The TRUE WORSHIP and TRUE WORSHIPERS
Worship doesn’t begin with skills and techniques, but with a healthy understanding of God and ourselves.
Worship is essentially about our relationship with God our father, through His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the power of the Holy Spirit.
True worship is about loving God, obeying Him and living to the praise of His glory. The more we understand God- his character and the way He works- the more our hearts will rise in adoration.
True worshippers know that their security is in God. They received the Spirit of adoption and cry, “Abba, Father” (a term of loving intimacy between child and father). They can sing with confidence, “He is my fortress, I will never be shaken.”
Before we even analyze worship styles, the role of the worship leader, the place of the musician, and any form of “worship ministry”, we must understand how the true worshipper can live in joy and victory.
Worship ministry must flow from worship hearts. We can lead people only as far as our own experience of God. As the old hymn says:
Only as I truly know Thee
Can I make Thee truly known
Only living the power to others
Which in my own life is shown.
Worship should flow naturally from our lives. We should all be living in the victory of the truth, which sets us free, and experiencing the power and influence of the Holy Spirit.
When this is true, our service will be effective and mark us a church, which is enjoying the blessing of God. In such a church, there is no conflict between preaching, worshiping, serving and social action.
The preaching teaches people how to mature in Christ, the worship gives the opportunity for corporate praise and thanksgiving, and practical acts of kindness and social action are the means by which we glorify God.
Evangelism, prayer meetings and counseling programs should primarily be motivated by love of God.
Why is it then that we don’t reach this ideal either as individuals or in our corporate church life? We must realize that the devil uses a variety of tactics to stop us from being worshipers.
CONDEMNATION
We are in Christ. “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Jesus Christ, the law of the Spirit of life sets me free from the law of sin and death.” (Rom. 8:1-2).
Condemnation is about imprisonment. When God forgives, that forgiveness is complete. The doctrine of justification means that we are totally acquitted.
God gives us righteousness as a gift. The old life is crucified with Christ. I’m not struggling with two natures; I have a new one. Paul says, “You…are controlled, not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ” (Rom. 8:9).
We are in an unshakable position. There’s no room for feelings of unworthiness. That’s a sign of unbelief.
The Lord’s prayer begins, “Our Father in heaven” and talks about forgiveness later. There’s a time for confession. But it must not emerge from condemnation. And it must not come at the beginning of a worship time.
To start worship with the comment, “We’re all miserable sinners” will have a negative effect. Worship begins with God, not us. The more we see of Him, the more we will understand our position in Him. When we come to worship, we should approach the throne of grace with confidence.
Hebrew 10:19-20 says that we “draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”
And “we hold unswervingly to the hope we profess,” according to Hebrews 10:22-23. Sin is out of character for the Christians. If we do sin, we don’t have to wallow in condemnation. We confess our sin and receive immediate forgiveness. (1 John 1:9).
We should never stand consumed by feelings of unworthiness and condemnation. Instead, we should open our hearts to God and allow Him to lovingly convict us of anything that needs putting right.
REJECTION
Feeling, “I’m not accepted” is very common. Christians who question, “Does God really love me?” haven’t grasped the fact that His love is unconditional. Feelings of rejection may have their roots in childhood hurts, or in a sense of devaluation by people in authority. When we project those hurts onto God, we are sinnning by not believing what He says about Himself.
A bondage to rejection will affect the way we worship because we doubt whether God will receive what we express to Him.
Rejection can also affect a worship ministry team. It happens when individuals create relationship tensions by projecting their deep-rooted feelings onto one another.
Symptoms of rejection include unhelpful comparisons with others, lack of self-worth, perfectionism, negative criticism and self-protection. If the problem is extreme, the individual should seek prayerful support.
The worship leader or minister, and musicians, should be able to draw the congregation into a deep appreciation of God’s unconditional love.
Paul said, “I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, not any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our lord”
(Rom. 8:38-39).
SUPERSPIRITUALITY
When we compose a spiritual life on top of disobedience, we become superspiritual. We cannot abandon one set of biblical principles in attempt to make another work. For example, we can believe that praise and worship will release God’s presence in a congregational setting. But the mechanics of praise and worship will achieve nothing if those ministering are not living uprightly before God. Amos recognized this problem when we prophesied against religious externalism.
“I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream.” (Amos 5:21-24).
Inner integrity is more important than external expression. God is not primarily interested in the aesthetic and creative, but in purity and righteousness. There is no place for superspirituality among those who are involved in any form of ministry.
Whatever style our worship services take, we must remember that worship is about our relationship to God. True worshipers are those who worship in spirit and truth.
– Excerpted and Condensed from the POWERPACK mag by David Fellingham
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..that is really the true essence of WORSHIP….sometimes people have misconception with regards to this….however, they must know what truly worship is…
It is really important to know that we worship a Living God, the Great Provider, the Savior…
FROM: http://www.thinkchristian.net/index.php/page/3/
Handheld devices in church?
Posted April 8th @ 7:55 am by Nathan Bierma
use of mobile.biblegateway.com on an average Sunday morning, from Bible Gateway
Use of mobile.biblegateway.com on an average Sunday morning, according to Bible Gateway
When I saw this chart (which I found via my TC colleague David Ker at futurebible) I could hear the alarmists worrying out loud: Using cell phones and blackberries in church! Is nothing—or no place—sacred anymore? It reminded me of this article on how Mars Hill Church in Seattle encourages worshipers to Twitter about the service as they worship, and the uneasy feeling I had while reading it.
But even though using handheld devices in church can be problematic—and would never fly at my church—I think there are ways and reasons to redeem them for worship. Here are five reasons I thought I SHOULD want to ban handhelds from church but, upon reflection, do NOT.
1. Church should be a sacred time and place to disconnect from our technology-laden lives.
Yes, but too late for that. Just about every worship space in our hemisphere is wired from floor to ceiling, at least for lights and amplification, and often with a projector and screen and other gadgets. Almost every worship space has a clock, and every worshiper has a watch, which is an abominable intrusion of industrial culture into the sacred space of worship. Books, hymnals, and paper bulletins are a form of handheld technology of their own, though with fewer bytes. Technology-free worship is a great idea; I’ve just never seen it done.
2. Handheld devices distract you from worship.
Yes, and we shouldn’t take that lightly, especially when it’s as easy and tempting to click over to ESPN.com as BibleGateway. But for me at least, the core problem is in my head, not in my hands: my own trains of thought are the biggest threat to my attentiveness in worship. I thought this was just a modern, television-era problem, but then I came across a book called A Remedy for Wandering Thoughts in the Worship of God. It was first published in the year 1673.
There’s also a chance that a handheld device can enhance attentiveness, keeping a worshiper focused on the passage or, via BibleGateway or a Bible iPhone app (a few of which I plan to review in a future post), delving deeper into it with cross-references, Hebrew or Greek roots, or other study tools. And Twittering is just another way—potentially a more dynamic and communal way—to take notes.
Finally, I shouldn’t say this, but we’ve all heard some sermons so incoherent or unimaginative that no one would naturally be attentive to them. Funny how during a really good sermon (like one by Mary Hulst or Neal Plantinga; find examples here), my mind doesn’t wander at all.
3. Reading the Bible on a small screen rather than in a book leads you to pick verses out of their context.
Yes, but again, too late. Too many preachers, and too many listeners, are too proficient in the art of sound-biting the Bible and ignoring the context of a chapter, book, or genre, for me to blame it on technology. And many churches sound-bite the Bible already by printing the verse that is being preached on in the bulletin or projecting it on the screen. Many Bible iPhone apps at least require you to scroll through an entire chapter to find a verse.
4. Being glued to your screen during church makes you focused on yourself and forget those you’re worshiping with.
Yes, but so can singing out of a hymnal (unless you share it with someone), singing with your eyes closed, praying with your eyes closed, hearing a sermon as addressed to only you personally and not the church collectively, sitting next to or near people without knowing their names, and even simply sitting in the front row where you can’t see anyone else. I actually think Twittering could help me feel more connected to people to whom I’d otherwise be oblivious during worship, though again, it won’t happen at my church anytime soon.
5. You shouldn’t take your idols to church.
Yes, and I confess that few things in my life are as much of an idolatrous object of my desire as is my iPod Touch. But as I note in my book, in the Old Testament the Israelites would take pagan plunder from a city they conquered and put it in the temple, to rededicate it to God. Why not do the same with our idols?
Extra credit question: Would it be good or bad if ThinkChristian traffic surged on Sunday mornings?
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FROM: http://www.thinkchristian.net/index.php/page/6/
Posted February 9th @ 11:24 am by Nathan Bierma
I was a Twitter skeptic before I was a Twitter convert. Why, exactly, do I need a more efficient method of delivery for the mundanities of other people’s lives? I only got hooked on Twitter – which, for the uninitiated, is basically a mini-blog – through some of its other uses: dispensing quips, bookmarking links, following feeds (such as this one from ThinkChristian), making public service announcements, and even chatting with a group. It’s not perfect for any of these functions, but it works. It’s popular. And it’s addicting.
Recently I’ve found one other use for Twitter, and that’s prayer. That might sound strange: a reverent act on a tool built for trivialities? But it turns out that Twitter is helping me rediscover an ancient practice that so far I’ve failed to build into my daily life, and that’s praying the hours, or fixed-hour prayer.
Praying the hours is the ancient tradition of praying set prayers at certain times of the day. It has deep Jewish roots, but probably its most famous Christian expression is the Book of Common Prayer. From the beginning, the biggest danger of this following this practice is that prayer can become mechanical, artificial, and hollow. But one of the biggest benefits is that the rhythm of the day can help us do what I often fail to do, in direct violation of 1 Thess. 5:17: “pray continually.”
What does this have to do with Twitter? Soon after taking the plunge on Twitter I found a service called FutureTweets, where you can schedule posts, or “tweets,” to appear on your Twitter page at a future time. This was another idea that seemed dumb at first but has proven useful. You can schedule a post to repeat daily or weekly, and that got me thinking about a set of prayers I came across a few years ago, attributed to John Chrysostom, which had one prayer for each hour of the day. How, I wondered then, did St. John ever pull that off without a watch? And without an alarm clock, how could I? But at FutureTweets, I scheduled one of each of Chrysostom’s 24 prayers to appear on the hour at a Twitter page I set up, http://www.twitter.com/chrysostomhours. I liked it so much that I set up similar feeds for the Psalms and for this prayer book (view them all at prayerontwitter.net).
Now I keep an eye on Twitter on the Web, on a feeder, or on a phone, and a scheduled prayer arrives at the top of each hour. The computer, or the phone, becomes a prayer book. In my more sanctified moments (which are still too rare), I stop in the middle of whatever I’m doing and pray the prayer.
Prayer at its most vital is never private; it is the offshoot of the faith of the body of Christ. Twitter pages display a list of who’s following each user, and I like to remember that the prayer I’m receiving is also being fed to that list of other people. (This is why Twitter could be used for church prayer request listings, though since Twitter is a public website, churches should never post last names of people being prayed for.) And the fact that the prayers are from Scripture and the history of the church, and not my own inventions, give me a sense of sharing in the church’s prayer life rather than just quietly doing my own thing.
What Twitter won’t do for me or anyone else is help me “mean” the prayers I’m mouthing. This is hardly a new problem – Jesus condemned insincere prayer right before giving us the Lord’s Prayer (which, of course, is now constantly prayed on auto-pilot). Nor does the power of prayer depend on getting the right words – or any words at all, as we know from Romans 8:26. All Twitter can do is help call my attention, hour after hour, to the prayers of the psalmists and saints of centuries past.
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FROM: http://www.thinkchristian.net/index.php/page/6/
Closed Worship
Posted February 8th @ 1:21 pm by Jerod Clark
I’m currently in Nashville, TN with several of my co-workers at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention. It’s an annual event where broadcasters from around the world gather to talk about their ministries and the future of religious broadcasting. This morning, like any good Christian function, there was a worship service. As we were walking in, I couldn’t help but notice the fact that we were all being checked to make sure we were wearing our convention badges. No pass, no spiritual feeding. I was disturbed and really quite angry about the message that sends.
Everyone here is doing media ministry, either though discipleship or evangelical programing. We are willing to use radio, TV, the Internet and beyond to minister, but when it comes to meeting those we’re trying to reach face to face, only the selected people are allowed into worship. After all, we are staying at the Opryland Hotel, which seems to have, by me latest count, about a bazillion rooms. Surely there are people who would want to come to church this morning. So I started asked myself, “Is there ever a time when a church worship service should be closed to the public?
My immediate answer is a resounding no.
As the preaching started, this question popped into my mind again. John MacAuthur was preaching about how most Bible translations leave out the word slave. We are slaves to Jesus. Jesus was a slave to his Father. This is never an easy topic especially in the U.S. context of racial slavery, which is not the biblical context. As you can imagine, this was not a seeker service. There was no bringing it home to someone who may be questioning their faith. The message was, we are slaves to Jesus, live with it.
So then I started to think maybe it’s a good thing this service was closed to the public. What would a seeker think hearing this? We know that committing to Christ in some ways is not the easiest road to take. But hearing you become a slave? I could easily see a fence rider saying, “No thanks.”
In the end, I think worship should always be open. We have the best news in the world to share. What do you think? Should worship services ever be closed to the public and only open to a selected group?
(As a side note, I want to say there are a lot of good things going on at NRB. There are a lot of people here who are working for great, innovative ministries. But there are sometimes, like this morning, when I feel like the organization is sending the wrong message.)
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Filed in: Worship
FROM: http://www.thinkchristian.net/index.php/page/6/
Filed in: Worship
The Good vs. The Best
Posted February 5th @ 2:25 pm by Michael Geertsma
I am not one who would often be accused of being a workaholic. Growing up with two workaholic parents instilled in me an appreciation for finding a balance in life between hard work and leisure.
Still, that doesn’t prevent me from occasionally running myself ragged, and the last two weeks have been a prime example. Here at Back to God Ministries, we’ve been getting ready for an important trade show that we attend every year. This has required me to put in a lot of long days, often working late into the night, to make sure that everything is in order for the show. I’m stressed out, tired, not sleeping well, not eating well, and overall just ready for the whole thing to be over.
In the midst of all this, last Sunday, my pastor taught a lesson on one of his favorite spiritual disciplines: solitude and silence. At the end of his message, he challenged us all to dedicate 6 hours (in a row) to solitude and silence some time this week. At least 6 hours—though 24 would be better.
Internally, I scoffed. If only you knew what kind of week I’m having, you wouldn’t ask me to do this.
“I know what most of you are thinking,” he said.
Oh really?
“You’re thinking, if only you knew what kind of week I’m having, you’d know that I can’t do that. I’m too busy to sit silently for 6 minutes, let alone 6 hours.”
Ugh.
Then he said something that really made me question my prioritizing.
“Everything that is making you busy, everything that takes up your time—those are all good things. But God has more for us. Sometimes, we need to set aside the good things and spend time doing the best things.” He went on to challenge us to trust that God would allow us to get everything done, even while giving up 6 hours to silence and solitude.
I’ll admit, even after all that, I wasn’t able to give it up. We leave for the trade show tomorrow morning, and I haven’t slowed down for longer than 5 minutes yet. But it is certainly on my mind. How can I find a balance between the good and the best? Can I really trust God with 6 hours of my time, even when, logically, I know that I have very few minutes to spare?
How do you find meaningful time for God and his “best things” when your work, your family or your daily tasks are demanding every second of your day?
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