A worship leaders role…

I read an interesting tweet that was being retweeted by several people this week. The tweet, by Paul Baloche, essentially said, and I am paraphrasing, that a worship leader’s role is simply to help others worship.

This is the simplest and most concise description of a worship leader, and it provides so much freedom!

This simple sentence allows us to stop comparing ourselves and others to the “big name” worship leaders. We are required only to serve the churches we are in, however that may be.

You may be in a church with many musicians and a great musical worship team and here your role may be to prevent the band from becoming a distraction, ensuring that the congregation’s focus be on God and not on the music.

Alternatively, you may be the only musician in your church, helping people worship by providing some musical accompaniment and guidance. You, by doing this, are fulfilling your role as a worship leader and God is more than happy with you.

So, wherever you may be leading worship, with a big band or with only your voice, in a church of thousands or a church of two, pray and seek for His Presence, help others to worship, leading by example and lifestyle and be safe in the knowledge that God is smiling over you and loves the way you serve.

Rob Bell and Love Wins

I realise I am not qualified to comment on this subject, not being a qualified theologian and not having read the book, however, what the Christian world has been doing recently over the subject of Rob Bell’s new book saddens me to the core.

Here we are, followers of Christ, willing to love and forgive murderers and adulterers, willing to welcome thieves and prostitutes with open arms and yet so quick to condemn another believer.

Whilst I do not know Rob Bell on a personal level I have no doubt that he is a Christian.

And that is my point.  Who are we to condemn him?  Romans 14 makes it very clear that what we, as the Christian world, are doing is wrong. Verse 10 says:  “So why do you condemn another believer? Why do you look down on another believer? Remember, we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.”

Verse 13(a) continues: “so let’s stop condemning each other.”

Although I realise that Paul is speaking mainly about differences between believers who were following the Jewish way of life versus the believers who were choosing a gentile way of life, a lot of the teaching in that chapter is very relevant to this debate.

Pastors and other Christians have been condemning Rob Bell for writing a book.  Paul makes it clear that there are only two people who truly know whether he should be condemned for what he has done: God and Rob Bell.

Verse 16 to 18 says: “You will not be criticised for doing something you believe is good. For the Kingdom of God is [a matter] of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.  If you serve Christ with this attitude, you will please God…”

It all comes down to motivation.  Has he written this book because he believes it is what God wants him to do or has he written it out of selfish desire.  There is only one human who knows the answer to this, and I’d like to think that if Rob Bell believed that writing the book were wrong then he would not have done it. (verse 23).

So, here’s an idea: what if we, as Christians, continue loving Rob Bell, without judgement and without cynicism or condemnation?

We don’t have to agree with what he has written.  We are free to discuss, dispute and debate, but I am certain that Jesus did not give His life on the cross in order that we should turn on each other.  Who are we to condemn a fellow Christian for writing a book (especially a book that hardly anyone has read yet)?

Regardless of the content of the book, I pray that at least the title be embraced by us all and that Love would indeed win.

Stop and Rest

We have recently been running monthly worship meetings at church and God’s presence has been tangible.
It’s so amazing to be able to simply come together and rest in His Presence.
That word; “rest”, is the key, I think.  In our every day lives we spend so much time going from place to place, appointment to appointment, job to home, to dinner, to church to bed to job to home… that we forget to be still and rest in His presence.
His presence is always with us, we must remember that and maybe just take a little time to stop and be still, resting in his unfailing and unconditional love.
And for those who have not yet been to one of our worship evenings, they are on the first tuesday of every month from 8pm until approximately 9:30/10pm at Central Hall.
Here are a couple of examples of what you can expect in terms of musical worship:

 

 

An intriguing thought…

I had an interesting thought a couple of days ago while listening to Godpod in the car.

I must add, before I go any further, that I don’t know how theologically correct this is, or whether there is anything biblically to back up this thought, but I figured I’d share it as an interesting discussion point… (also, if anyone is able to shed some light on this, it’d be greatly appreciated!)

One of the people on Godpod stated (and I paraphrase) that God is the only person who is always in “the Present”. We as humans, are unable to do this as, as soon as we define the present, it is already the past.

As such, if God is simultaneously present at every single point of time, “present” throughout eternity, is He forever experiencing the pain of dying on the cross? Essentially, due to his omnipresence, both physically and chronologically, is he dying for us right now?

How much greater does this make His sacrifice? How much more does this show He loves us? He is willing to constantly endure the pain of death in order that we might live.

What greater love can be shown than this?

Return to blogging!

Inspired by Markrobinsmusic, I have decided to return to blogging.  (Check out Mark’s new blog here or his website)

I wrote a song a while back inspired by something someone said to me about how they felt as though God didn’t love them as much as other people, after all, other people received prophecies, visions and saw miraculous things, and this person only had an “normal, ordinary life”, not feeling as though God’s voice was ever heard in a tangible way.

This got me thinking: Do we sometimes put too much emphasis on signs and wonders and not enough emphasis on the greatest public display of devotion demonstrated by God in Jesus?  Do we sometimes, in looking to what He is going to do, forget what He has already done?

God, who holds the stars in space and the planets in their place, who with a wave of his hand paints the colours of the sunset and pulls back the blanket of night, died for us.

The same God who with a word can calm the raging seas, stilling the waters of the storms, who with one word can raise the dead to life and heal the sick, allowed His heart to become still and stop beating for each and every one of us.

This is the God we worship.  This is the God who loves us enough to give up His power, lay down His life and die to save you and to save me.

What other reason could he have for doing that if not a Love that is greater than anything we could ever imagine?

So, if at any point you feel like God is distant and doesn’t care, or that maybe He doesn’t love you as you are not as “spiritual” or prophetic as other christians at your church, remember this: 1 John 3:16 – “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.”

I Know You Love Me by Alex Boxall

Communal Worship…

Worship is more than just singing. We’ve established that and I think that we are all more than aware of this and therefore we shouldn’t labour the point.

However, so often we go to services and if we have not felt particularly connected to God we often leave saying ” the worship wasn’t very good/such a shame Alex was leading” etc.

Equally, when this is reversed and we have felt close to God we will leave saying: “the worship was amazing/great/inspired” etc…

I’m sure you’ll agree that there are some problems with this.

The first point I’d like to make is this:

The worship leader is not responsible for your encounter with God. He or she is not there to open a way or even lead the way into the presence of God. Jesus has already done this for us on the cross.

Up until that point there was only one person on one occasion per year who could enter into the presence of God. Every year on an appointed date, the high priest of the temple would enter the Holy of Holies, the innermost room of the temple wherein the Presence of God dwelt. The priest would have to undergo a number of traditional cleansing ceremonies prior to entering the Holy of Holies including hiding within a veil of smoke. Anyone who entered into God’s presence without protection died instantly.

This may appear harsh and mean for a loving God to kill the people He loves if they dare enter his presence, but this has nothing to do with th desires of God and more to do with his nature. God’s presence is so pure and holy that He is all consuming. Nothing is worthy to be in His presence and as such anyone who entered His presence would be consumed in His glory and would consequently die.

Jesus came to change this. No longer was the presence of God confined to the temple, hiddn behind a giant curtain, but with His death and resurrection, Jesus opened the way to the presence of God. No longer would we need ritual cleansing or animal sacrifices in order to enter into His presence. In fact, where two or more are gathered in His name, He is there.

I must add that He is also there when you are on your own!

Now, what does this mean in terms of our worship services etc?

When we look at living our lives we will often look to what Jesus did to work out how we should live, yet when it comes to worship we almost instinctively look more towards Tim Hughes, Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman and, in some cases, Godfrey Birtill!

I still haven’t found the passage where Jesus picks up his guitar and starts leading the five thousand in song…

Now, don’t get me wrong, in no way am I saying that singing songs congregationally is wrong or that guitar led musical worship is wrong, but I would suggest that there are more ways to worship than that.

Whenever Jesus met with his community, his disciples, He would teach them, pray with them, eat with them and yes, they probably sang psalms together, which Jesus, as their rabbi is likely to have led. As far as living a life of worship, Jesus was the ultimate example, feeding the hungry, curing the sick, touching the untouchable and loving the unlovable.

The new testament teaches a lot about the early church. They met together. They ate together, prayed together, shared their houses and possessions, learnt together and loved each other. 2 Corinthians 11 – 14 explains lot about different gifts available to people to be used in their gatherings, however at no point is singing mentioned. Hmmm… Is there really more to worship than just singing?

How can this affect the way we meet together?

Who recognises this scenario? You arrive at church 5 minutes before the start, say a quick hello to someone on the way in, ask how they are (they’re not too bad!) you tell them you’re fine and find a seat. Two seats away from where you sit down is a couple you’ve seen before but never spoken to, so you don’t say anything to them again, after all, why break with tradition!?!?!

The singing starts, and you enter this little tunnel between you and God. Worship that day wasn’t very good as there were some children playing with the flags at the front of church and you didn’t like two of the songs. The sermon was fine but you drifted off a little in the middle thinking about the tennis match or the formula 1 race that you’d be rushing home to watch. At the end there’s a time of ministry and some people go to the front for prayer. Thankfully this means that you can leave before the parking charges start and you get home in time to watch the race preamble. You then realise that you have not connected with anyone or even with God and that maybe it would have been better to stay a home in bed… Obviously this is an extreme example but I’m sure that we can all identify with some of the points in that example.

We are called to be community. Community being a word derived from the Latin meaning: with unity. The Bible teaches that we are one body in Christ and that He is the head of the body. If one part of the body is hurting, we should all be there, sharing the pain, supporting and helping the damaged part to heal. Equally, we should share in each others fears and failures, tears and laughter.

Now, when it comes to congregational worship we need to worship together as one body as opposed to what often happens which is that we meet together and worship God individually together.

As one body we have different skills and these should all be shared as part of our worship.

Believe it or not, there are people in church who don’t enjoy music. There are people who simply feel uncomfortable singing. Others prefer different styles of music, some classical, some hiphop, and maybe even, dare I say it, heavy metal!

There are people here who would rather spend half an hour painting a picture for the glory of God than singing. Others who would rather read or write a poem or pray for someone or simply sit quietly reading His Word.

We are all responsible for our worship of God, however, as a body we are responsible for each other’s access to resources and an atmosphere that is conducive to worship. We will sing songs, but maybe we should make space for people to paint. Or dance. Or share a poem. Maybe we could watch some drama and bring God glory through that.

People are different and as such find worship easier through different mediums. We don’t need to do this alone together, but sharing in our gifts will not only enrich our communion with God for those who enjoy these different styles but for the whole body.

Lets worship Him through songs and colour, through words and deeds, through cooking, painting, dancing, flag waving. Let’s worship with hip hop and gregorian chant. Let’s worship with embroidery and Digital animations. Lets rock out to his glory and meditate on his mercy. But most importantly, let’s do these things together, as one body, for His glory.