At the heart of a vibrant church is a people characterized by vibrant worship.
I have found that almost every single mention of worship in scripture is coupled with an incredibly spectacular encounter with God. I challenge you to walk through scripture… you will come to the same observation. All sorts of people in all sorts of places worshipped, saw the hand of God move and had encounters with his power and presence that to the church in this day and age could very well seem like complete mythology.
The more I read these stories and heard about God’s move in communities all around the world today, the more I found that I was forced to ask the following questions:
Why was it that our worship services were so devoid of the evidence and corporate experience of God’s presence?
What did they know that we do not know or that we know only in part?
Through discussions with friends and through reading of scripture, I came across some interesting answers
The first one is that a relationship with God builds your love for him – your passion for him as we talked about last week - and your expectancy in worship. This great expectancy at what he is going to do germinates vibrancy in our individual and corporate worship.
I hope that for all of you reading this, it is obvious that experiencing God through worship has to be prefaced by a relationship with him and we have access to the father through his son Jesus – John 14. No one comes to the father except through me… Jesus says
Talking about vibrant worship and passion for Jesus before talking about a relationship with him is like putting the cart before the horse, because love blossoms through the growth of relationship.
Therefore, the better you know somebody, the more you know what to expect from him or her. I have found this to be true through reading scripture and through my own personal walk with God… and because our God is a wonderfully creative, adventurous and all powerful father, it only makes sense that spending time in his presence is something of great wonder and mystery. Encountering this wonder and mystery enables us to approach his presence with expectation and takes a dull and uninformed expression of worship to a place of passion, expectancy and vibrancy.
I find an interesting example of this expectation and passion for God in some of the psalms of ascent that David wrote in particular Psalm 120 – 122. David starts with a cry of distress in psalm 120, but his distress is transformed to a song of anticipation in psalm 121, and then the full expression of the expectation comes out in psalm 122. Why is the psalmist glad so soon after expressing his distress? I believe that the reason for this is that his relationship with God was at such a place of intimacy that there was more than just casual anticipation, but a real eagerness to meet with God because he understood that God was in control of every situation whether he was in distress or not. This fueled his worship and praise. Is it any wonder that scripture later speaks about David as a man after his own heart?
In trying to get myself to be more psyched up about worship, I felt like I was being disingenuous if I was not finding my passion for God from what he had done in my life. I have come to discover that if I am lacking in the relationship department with Jesus, I have one of 2 options when I come to lead the congregation at Woodvale in corporate worship. Either I can pretend that all is well and ignore any conviction or condemnation, or more often than not, I fall into the dispassionate category because I know that standing before God and pretending that all is well is a mockery of him.
Hebrews 4: 12 - 13
The reason I believe that vibrant worship is at the heart of a vibrant church is because vibrant worship is something that cannot be faked. Passionate, unrestrained, uncontained worship is not something that you arrive at in ignorance over what the transforming power of God can do. You see, anybody that has come in contact with God and is walking in a growing relationship with him is a force to be reckoned with. The bible is FILLED with examples of this.
I am further persuaded that the expression of vibrant worship has to start with the people that God has gifted and positioned to be participants in leading his people in worship. This means that EVERYBODY on the worship team – production, singers, instrumentalists – have to be walking in this before we can expect that the church will experience it as we do. In my first few postings on this blog, I mentioned to you all that the picture of worship at Woodvale is a giant mirror to the picture of worship on the worship team. If our desire is to see a vibrant church, we must become a people of vibrant worship… and this has to be spearheaded by the team that facilitates worship on a week-by-week basis.
This week, I invite you all to a season of examining the area of vibrant worship and the foundation of it all – your relationship with Jesus. If you are in a place of stagnation and therefore unable to find your passion for Jesus, please be honest with somebody in your small group or on the team and pray about it. I believe that victory in this area starts with being honest about your walk with God and sharing it with somebody that can stand with you and pray you back into a healthy relationship with your savior and creator.
Next week we shall talk about another answer that I came to when examining the disparity between examples of worship in scripture and what we see in our contemporary setting.
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3 comments:
I just got home from choir and realized I had not read the blog. (Oi vay!) Here are some ideas/questions for Pastor P and the rest of you worship leaders/servants:
I am somewhat new to Pentecostal worship, and I am wondering if by "disparity between examples of worship in scripture and what we see in our contemporary setting", you (Pastor Paulo) mean primarily that there are not manifestations of unusual phenomena in Woodvale services? Or perhaps that there is a disconnect between our happy faces in our worship and then distance from God and neighbour in our Mon to Sat lives?
Also, on another matter, sometimes I think I may get myself too worked up emotionally at the worship services -- an intensity that can't be maintained 24/7...that I equate "being emotional with pleasant feelings" as experiencing God. Today I felt angry with someone when he was, in my perception, rude to me. Was I away from God when I felt that annoyance and defensiveness?
Anyway, these are my imperfectly expressed thoughts and ideas for tonite.
Thanks to Pastor P for the blogs, to Anna for another great job leading and coaching us tonite (esp the bbbbbbb lip exercize (no dignity left :) ) and to the rest of the commentors who have left their thoughts to previous blogs.
In Christ,
Ted the Tenor :)
Ted, you've raised a comment I hear a lot when I speak about the disparity between what happened in worship in the accounts that we read in scripture and what happens on a week by week basis in many of our congregations.
I am not speaking about "unusual phenomena" as you put it... although I acknowledge that being in God's throne room must be anything but usual - Just look at Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4. God is the MOST POWERFUL person, creator, savior, Lord, master, healer, etc... that we know and is the object and focus of our worship. It makes sense that being in the presence of this omnipotent God is going to be spectacular from time to time - perhaps even most of the time. However, we have to be clear about this: the "phenomena" that happen are nothing but a physical manifestation of the more important thing - communion with God.
So we do not seek after the "things that happen" when we are in God's presence. We seek after his presence. It is the relationship with him that we seek.
There are quite a few instances in scripture where "deep worship" is described, but there is no mention of extraordinary stuff.
Making the services about the stuff is missing the point of worship.
It is the same thing with emotions in my opinion. Please do not think that I am saying that worship should be devoid of emotion... or that being in the presence of God is not an emotional experience - I am not saying any such thing. But we have to learn to differentiate between an emotional and musical high (see my blog a few weeks ago) and the experience of being under the power of God and in his presence. Or else we find ourselves chasing after the emotional high and missing God's presence with us when he chooses to work with us or speak to us in different ways.
Read 1 Kings 19: 8 - 12-ish. God was not in the fire, wind or earthquake even though he had used those in the past. Instead he chose to appear as a "voice". God is HIGHLY multi dimensional in the way he speaks, touches, and meets with his people.
Chasing the "phenomena" or the emotions - forgive the analogy - is like trying to get high. After a while, it never satisfies, but because you do not know better, you keep going back. Thank God that he is so much more than the stuff...
I could go on and on, but I think that you catch my drift.
Okay, I know I’m going off on a tangent, but in light of going ‘deeper’ …here goes!
Phenomena. Based on its origin and definition, phenomena result from our perception of an experience – an experience through our senses, through the natural. The majority of my churched experience has been influenced by Catholicism – the most phenomena I remember experiencing growing up was the happy feeling that I’ve come to know as His joy in me – we would come home from church after picking up the brick of neopolitan (or walnut or butterscotch ripple) ice cream for our special Sunday dessert, and everyone was happy – or maybe it was the ice cream! Nothing ever happened like getting smacked over by the Holy Spirit --- at least the times I ‘fainted’ and had to be carried out of church were never referred to as that, but a need for air. The first time I heard prayer language was at a charismatic prayer meeting that I attended with my cousin when I was 18, and it freaked me out! In my 20’s, when I was searching, I came to learn that I could pray for the gift of tongues, and I did … and I received my prayer language … but I never used it because I thought ‘I’ was going to freak everybody out! I got over it, but it took about 20 years! Now … a ‘few’ years later, I find myself in my prayer language after a good workout on the treadmill (albeit a few months ago since I’ve experienced that!!). I get all that oxygen into me and out comes my prayer language! I’m still working on giving it volume though. I have also come to know the smack of the Holy Spirit to be a very real experience.
It is interesting how that which cannot be explained in the natural is called phenomena or by definition; perception. We cannot explain it in the natural so it is only our perception of the situation. So, it could have been the joy of the Lord I was feeling as a child … or the joy of ice cream?! Do we only trust our ‘perceptions’ if they manifest in the natural?
Well, after all this rambling, I have come to the conclusion that the only real experience or perception of God’s presence is that which I can confirm in His Living Word, flowing from the Holy Spirit. How do I know it is the Holy Spirit? I so truly want to say, “I just know!” However, experience in listening to hear Him has taught me His voice and how different it is from that of condemnation and confusion or crazy-making. His voice communes with His Word! There is absolutely nothing in the natural that explains this loving communion and its manifestation in our lives – if we try, each attempt only segments a BIG God into piecemeal understandings.
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