Posts tagged with "worship"
Thursday, 5. November 2009, 08:22:29
salvation, worship, christian, prayer
“We glorify God by working out our own salvation. God has twisted together his glory and our good. What an encouragement is this to the service of God, to think, while I am hearing and praying, I am glorifying God; while I am furthering my own glory in heaven, I am increasing God’s glory.
Would it not be an encouragement to a subject, to hear his prince say to him, You will honour and please me very much, if you will go to yonder mine of gold, and dig as much gold for yourself as you can carry away? So, for God to say, Go to the ordinances, get as much grace as you can, dig out as much salvation as you can; and the more happiness you have, the more I shall count myself glorified.”
—Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1997), 13-14
Sunday, 18. October 2009, 05:34:11
church, worship
This morning's worship was the most awe-inspiring time that I have experienced in ages.Outwardly there wasn't anything obvious, but I felt there was a strong presence of God, an anointing in the praise time that I haven't felt for some time. It's hard to define but somehow I feel God is moving among us.No miracles, no angels-- just a strong affirmation that God is in this place.I was really touched by the boys grabbing flags to wave, Sarah dancing and other spontaneous expressions of praise. It was as if they all wanted to get in on the worship action! Rozina's sermon about the levels of forgiveness was great, and well worth downloading and listening to.I love being in church!
Thursday, 27. August 2009, 07:54:45
church, worship
The problem that many have with God is that we are so self-obsessed that we have never learned to take our eyes off ourselves for even one minute.
We spend our lives looking after our own comfort, standing on our own two feet, demanding our rights. Never does it occur to us that someone else might have a greater right to our attention and our allegiance.
Even amongst those who claim to be christians, many have only ever responded to God by asking Jesus into their heart to either escape the fear of hell or to ensure a more prosperous life now.
Worship is something that is so difficult because it demands that we offer ourselves- body, mind,soul- to another. Worship demands that we take the focus off ourselves and look deeply into the eyes of the one who has purchased us with His own life.
Ironically all of the attempts by the church to make worship easier get in the way precisely at this point. When we invest megabucks on lighting or sound or air-conditioning or creche, or when we produce inoffensive "seeker-sensitive" services, or develop a preaching message that pretends that Jesus is our great servant, then the church is conspiring with the fleshly demands of unconverted sinners in keeping the attention firmly directed to self.
To be honest, I don't know where the line is between maximising the participation of worshippers by minimising distractions and just simply pandering to fleshly comfort.
It's probably safe to assume that true worshippers will worship God in 0 degrees or 40 degrees, in wooden pews or padded chairs, with ye olde hymns played by an 80 year old organist with cataracts or a hip young band playing Hillsong. The same true worshippers will be equally jubilant in a home group as in the big celebration. They will rejoice in economic booms and recession, in war and in peace, in sickness and in health.
When God calls you to worship, are you looking at Him or at you?
Wednesday, 26. August 2009, 07:34:03
church, worship
Michael Spencer, the
internet monk has been writing a very thoughtful series on evangelical liturgy. He's coming from a U.S. Southern Baptist tradition and is trying to engage his denomination with the need to develop depth of Biblical understanding and practice.
Since their experience is very similar to the practice in many Australian contemporary churches, including New Life, I thought it appropriate to share it here.
The Evangelical Liturgy 6: The Call to Worship
August 25, 2009 by iMonk
“Ascribe to the Lord the glory of His name; bring an offering, and come into His courts. Worship the Lord in holy attire; Tremble before Him, all the earth. Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns; indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved; He will judge the peoples with equity.” Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; Let the sea roar, and all it contains; let the field exult, and all that is in it. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy before the Lord, for He is coming; for He is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness, and the peoples in His faithfulness.”
No element of the evangelical liturgy is as clearly Biblical as the call to worship. It is deeply rooted in Biblical language, Biblical history and Biblical theology.
God’s call is fundamental to the general announcement of salvation and the specific work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. God’s call creates, gathers and identifies. It invests an ordinary gathering with the significance of the people of God entering into the presence and purpose of God in worship.
The call to worship is a re-enacting of fundamental and highly significant aspects of the life of the individual and corporate people of God. We are called to God, called to worship, called to mission and called to present attentiveness to the Word and its work among us. We are called to think of God and to hear his commands and invitations.
In my own experience, there is a sense of betrayal that happens when a worship service fails to include a formal call to worship. The informality of many evangelical services is spiritually discouraging, leaving the worshiper with no corporate experience of God calling him/her to attention and the glad work of worship. It is as if we have simply been put together with no purpose any more significant than to do the next thing we are asked to do on someone’s list. Our identity, our “calling” into the experiences of praise, prayer and worship has been forgotten or completely overlooked. There’s something profoundly wrong with the relatively meaningless beginnings to many evangelical worship services.
Full article
Thursday, 20. August 2009, 02:28:54
church, worship
I've been thinking a bit about what a worship space says about a particular congregation and what they value. My thinking is prompted by the fact that I am not really happy about the way our worship space is currently arranged.
In a Catholic Church, it is clear that the altar is the dominant feature and that is because the Catholic Church places ultimate value on the sacrament of Holy Communion as the main focus of worship.
In many Protestant churches the pulpit is the dominant feature, representing the fact that the preaching of the Word is the focus of worship. A large Bible usually also takes pride of place as this is the dominant authority for all preaching.
In contemporary churches, there is often a more flexible arrangement, but again the dominant physical items represent the emphasis of that congregation.
For example, in churches that are inspired by music, then the band will be the dominant feature, usually located on a high stage with the instruments in places of honour all overseen by the projection screen. The term worship will become a synonym for music.
In most churches the seats are arranged in rows pointed to the front which means that the focus is on an anointing which flows from the leaders to the congregation who have no need to ever relate to one another.
So in our church building at the moment I see the following:
* we have rows rather than groups around tables.
* the music has taken up pride of place.
* we have a low table for communion because we value the input of little people in the sacrament, not because we devalue the sacrament. The communion table is easily pushed out of the centre when it becomes "inconvenient".
* a major factor in our placing of furniture is the need to facilitate other ministries such as the prams and the bookshop. These are important our each activities, but there is always a tension between the need to relate to the community and the need to facilitate our worship.
* a large banner encourages us to follow Jesus
As a church family, we value interactive worship styles. We value our interaction with those who are not yet a part of our faith community. We value contemporary worship styles, without being a slave to them. We value the Word of God- written and preached. We value the input of all people including children.
There are conflicts between all of these competing values. Too often the pragmatic need of just fitting everything in pre-empts all of these values, which is a sign of the culture in which we live where technology (what works) trumps art (what is valued for its own sake).
We have found in the past, for example, that the bookshop threatened to take over the worship area and we had to re-evaluate our layout before the bookshop completely took over the building.
As I've said many times in the last month or so, our current arrangement is temporary, a work in progress. Some time soon we might get something close to reasonable!
Wednesday, 19. August 2009, 05:37:24
relationships, church, worship
Last Sunday, I was surprised by my reaction to Rozina's question about Solomon and his wisdom. I was finding it hard to cope with the myriad demands of being a pastor on a Sunday morning. I'm not sure whether it was a physical thing or a spiritual attack but I found Sunday very stressful.
So when the sermon was interrupted by a question that I had no immediate answer to, I felt rather frustrated. The sermon was about getting wisdom, but the question was about failing of wisdom and I had no immediate answer to the question.
Anyway, that experience and some comments made by Michael Spencer in his podcast (www.internet.com) about teaching styles in the church, somehow forced me to a realisation of the tension in which we as a community live.
The tension is that God has called us to do a "new thing" with no description of what that looks like or a map of how to get there.
One thing I do know is that our expression of community has to be very different to anything currently available in the contemporary expressions of church. Community, christian style, has to be very different to
- the pastor-centric authoritarian models common in Pentecostal circles
- the institution-centric model of the Catholic Church
- the pseudo-democratic approach of many mainline Protestant churches.
The style of worship also has to be different to what is currently practised in most churches.
I am very aware that what we do now is only a temporary arrangement,
On my best days, I welcome interactive discussion-style sermons. That's why each week I publish my personal reflections on each of the lectionary readings for the following Sunday. I also try to encourage a discussion on those readings in our facebook group.
I think that people learn best when we engage with Scripture as a community, working out together their implications for us. Unfortunately that is very hard work for the leader, and for it to work effectively, it needs the leader/preacher to really have their wits about them, providing guidance without completely dominating the discussion. If the preacher is not up to the mental/spiritual discernment necessary for the task that day, it's all too easy to fall back into the didactic rhetorical approach of just telling people the message for the day.
This all works well in a medium sized group, but how to do it in a much larger group? How do we engage in creative responses to scripture in ways which speak to the varying learning styles that people have? How do we structure our whole worship space to best use the gifts of all of our people?
There is a balance in all of this. We need some information in order to be able to contribute meaningfully to a discussion. There are times when the preacher has to nicely tell people that it's time to listen. There are also times when the best thing for a preacher to do is just shut up himself and let the rest of the community work it out together.
It's wonderfully easy when we have the capacity to just package up a particular format for each week, where people know that their role is just to absorb the anointing being imparted by the pastor.
I'm not so sure that leads to genuine growth in faith for anyone involved.
So we grope towards a new form of community. Some times it will be wonderful and other times less than ordinary. But it's all a part of the journey Jesus has called us to.
Monday, 10. August 2009, 02:30:09
world-view, salvation, worship, christian
...
Ryan Cordle writes this excellent piece about evangelical theology, death and the sacraments:
Death: Why Evangelicals are Missing the Sacraments
Michael Spencer wrote a thought-provoking piece on the things that Evangelicals make sacraments besides the sacraments. Growing up in an Evangelical church, we "had communion" twice a year: Good Friday and the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Also, I had to request to be baptized, because for my church "getting saved," was the key, not baptism. That is not an atypical story for anyone growing up in that kind of church.
A lot has been said and written about why Evangelicals just "don't get it," when it comes to the sacraments. These reasons usually point to the Evangelical gnostic tendencies or the fear of Roman Catholicism, which are both valid critiques of what is going on. You can check out Michael Horton's books for a very good exposition of what is going on there.
Yet, I have had a suspicion that there is a slightly different psychology of the thinking going on in modern Evangelical churches about the sacraments. I think that American Evangelicals haven't embraced a sacramental theology, because they haven't accepted mortality. Evangelicals have dealt thoroughly with what it means to be "Pro-Life," but have they consciously dealt with death? I believe that they have just accepted the current Western position on death, which is to invest as much money as possible in postponing it as long as possible. The modern attitude is to choose avoidance rather than acceptance. For example, ask most moderns if they would rather have a quick, unexpected death or a more drawn out death, and they will almost all choose the former. Just ask an Evangelical, "What do you expect to happen when you die?" or "What does it mean to die with dignity?" Evangelical churches largely do not have a coherent narrative or a language for facing death.
The uncertainty about death can be explained away in several ways. One could point to the fact that Evangelicals rose to power at the same time as modern medicine. It is much easier to avoid death around us than it would have been 300 years ago. Also, there is no liturgy/ritual Evangelicals share concerning death. Orthodox, Catholics, Anglicans all have liturgies and language that demonstrate the continuing fact that we all die. What words do Evangelicals have to offer about death? Finally, Evangelicals don't embrace the martyr narratives like the older traditions do. The narratives about the early Christian martyrs give us an insight into what it means to die with hope and faith in Jesus.
There is a lot of confusion, and perhaps denial and anxiety, about death for the typical Evangelical. This attitude about death takes much of the power of the sacraments away, because the sacraments force us to face death. The story in baptism and the Eucharistic meal is that we all will die, but Jesus has given us the hope of the Resurrection. Yet, if we first refuse to understand our own deaths, then we miss the good news of the sacraments. It's much easier to just "get saved" and then I don't have to think about death any longer, because it is basically all taken care of. However, if we are to grasp the power of the gospel story, then we must somehow grasp that death is part of our own story.
For the early Church, participating in the Eucharist was also a call to (literally) die with Christ. The Eucharist was explaining the reality that to be a Christian is to expect to die for Christ. One can find this attitude all over early Christian literature. A very memorable narrative of this sort can be found in the Martyrdom of Polycarp, where Polycarp is put into the executioner's fire, and his burning skin was like "bread that is baked," an allusion to the Eucharist.
Have Evangelicals accepted death, and the call to die for Christ? I think that they have yet to work such a theology out, and in not doing so, they have missed the power of the Eucharist.
Saturday, 13. June 2009, 12:17:09
church, worship
The internet monk writes:
One of my major premises in the writing I’m doing these days is that evangelicals have become a movement actually destroying itself.
At no point does that seem more obvious than in the recent evolution of worship within evangelicalism.
Does anyone- I mean, really, seriously- have any idea what is actually happening within the worship culture of evangelicals?
We have, within a matter of 50 years, completely changed the entire concept of what is a worship service. We’ve adopted an approach that demands ridiculous levels of musical, technical and financial commitment and resources.
We have tied ourselves to the Christian music industry and its endless appetite for change and profit. We have accepted that all of our worship leaders are going to be very, very young people. Traditional worship - a la Tenth Presbyterian in Philly- is on the verge of becoming a museum piece.
The reformed- of all people- have led the way in this revolution. I attended a seminar last week where a room full of reformed were instructed in why the optimum worship leadership option was “the band.” Not the choir, the worship team, etc. But “the band.” Does anyone realize what that means for public worship?
Diversity, generational compatibility, even simplicity are all being blown up. Worship is now a major audience event, led by skilled entertainers, aimed at a demographic and judged by the audience reaction.
God? God has been moved around to be things like a reluctant Spirit we sing down with our songs or a divine innovator always blessing as much radical change as possible.
Why do I call this a goof? Because there is no way for this to end well. This is like a NASCAR car with the throttle stuck open. We’re stuck on a roller coaster and we can’t get off.
Worship has now become a musical term. Praise and worship means music. Let’s worship means the band will play. We need to give more time to worship doesn’t mean silent prayer or public scripture reading or any kind of participatory liturgy. It means music.
Even singing is getting lost in this. As the volume and the performance level goes up, who knows who is singing?
And who can stand for 20, 30 or 40 minutes?
We have a lot of happy people right now. They have no idea what Biblical worship is outside of the context of their favorite songs played by a kickin’ band. They have little idea of worship in vocation, in family, in ordinary work or in silence. They credit their favorite songs as major spiritual events.
We have goofed up. Simple, plain liturgy. Diversity and inclusion. Appreciation and full Biblical understanding. Cross generational intentionality and suspicion of the profit motive. Renouncing the spirit of competition. Hearing the prophetic warnings about God’s disgust with much of Israel’s “big show” worship culture. We need all of this.
We need Jesus shaped worship, and we need worship that promotes a simple, direct, uncompromising Jesus shaped spirituality.
Article
Friday, 3. April 2009, 10:49:45
creation, worship
John Piper writes:
If you look at sunsets and sunrises without knowing that God is painting them then and there, you will miss the point. Sunsets and sunrises do not just happen. God does them.
You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy. (Psalms 65:8)
What are they so happy about?
Psalm 19 gives the answer. They are happy because they are showing the glory of God. "The heavens declare the glory of God" (v. 1).
How happy is the rising sun to display the glory of God? Answer: "In them [the heavens] God has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy" (Psalm 19:4-5).
A bridegroom beaming, and an Eric Liddell feeling God's pleasure when he runs. Sunrises and sunsets are like that. They bid us join their joy in putting God on display in the world.
Article:
Friday, 27. March 2009, 05:37:36
humour, worship
Monday, 9. March 2009, 22:59:51
humour, church, worship
Friday, 27. February 2009, 02:15:23
church, worship
One of the most insidious errors we must avoid in church is the worship of worship.In the contemporary church, music has come to be seen as synonymous with worship.The problem with this then is that we find it so easy to worship the music rather than worship through music.I was reading a blog article by a pastor in another part of the country who was lamenting the fact that his key musician was moving on to another church. He was seeing a loss which opens up an opportunity to bring other less tlaented musicians into the team. I'm seeing someone who has failed to realise that he never had the heart of someone who had a key role in his church.Music is a like a glass doorway that can lead us out of the concerns of the physical world and into the awesome presence of God. In the same way that seeing a beautiful view invites us to step out into the landscape, music in church is meant to invite us to step outside of ourselves and into the adoration of God.The trouble is that, as in all fields of human endeavour, we can so easily miss the point of what we are doing.If we focus on the music- the style, the "tightness" of the band, whether we sing it in C or D, when to repeat the chorus, the mechanics of producing the sounds- then we remain inside the room admiring the door instead of stepping through the door.The difficulty with this is that the people who lead the music in church are generally people who are musically capable and who are rightly concerned with these things. But their concern to get the sound "right" is often far beyond what is needed to get the job done for the majority of people in the church who would be hard pressed to tell the difference between a D7 chord and a D maj 7. Of course the musicians who are tuned to such things shudder when the wrong chord is struck, but most of us really don't notice that much.So the church is led into this cycle of admiring the door, rather than going out through it.Of course other traditions have other doors through which they enter into the presence of God.For Catholics and other liturgical churches the sacraments are the principal means of experiencing God. In those traditions getting the words right and the actions correct are of the utmost importance.Only the most qualified person ever gets to say those words- you can't have just anybody take part because well they might not get it quite right and it wouldn't sound right, and people might not be able to worship (sound familiar anyone?)In an earlier age, in the Protestant tradition (perhaps not so long ago), it was the preaching of the word that was the doorway. The correct sermon with the right words would change lives. The sermon "Sinners In The Hands of an Angry God" was preached by Jonathan Edwards. He spoke in a thin, reedy voice and hunched over the pulpit, he read a manuscript word for word. He told those who began to sob to shut up as they were distracting the others. This sermon launched one of the greatest revivals in the USA which saw thousands of people coming to the Lord. Strangely enough Edwards would have failed any preaching class. In churches that maintain the tradition of the sermon being THE doorway, lay preachers are closely supervised and not just anybody is allowed to preach.Reading the word, llectio divina, in which the Scriptures are slowly digested, meditated on and prayed over, is another doorway.The arts such as painting, dance, photography, sculpting, poetry, drama, film and story can all lead us into the presence of God. They are all doorways which invite us to step outside.There are so many ways in which our ever-present God invites us to experience His presence, and I'm sure there are many more that I haven't even mentioned.If this is the case, why do we obsess over just the one doorway? How can we go looking for those other doorways? In the Narnia series, the doorway was in the back of a wardrobe in a disused room.Perhaps it's time to find the wardrobes that the church has ignored for too long!
Friday, 26. December 2008, 22:44:06
church, worship, christmas
Our Christmas celebrations at church were just so good this year. For the first time ever we had our service at 11 pm on Christmas Eve following a "Living Nativity" in the church car park.
The service itself was simple, and, for us, quite liturgical. We processed into the dark building behind the candle representing Jesus. Then Grant read John 1, and when he got to the part about the light shining in the darkness, Tim cranked the floodlights to full brilliance lighting the whole room at once. After that it was alternating songs and readings, then a sermon and all done in just on an hour.
A few people mentioned how powerfully they were touched by it.
Here's what I thought made it excellent:
1. The time. Having a late night service is so disorienting that it makes you more aware - it knocks you out of "same old, same old" thinking.
2. The people- worshipping in the greatest congregation in the history of christendom is pretty cool. We are like a family coming together-- the good sort of family that is
3. The rhythm of going out and coming in- the time we spent in being out on the street with the message and then coming together to worship together is the pattern of our lives. We should be constantly on mission and at worship whether together or alone.
4. The participation of many people.
5. The contrast of coming from darkness to light and having that dramatically presented.
I am starting to think there is a lot of depth in the traditional liturgies that we from the evangelical/ charismatic parts of the church have missed out on. I don't mean saying the same words week after week without ever changing anything. I'm talking about the structures and rhythms of worship together. When worship is just entertainment, you never really touch the transcendence of God.
Tuesday, 18. November 2008, 02:38:40
church, worship, advent
With Advent rapidly approaching, I was doing a little research this morning and came across this:
Advent Sunday Start: 11/30/2008 - 00:00 Advent Sunday is the beginning of the ecclesiastical year on the Sunday closest to 30th November. Advent is the season which begins four weeks before Christmas. Advent is a term from the Latin word 'adventus' which means "arrival". It is a time of waiting for the arrival of Christmas, the coming of Jesus to earth when He was born as a baby at Bethlehem about two thousand years ago. Candles symbolise the light of God coming into the world through the birth of His son, Jesus. The four traditional advent themes for the four advent Sundays are: 1. God's people - The Candle of Hope. Hope is like a light shining in a dark place. As we look at the light of this candle, we celebrate the hope we have in Jesus Christ. 2. The Old Testament prophets - The Candle of Peace. Peace is like a light shining in a dark place. As we look at this candle, we celebrate the peace we find in Jesus Christ 3. John the Baptist - The Candle of Love. Love is like a candle shining in a dark place. As we look at the light of this candle, we celebrate the love we have in Christ. 4. Mary the mother of Jesus - The Candle of Joy. Joy is like a light shining in a dark place. As we look at this candle, we celebrate the joy we find in Jesus Christ. The fifth candle represents the birth of Christ. The flame of this candle reminds us that He is the light of the world and that if we follow Him, we will never walk in darkness, but will have the true light of eternal life.
Advent Sunday | St. Katharine, Knockholt & St. Margaret, Halstead, Kent
Friday, 12. September 2008, 07:28:07
worship
From "The Word For Today":
Boots or no boots
"Let everything that has breath praise the Lord"
Psalm 150:6 NIV
In pre-Emancipation days it was common practise for white people to occupy the main floor of a church while African-Americans were assigned to the balcony.
Every Sunday a black man called Frank would interrupt the sermon by praising God out loud from the balcony. Irritated, Frank's boss promised him a pair of new boots if he'd stay quiet. So Frank made up his mind not to utter a peep.
The following Sunday the pastor spoke about all the wonderful gifts God gave us through His Son Jesus. Frank struggled to stay quiet, but inside he was shouting, "Hallelujah ...Praise the Lord." Still, he kept his lip buttoned, thinking about the new boots. But eventually the Word of God connected with the Spirit of God that was within him. Unable to contain himself he jumped up and shouted, "Boots or no boots - I'm gonna praise the Lord!"
We sit in church every week with our mouths closed, maintaining a façade of respectability and decorum. Not in the New Testament times!
When Jesus "came near...the whole crowd...began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: [saying] 'Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord'...the Pharisees...said to Jesus...'rebuke Your disciples!'... He replied, 'if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out'" (Luke 19:37-40 NIV).
Isaiah said, "The mountains and hills will burst into song, and the trees...will clap their hands" (Isa 55:12 NLT).
Stones! Mountains! Trees! Are you getting the message? God's Word says, "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord" (Ps 150:6 NIV).
Unless you're dead, that's what you should be doing!
Article
Friday, 21. March 2008, 23:36:12
worship
Check out this interview with Matt Redman about contemporary worship
here. He talks about how alientaing some worship songs can be to blokes.
Thursday, 6. December 2007, 07:43:51
worship, church, school, society
I've been trying to work out why school Presentation Nights just don't do it for me.
It's not that I have traumatic memories of missing out on prizes, or that I see them as irrelevant. I used to have my fair share of prizes, including Dux of the School. I also remember the events being intensely boring, except for the thirty seconds I was up on stage receiving my prize and the adulation of the assembled multitudes :-)
But describing the event now makes me see what the problem is with School Speech Nights.
Our culture has changed over the last 100 years. Our values, our ways of expression, our ways of learning- all of that stuff has changed.
But the essential format of Speech Night hasn't.
As a pastor who is trying to engage our culture, I have watched churches wrestle with the issue, and I continue to wrestle with it myself. Most churches have changed their ways of expressing their faith, their community, their worship to reflect what it is like to be a christian in 21st Century Western culture.
School Speech Nights remain basically stuck in the mould of 19th Century English elite school culture. It's really odd because the culture of schools has changed radically even in the last 30 years.
The one stage of the evening when I actually felt engaged with what was happening was right at the end when there was shown a fairly basic presentation of photos from the highlights of the year. I found myself, along with the rest of the group actually straining to see what was happening.
If I was organising a school presentation night, I think I would want to start with something like that, but longer. I would still want to honour those who achieve good things, but I would want to do it in a different format and in a way that is authentic- I'm not sure about what that means but I find things that jar me about the way the awards are handed out. I think ways of expressing the heart of the community of the school need to be found.
And all of this equally applies to our church. It's so easy to get stuck into a rut and not think about why we do things the way we do them.
Blessings
Keith
Wednesday, 21. November 2007, 22:44:13
church, worship
From "nakedpastor.com"
Children in sports: the whole point is that everyone can play. Is it not? The point isn’t that they have to win. In that case, only the best players get to play because the whole point is to win the game.
I get the feeling many of our services are a lot like that. We want to win.
One of the things that I became aware of pretty early in the ministry was how natural it was to try to create an effect during the services, to achieve a certain goal. It seems to be generally assumed as acceptable these days that we try to get people to feel a certain way, that they leave the building somehow affected.
I was talking yesterday about this with one of our worship leaders. We have several worship leaders… I think 7 or 8! Plus many musicians. The temptation is to pick the best one who constantly gets the best results. Pick the best band. We like the results they achieve. No one else can play. We keep the kids away from the noise-makers that we have lying around the front. We keep the teens away from their new guitars and drum-kits. Why? Because they pollute the pure sound of the excellent worship leader and band.
Some Sundays we have “worship unplugged”… which means anybody can bring anything and we all just get in a clump and sing. It’s a riot… like kitchen parties. They’re memorable. The kids never forget it. Everyone played. Every Sunday should be like that. Except for very specific reasons… which is another post.
For me, it is more important that everybody gets to play rather than that we win the game. In fact, everybody playing is winning the game. It’s just a different game. And a better one.
http://nakedpastor.com/
Blogged with Flock
Friday, 28. September 2007, 00:05:55
worship, church, mission
In the 1990's the book "Worship As Evangelism" by Sally Morgenthaler, ushered in a new era in contemporary church culture. All over the world, churches of various theological backgrounds have taken up the cause of having a form of worship to appeal to non-christians-- high quality contemporary music, nonthreatening buildings, issues-based preaching.
Now she has decided it doesn't work.
Here is the very provocative article:
Two years ago I taught my last seminar focused solely on worship. A year ago I disbanded my worship resource site, Sacramentis. My colleagues were concerned. How could I leave the work I'd begun? Did it mean I no longer believed worship was important? Who was going to take up the torch of worship evangelism? Was I just going to waste my legacy? Was I crazy?
Maybe I was, but a storm had been brewing in my soul for five long years. I remember meeting with the worship leader of a well-known church in the fall of 2000. He had followed my work and respected many of my viewpoints. When we met
over coffee, he shared a concern he'd had for a while over my book Worship Evangelism. In his view, Worship Evangelism had helped to create a "worship-driven subculture." As he explained it, this subculture was a sizeable part of the contemporary church that had just been waiting for an excuse not to do the hard work of real outreach. An excuse not to get their hands dirty. According to him, that excuse came in the form of a book—my book. He elaborated. "If a contemporary worship service is the best witnessing tool in the box, then why give a rip about what goes on outside the worship
center? If unbelievers are coming through the doors to check us Christians out, and if they'll fall at Jesus' feet after they listen to us croon worship songs and watch us sway back and forth, well then, a whole lot of churches are just going to say, 'Sign us up!' "
To be honest, I wasn't surprised. The attitude he described certainly didn't fit every congregation out there in contemporary-worship-land, but it matched too much of what I'd seen. The realization hit me in the gut. Between 1995 and
2000 I'd traveled to a host of worship-driven churches, some that openly advertised that they were "a church for the unchurched." On the good occasions, the worship experience was transporting. (I dug a little deeper when that happened. Invariably, I found another value at work behind the worship production: a strong, consistent presence in the community.) Too many times, I came away with an unnamed, uneasy feeling. Something was not quite right. The worship felt disconnected from real life. Then there were the services when the pathology my friend talked about came right over the platform and hit me in the face. It was unabashed self-absorption, a worship culture that screamed, "It's all about us" so loudly that I wondered how any visitor could stand to endure the rest of the hour.
Were these worship-driven churches really attracting the unchurched? Most of their pastors truly believed they were. And in a few cases, they were right. The worship in their congregations was inclusive, and their people were working hard to meet the needs of the neighborhood. Yet those churches whose emphasis was dual—celebrated worship inside, lived worship outside—were the minority. In 2001 a worship-driven congregation in my area finally did a survey as to who they were really reaching, and they were shocked. They'd thought their congregation was at least 50 percent unchurched. The real number was 3 percent.
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here
Wednesday, 22. August 2007, 23:51:16
prophecy, church, worship, revival
I couldn't get to sleep last night because the Lord was on my case Here are the words that came to me:
It is absolutely vital that we move from being spectators in a performance to being partners with God in what He wants to do in the Body.
Revival is coming and people will be impacted by nothing less than a genuine move of the Holy Spirit. This is bigger than the hype and what Owen refers to as hypnotic suggestion. This is the real deal- the people of God moving in worship to receive from God and then to minister in prophecy, encouragement, words of knowledge, faith, healing and works of power.
This is what God is wanting from His people.
This is what will impress the world and bring them to a place of repentance.
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