the first step to becoming a Stephen King or George Martin.

But a company paid money for my words and put them in print. Salespeople suggested “What if you came and signed books?” Maybe some people will buy it, even if just as a novelty.

So it’s something. And today, that’s enough.

Glee Worship

My wife and I are admitted “Gleeks” since about the end of the first season. For whatever reason, this current season isn’t doing it for us. We half-watched the most recent episode (where the boys of the Glee Club produce a male model calendar to raise money), and my wife and I discussed our feelings on the show. Her assessment was:

“They made it all smutty. That’s what you do when you don’t have any real ideas.”

It’s the easy kill. When you don’t have a character-driven plot, you can rest assured: Sex sells.

So what does this have to do with a Wednesday Worship post?

Simple. As worshipers, we need to make sure we’re not going for the “easy kill.”

The great thing about worship music is that it touches the emotions so powerfully, which is also the worst thing about it.

As worship leaders, we can chain together a number of moving choruses, maybe working in some sweet transitions so that one song flows into another smoothly. We know how to build up excitement and how to bring things down into intimacy. We know how to drive the beat with energy and how to slow things down with passion. We can orchestrate emotional highs and lows, playing the congregation like another instrument in the band.

We must never do this. That’s what you do when you don’t have any real ideas.

Louie Giglio (yes, the one that didn’t get to speak at the Inauguration) tweeted something on Sunday that I really appreciated. “Preparing to lead others in worship instinctively requires some worship of our own.” My worship pastor’s wife posted something similar: “When you’ve been in the Word all week at home, worship at church is WAY sweeter!”

I used to think, “Man, I hope the worship team does something awesome on Sunday to get me motivated.” Then I learned, when I was already excited about what God was doing, I didn’t care what songs they played — I was just happy to respond to Him.

I’ve seen this on a larger scale in churches where much of the congregation sticks around after the service just to sing praises and celebrate who God is and what He’s done. I’ve had to play for over an hour after the official close of the service just because people are still eager to respond to God’s love. (I say “had to” but it was a privilege.)

It wasn’t anything we did as a worship team; it’s what people focused on, and it was our commitment as a church to seek God and not just a good time.

Worship is not about doing what sells, hitting the right chords to pluck the heart-strings of the congregation. It’s about a meaningful relationship, a set of songs that matters and communicates truth, an expression of love and gratitude that helps us come in line with what God is doing in our midst.

Any decent worship team can go the Glee route and perform the current Top 40 hits to manufacture a response. But that’s the easy road, the equivalent of smut episodes during May sweeps.

I want to be sure that my worship is authentic. I want the plot of my worship to be character-driven, coming to know God’s character and seeing my own reshaped to match His.

If I realize I don’t have any idea what that is, it’s not time to play songs for cheap thrills. It’s time to get some revelation.

A Mouthful

Monday Morning Snack

My mouth is filled with Your praise
And with Your glory all day long.
Psalm 71:8 NASB

What sort of “snack” are we giving others to eat?

I saw this verse, and the question popped into my mind: “What is my mouth full of?” Maybe it’s because I’m dieting, but I thought of a mouthful of food.

How does that “mouth full” taste to the people around me? How does that “mouth full” taste to me?

Let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name. Hebrews 13:15 NASB (emphasis mine)

What comes out of our mouths? Is it fruit that will delight our God and satisfy another’s soul? Or is our fruit rotten and withered by pessimism and unbelief, moldy and putrid because of bitterness and anger?

James drives this point home in writing about the power of our words:

8 But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God; 10 from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way. 11 Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water? 12 Can a fig tree, my brethren, produce olives, or a vine produce figs? Nor can salt water produce fresh. James 3:8-12 NASB

We all slip up and say things we know we ought not to say. All of us can think of a time where we said words we wish we could take back. We may never be perfect in our choice of words, but we must still aim for perfection.

This prayer of David is one of my favorite in the Psalms, and it reminds me to be careful about the “mouth-fulls” I allow:

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
Be acceptable in Your sight,
O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. Psalm 19:14 NASB

So… what’s in your mouth?

Worship Leaders?

Spotlight on, set list prepped, intro video fades, and drummer clicks us into the opening riffs of the popular song to get the crowd clapping.

It’s worship!

No, really. Trust us. (Maybe it’s the warm-up to worship? Will you buy that?)

It’s a Wednesday Worship post, at least.

Okay, I hear cool worship blogs have all the videos and teh YouTubes. I guess I should try that.

Right, so… what’s the problem there? (Kidding.)

That’s how we often come across. There’s a nugget of truth in any joke. The video addresses a lot of elements of “contemporvant” church services, but I’m of course thinking of the portrayal of worship.

What about contemporary church worship makes us come across as fake? What makes it seem like we’re just revving up emotions and holding a concert instead of seeking a genuine encounter with God?

It’s all about Him… but keep looking at me.

For one, I believe it’s the thought that there’s a Worship Leader, and then there’s Everyone Else.

We sometimes put these men and women up in front of the crowd, and the attention of the entire room goes onto their words, expressions, and gestures. “A thousand people are watching you intently. No pressure. Be godly.”

At our current church in Bellevue, we’re instructed and reminded that all of the singers, musicians, and technicians who get up on stage are actually worship leaders. And when we use that term, I get the impression we’re talking about “lead worshipers” instead.

It seems like semantics, but Matt Redman makes a really good point in his book, “The Unquenchable Worshipper.” The concept is, when you talk about a worship leader or leaders, you are emphasizing the person in the front, the individual who is guiding and directing all of us in our singing and praising God. When you change the order of the words to talk about lead worshipers, you emphasize that we have some folks up front on the stage who are worshiping God, and we all want to go along with them where they’re headed.

This is a fantastic book.

Redman points out that the Holy Spirit is the real Worship Leader, if anyone is. It’s our job to tune in and figure out where God is going, and then point the way as we pursue Him. We’re not leading anything. We’re following. We’re just up front for everyone else to see, so that they can follow too.

Our Worship Pastor emphasizes this well. He reminds us, “You are all worship leaders. When the congregation looks at you on stage, they’re watching to see how you’re worshiping. But they keep watching when you step off the stage, when you pray before the service, when you mingle with people after the service. You’re showing them how to worship God at all times, not just when you stand up on stage.”

Like I said in last week’s Wednesday Worship post, “worship” is whatever we do to express God’s worth.

It doesn’t end when you set down the mic or put up your guitar. It doesn’t stop when your worship team steps off the stage or the lyrics fade off the screen. It’s not over when the person in front finishes praying and invites the congregation to be seated.

If you’re on a “worship team,” understand that you are a lead worshiper. You are a visible reminder of God’s presence. Some of your fellow church members are probably paying close attention to what you do and how you live.

And if you’re not on a worship team, if you’re “only” a church member, please understand that your worship is just as vital and necessary. All of us are on the worship team in God’s eyes. All of us are created and called to express His worth in the world.

Now there’s some growtivation!

Worship Defined

What is Worship?

Though this is not the first post on my blog about worship, this is the first Wednesday Worship post. Because worship music is a passion of mine, I hope to use this weekly category to cover some of the myths and truths about how we do worship in the Church.

BCC Worship prep
Part of worship, yes.
All there is to worship? No.

Since we usually mean “singing and playing music” when we talk about worship, that’s going to be the main focus. But there is much more to worship than just the songs we perform on Sunday morning.

So what is worship?

Merriam-Webster gives a few applicable definitions:

1. reverence offered a divine being or supernatural power; also: an act of expressing such reverence.

2. a form of religious practice with its creed and ritual

As a verb, it is to perform an act of devotion, honor, or reverence based on the above.

The word comes from the concept of “worth” or “worthiness.” It’s an act that says “You are worth this much to me.”

That goes way beyond mere singing and playing music, doesn’t it?

So, what is worship?

In a way, it’s everything we do, to the extent that we do it for God’s glory. Worship is our expression of God’s worth, of our respect and honor and reverence for Him.

If I do a good job at work because I believe I am to work as unto the Lord, my work becomes worship.

If I bite my tongue instead of biting off my co-worker’s head because I realize that God calls me to forgive others and treat them with love, that is worship.

When we cheerfully give in the offering plate or cheerfully meet the needs of others, we are worshiping God as much as when we sing hymns and songs of praise.

When I have no words to say, let alone sing, and I simply fall to my knees before God, pouring out my heart’s burden of grief or sorrow, that is worship.

Paul tells us that living our lives as sacrifices offered to God is our spiritual act of worship.

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. (Romans 12:1 NASB)

The Messageparaphrase puts it this way:

A Lead Worshiper
Worship is service as much (if not more) than it is singing

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.

There’s definitely a place for singing and playing music as an expression of our hearts and of God’s worth. And that will occupy the spotlight in my future posts about worship, because that’s an important part of who I am and what I’m gifted to do.

But I want to be clear from the outset about what worship really is.

Because if you think about it, and you trust what the Bible reveals about God, then there’s a lot more He wants from us than a song and dance at church.

These thoughts make me consider the following questions:

  • In what ways do I enjoy worshiping God?
  • In what ways can I improve?
  • Is there any part of my “everyday, ordinary… walking-around life” that is not placed before God?
  • How can I more fully embrace all that God does for me?

Song: How Great You Are

Link to song on SoundCloud: How Great You Are

Friday night, I got to spend a little time banging on the keys, playing and singing songs to worship. Some were to prepare for Sunday, and some were simply because I enjoy them.

I found a few chord progressions I liked, and started putting some lyrics together for a melody that formed in my head. Then I realized I could combine these lyrics and the music with the words of the old hymn, “How Great Thou Art.”

That hymn is a favorite for my Dad, who is 100% Swedish. A young Swedish pastor penned the lyrics after a stroll through the woods experiencing the glory of God revealed in nature. Like many hymns, it quickly turns attention to Christ’s sacrifice and atonement for our sin on the Cross, followed by a reminder of the glorious hope of eternity with God.

The bridge I added, the part with “Sing my soul how great this God,” was meant to be the crescendo of praise in the song. I wanted the music and the words to be something that builds up to a point where I throw everything I have into worship, into the music, into my relationship with God, into living for Him. After all, what good is a song that sounds great right now as I sing it but does not remind me or challenge me to continue living out its message?

How Great You Are

Verse 1
      O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder
      consider all the worlds Thy hands have made
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder
      Thy pow’r throughout  the universe displayed

Chorus

Then sings my soul   My Savior God to Thee
How great You are
God, how great You are to me
Praises bring to the matchless King
God how great You are
How great You are

Verse2

And when I think             that God His Son not sparing
Sent Him to die, I             scarce can take it in
That on the Cross             my burden gladly bearing
He bled and died to        take away my sin

Bridge

Sing my soul how great this God    Everlasting      Ever  loving

Sing my soul how great this God   Never ending  Never failing

God how great You are   God how great You are

Verse 3
When Christ shall come      with shouts of acclamation
and  take me   home what joy shall fill my heart
Then I shall bow               in humble adoration
and then proclaim “My God how great Thou art!”
Now sings my soul, my Savior, God, to Thee