Week FOUR - Worship History

In Dan Wilt's EBook, one of the reflection questions seemed perfect for this blog post. Here's what he asked:

In what ways did a work of art, a building, a piece or performance of music shape your own worship life? Is there a favorite song, or a favorite painting, that has had some significant influence in your life as a worshiper? What is it about that song or work of art that moves you?

I have both a song and a quote from another song to answer this question. In all honesty, I could list one hundred song lyrics that have impacted my life in an intense way. I find that I just cling to lyrics so much during the hard times.

The song that changed my worship life is When the Tears Fall by Tim Hughes. The part of the song that got to me most was these lyrics (it's a big chunk of the song - haha):

I've had questions without answers
I've known sorrow, I have known pain
But there's one thing that I cling to
You are faithful, Jesus You're true

When hope is lost
I call You Saviour
When pain surrounds
I call You Healer
When silence falls
You'll be the song within my heart

And I will praise You
I will Praise You
When the tears fall
Still I will sing to You
I will praise You
Jesus praise You
Through the suffering
Still I will sing to You

I was in a worship band what had monthly C&C worship nights when this song came to my attention. My husband and I had walked a 2 1/2 year journey of infertility and had been blessed with a miracle baby girl and now were 2 years into the journey of 2nd infertility. I never thought God would allow me to walk the road twice. So when this song came into our worship night set-list, it took me a while to be able to sing it and actually MEAN it.

There were a few nights when I could sing "Through the suffering, still I will sing" and be joy filled because I knew praising God was what I needed to do, no matter the circumstance. But there were some nights when singing those words took every ounce of emotional energy out of me and they were sang more in desperation then in belief.

This song gave me permission to hurt AND worship at the same time, which changed everything for me. I was always given the impression worship had to be happy and praise filled. That's not the case and spending time in worship when you are at your lowest point can be the most refreshing and God filled moment you will experience.

The quote that changed the way I LEAD worship is by Misty Edwards (I believe she wrote this, Jesus Culture also performs these words):

I don't want to take about you, like you're not in the room.
I want to look right at you, I want to sing right to you.

So many times when I am leading on stage, I can get distracted by what the congregation is doing, or what the musicians are - or are not doing. This quote runs through my head now and puts me back in the place I should be. Worship is ALL about Him. He's standing right there with us, enjoying our worship. It's so easy to forget in all the logistics. But if we don't believe that He is there and that we are able to sing right to Him, then why are we doing it in the first place??

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Week THREE - Worship History

This week we are focusing on Symbolic Actions in the Church in regards to Worship.

I mentioned this quote already in my little forum write up, but I can't get it out of my head, so I'm going to blog about it. Again, it's from Dan Wilt's EBook:

“A sacrament might best be defined as “An outward sign that conveys an inward grace.”

Right away, this quote made me think of my own baptism. But before I write about that, I really wanted to look up the definition of GRACE. A few of the definitions I found online fit right into my baptism story.

Grace - "A temporary immunity or exemption; a reprieve."
Grace - "Divine love and protection bestowed freely on people."
Grace - "The state of being protected or sanctified by the favor of God."
Grace - "Mercy; clemency."

People always asked me when I was in my teens why I, the Pastors daughter, had not yet been baptized? All of my friends had taken the step of baptism, shouldn't I have been with them? Did I think I was holier then them? Did I not feel it was important? Did I feel that being the Pastors kid was enough to get me to Heaven? Did I not have my OWN relationship with Jesus?

None of those were true.

I was NOT a good teenager. I was the Pastor's kid that everyone talked about, that got "told on" often when I was out with my friends doing what I shouldn't have been doing and someone from the congregation saw me. I did all of the bad things that most teenagers don't worry about till they are 17, I did them by 15. Was it a rebellion against my parents lifestyle? Being forced to believe in God? Having to be perfect all the time because everyone was watching me? Or did I just want to try all of those things.

ALL of those were true.

I didn't get baptized in my teens because I KNEW the importance of baptism and I did not feel that I was near the place I should be in my relationship with God to take that step. It wasn't about what everyone around me thought, or what my parents wanted. I could not make that commitment to God until I knew I could stick to it and never walk away from it.

After graduating high school at 17, I went on to Bible School. Not many of my friends were going, as I wasn't really hanging around with Christians at the time of my graduation but I had always wanted to go to Bible School, so I stuck with my plan. This is where my turn around happened. God FOUND me and allowed me to discover who I was in Him. He was patient and allowed me to discover Him when I was ready.

I DID get baptized, at 19 years old, just a few weeks before my wedding to my husband of now 12 years who I met at Bible School. I got baptized because I was committed to God and never wanted to walk away from Him. I FINALLY had found that GRACE inside of me that I had been trying to uncover. The GRACE was from God, but I hadn't allowed myself to really believe it was there, or to accept it.

When I found that GRACE, I was finally willing to have an outward sign telling everyone that I believed in the GRACE of my Heavenly Father and that I was accepting it and wanting to walk in it.

Accepting grace is an ongoing battle, we can feel so unworthy and we need to give ourselves permission to look past the bad we've done and focus on what He has given to us. But I'm so glad I waited until I was ready, until it was on MY terms.

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Week TWO - Worship History

We are talking about PRAYER and SCRIPTURE this week.

THIS struck me when reading Dan Wilt's EBook:

"We don’t have an indication that every day was filled with corporate singing, but we do have an indication that every day held some form of corporate prayer in the worship life of the earliest followers of Jesus."

I had not really thought much about CORPORATE prayer in regards to my church life currently or how it was when I grew up. But now that I sit back and think about it, corporate prayer is such a TINY part of our time together as a community!

During our service, worship and the teaching time are the biggest parts of our service. Someone prays before we start worship and sometimes before the teaching time and then at the end of the service. But that's once a week! And I think even then, we should be spending WAY more time in our services for PRAYER!

When I think of other religions that wake up in the middle of the night to pray, or who have days put aside for prayer, or churches who have prayer meetings every day...I think it's a great! Not always practical but it really keeps them absorbed in prayer, in talking to the Father DAILY. That is something I struggle with.

Do we maybe focus more on worship because it's a form of entertainment? Even the teaching can be filled with points/videos/jokes to entertain us. Is that why we don't spend as much time in prayer? Too serious? Too depressing at times? Too self-focused?

I don't have the answers, but this is making me think. When planning a service, I really want to incorporate more prayer - even though I am VERY afraid of praying in public, it's such a personal thing for me.

Imagine if we went back to the "old days" and made it a priority to have CORPORATE prayer every single day. Praying TOGETHER every day for those around us, for our hurting world. Pretty sure we would see change.

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Week ONE - Worship History

In Dan Wilt's video "The Worship Languages of Time and Space 2", he mentioned something that struck me. He is talking about events that are very important in the timeline of Christianity, mostly Sunday's. Examples would be Advent, Lent, Christmas, Easter Sunday, etc...

In all honesty most of those holidays, except for Christmas, come and go so fast without much attention paid to them, that I tend to forget WHY we honor these days and WHY they should mean so much to me as a believer.

Dan said that "We are so eager to get to the event... and say it's all been done that
we forget to re-anticipate." How true is that?? Do I spend any time thinking about what happened in history to lead up to these important days? Do I reflect on what God DID, on the amazing works that happened?

I realized that I really do not spent time anticipating. I anticipate Christmas because I have to get all of my gifts bought. But do I think about spending time really pressing into my daughter the importance of this holiday? Of the traditions we have?

And I'm surprised by the realization that I don't spend enough time anticipating because I tend to get a little upset by how lackluster many of our church services are around these holidays. I am always thinking that there could have been way more thought put into the services, especially since these are times of the year that many come to church for the first time that season. Why are we not taking those opportunities to reach those walking in the doors? It frustrates me that we don't put more energy into telling the stories and the realities of those events. But maybe the people putting together the services are doing what Dan said. Just happy to have it all done and in place...which is probably how I would be most of the time.

What a challenge to start RE-ANTICIPATING and really pondering the importance of what God has done and all that goes along with the stories in the Bible and applying them to my life NOW.

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