Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Who's Leading Worship This Sunday?

By the title of this post I bet many of you initially thought of the music lead right?
Did you ever think that the most common and translatable verb within our Christian life could become just another abstract term found in the Christianese Dictionary?
Well, it has, and has been for quite some time.
The past week has been a challenging one for me in this regard. Valley Well Ministries is just about to officially open it's doors and Laurie and I are excited to have a friend from Regina/Eston College/Battlefords come and lead our worship music portion of our services. Yet it was in the conversations we have had with some new Christians or non-churched people that I found myself stumbling over my words. The word as you can guess that caused me the most trouble was the term worship. If Tim is coming to do our worship (and that is usually how we Christians word it - hey pastor, who is doing your worship these days? or, hey who did the worship last night?), what does that say to the non/new-Christian?
Thanks to the query of my Aunt, who ironically while I was internally facing this conversation, decided to ask what I meant. Lets not forget the puzzled look on this born/raised in the Catholic church style of services.
It was then that between Laurie and myself we explained how we meant that Tim was going to sing and play worship music - music that is specifically focused on the worship of our Lord and Savior, Jesus.
So what's so wrong with that right? Why blog about having to answer a question? How does this mean 'worship' has become another Christianese term?
I have heard preachers preach on this countless times, but since it still is apart of our conversations in the same way, I must at least blog about it!

Worship was never meant to take one segment of our church gatherings, nevermind that, worship was never meant to be a part of a mere 1/2 hour per week of our life. Worship is not just the music!!! But, we all know that right? Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to get hung up on terminology or culturally acceptable lingo, as the saying goes...I'm just sayin.

This pondering got me pondering even more thats all.

Worship is supposed to be a lifestyle, its a choice, but a choice that is in our best interests to make all the time. "Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship" - Romans 12:1 We are to offer our whole living being as an act of worship, every part of our living existence should be a self-less act of worship. I know we are human, and therefore I do not say that we will be perfecters of this Holy Habit, but I am saying that when we worship God we need to think of every breath we take in and exhale out of an act of worship.

God is Holy and Glory, Power and Might, Mercy and Grace, Salvation and Refuge, Source and Sustenance, Creator and Finisher, Provider and Teacher, Alpha and Omega...what more needs to be said, He is worthy of our worship, the only One worthy. If there is any who deserves to have our full, undivided, unpartial, totally hot devotion and surrender it is Him. He is the essence of existence!

Let us worship Him always, with the very life He gave us, let us offer it back to Him as living sacrifices, laying our pride, our agenda, our worry, our fear, our ways, to do His!

What is stopping or preventing you from wholly serving the Holy One?
Get that thing out of His way!

Its not just about music, its not just about the sermon, the prayer meeting, the Bible study, the fellowship event, the place you serve every week or the mealtime prayer, its about how you wash your dishes, internally feel about company coming, treat that customer that ripped into you, drive down the street, discipline your kids, speak to your spouse (esp when they did something you didn't like), purchase stuff, eat, drink, exercise...my goodness I could go on and on.

Worship, is at the very core of a Christian's purpose!

1 comment:

  1. Excellent post, Sean, and something that so many of us need to be reminded of regularly. Worship is indeed all about attitude, life, relationships--not just a set half-hour once a week where a few of us sing! Exciting also to hear of Tim's involvement--hopefully we can see you all soon!

    ReplyDelete