More Than a Song

I love to worship. It's in worship that I feel most alive and full. My favorite time to worship is right after church or youth group because I'm excited about what God is doing and I want to hold on to the experience and hear his voice whisper in my hear. Sometimes I'll go into the sanctuary and worship at the top of my lungs consumed and surrounded by the presence of God.

Pause.

What am I talking about? What does it mean to worship? This is the question that has been wrenching at my heart, well, for at least the last five years. I grew up going to church often, but not all the time. We moved around a little, but most of my experience was singing hymns to a piano or organ. When I was in high school, our church started a praise team that played what I now call "old contemporary."  When I entered college, I learned what Contemporary Christian music was. I played guitar for three different praise teams and we played it all Chris Tomlin, Hillsong, Israel Houghton, Getty and Townend, some of the "old contemporary,"  and plenty of others and I loved it. God was reshaping my life at the end of high school and through college and music was my outlet. As a camp counselor and worship leader, I grew a heart for worship. I was on worship teams and I lead worship, and I loved worship.

Worship according to Dictionary.com is defined as reverent honor or homage paid to God or a sacred object. Our pastor spoke this past week about idolatry in the ways we worship. Churches divide and people leave because the church sings a different way or uses different instruments. Worship is defined in my limited experience as singing. I believe singing is certainly worship, but it's so much more than that. We idolize a style of worship and begin to praise the worship rather than the God we are to worship, the created over the creator. John Koessler stated this way in the March issue of Christianity Today:

"We think of worship as something that originates with us, our gift to God. Perhaps this is why so many of us are conflicted about it. We consider worship to be an expression of our personal devotion. So when the musical style or some expression gets in the way, we don't feel like it is our worship at all. It is someone else's idea of worship. Perhaps the worship leader's or that of the majority. But not our own....The biblical portrait of worship moves in the opposite direction. The trajectory of heavenly worship begins with God and descends to earth. This trajectory is reflected in Psalm 150, where praise begins in the heavenly sanctuary and resounds throughout the domain of God. From there it is taken up by those on earth, who praise God with a variety of instruments and dancing, until 'everything that has breath' praises the Lord (Ps. 150:6)."

Koessler is still talking about music here, but brings up challenging thought: worship isn't about us. It's about God and when we enter into worship, we aren't stirring up something, we are joining with all creation and with choirs of angels as we stand before the throne and it's more than voices being lifted up. The Psalmist wasn't singing the way we sing hymns or with a guitar, but few would argue that it wasn't genuine worship. Worship is about how we live our lives. It's about where our heart is when we enter the sanctuary and when we turn to go into the world. How do we show "reverent honor" to God?

In order to worship with "everything that has breath", I sometimes have to put my assumptions and criticisms aside because every worship leader, hymn writer, dancer, poet, and artist sits before God and says "God, how can you use me?" They offer their life up to the Lord and the Spirit pours out on His people and all creation joins in and worships the creator. It's a beautiful picture when we all join in one song not just with our voice but with our lives. God doesn't need us to worship Him, but we can delight in being a part of a greater story as we sing and dance and move and breathe.

We worship when we sing or dance. We worship when we pray and when we share the Gospel. We worship when we sit in church and hear the voice of God speak into our lives through scripture, liturgy and sermons, as we give our offering. We worship when we listen to a friend or sit around the table with our families. Our lives are full of opportunities to honor God, to truly worship Him, to join in with all creation.

I long to worship him forever, because it's in true worship that we feel most alive and full because the world looks different. We see the brokenness and we know that God is coming to reconcile all things back to him, that there will be no more division. Every tongue will confess that He is God and that will be more than enough.

"Everything You Do Teaches"

"Everything you do teaches." This phrase totally changed my life. I don't say that with any expectation that you will have the same experience but I hope it will encourage you to think about how your actions an inactions affect those around you.

I was in college in one of the Christian Education courses with a wise professor that I never appreciated until it was all said and done. She told the class early on that "everything you do teaches." At the time, I didn't think much of it, but as God pulled me into ministry and made me more aware of how my actions effected other people, I realized that everything we do teaches.

Everything we do or don't do tells someone else about who we are from the way we speak, the way that we respond to situations, the way we choose to spend our time, etc. What we do in secret effects who we are and what we teach as well. How much time we spend in prayer and in the word, how much we give, how much we hide in our personal relationships, what we do with our free time, etc. also teaches because it effects who we are in the world.

As a youth director, I'm often presented with these teaching moments. If a youth comes to me and shares something that is on their heart, I have a many decisions to make. Am I looking them in the eye and giving them my full attention. How do I respond to what they are sharing? Do I brush it off or do I take the time to pray with them and help them find the tools to best handle their situation. Do they feel valued and loved? Sometimes I do well and other times I drop the ball, but my decision in those moments will teach that youth something about how much their life is valued to someone else. We all are faced with these teaching moments, whether we are aware of it or not.

We are given specific instruction as to what our lives should teach through God's word. In Phillipians 2:6-8 Paul tells us our attitudes should be like Christ:

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!

In Matthew 5:48, he tells us to be perfect, or in some translations holy, just as our Father in Heaven.  We are called to love him with all our heart, soul, and mind and to love our neighbors and enemies. Everything we speak, do, and don't do should come from a heart and an attitude that bears the light of Christ to the world. We will fail, but every failure is an opportunity to share the meaning of grace.

How is your life teaching those around you who God is in your life? What are some areas you could work on?