Worship
Our sung worship can be lively or intimate as we aim to open our hearts to our Lord and Saviour. Songs are displayed on a projector screen for easy viewing.
" Let the message about Christ completely fill your lives, while you use all your wisdom to teach and instruct each other. With thankful hearts, sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. Whatever you say or do should be done in the name of the Lord Jesus, as you give thanks to God the Father because of him. " Colossians 3 v16-17
What He wants from us
I have gone to and fro about what sung worship should be like since I’ve been leading at church. God has taken me on an exciting and challenging journey that I know I’m not at the end of, and He loves to keep stretching me and furiously loving me throughout.
When I was in my teen years, I was quite into keeping a journal, art, poetry and secular song writing. I was probably a typical angst ridden youth. One summer I attended Soul Survivor, and many of the worship songs that they were doing were lamentations. Songs with lines such as ‘when the tears fall, still I will sing to You’ and ‘when all around is fading and nothing seems to last’. God really spoke to me through these songs. I was struggling with various temptations you encounter as a teenager, and I knew that God was my refuge so these songs helped put into words how my relationship with God was. I would always run to Him...I’ve known God for a long time and even when I wandered off the trail, I knew in my heart of hearts that He was the one for me. He never let me get too far away and I knew then as I do now that I’m in the palm of His hand. These laments really softened my heart, and looking back now, I know that it was a very important part of my life. The mistake I think I made was then putting a huge emphasis on these songs back in church. I felt that because these songs had helped me out so much, that I had to then inflict them on everyone else. I genuinely thought that these were the ‘right’ songs to do; that I had reached a higher level of enlightenment. On reflection, I think that these songs suited my teen angst. It was easy for me to do them in church because in a way, they reflected the secular music that I listened to. God had some work to do!
I can remember being sniped when a couple of different people asked me to maybe do some more praise orientated songs, mainly because I thought that they just weren’t fond of the songs I was doing. How dare they! Later I would learn that God centred praise was a very important thing. Now I’m not saying that we shouldn’t lament to God. It is biblical. Jesus knew that we were going to get burdened with life and bewildered along the way. That’s why He said to take refuge under His wings. It’s a very bold and powerful declaration to say ‘life hasn’t gone the way I planned it to God, but You are bigger than I am and I will worship You regardless’.
Up until recently I was of a different thinking. I was into ‘receiving’ from God during the worship time. Nothing wrong with that is there? I want to come out holier than I went in. I want issues that I have resolved. I want to be ministered to...? What’s wrong is this: we haven’t said ‘I want to worship You because I want to worship You’. God knows what is best for us, but surely He has already done enough. He has given us salvation, and loved us while we were denying He existed. If we need some kind of ministry during the worship, let’s just let God do that. Let’s stop asking Him for things. Sometimes, we just need to raise our hands and say ‘You are Holy. You are beautiful. You are incredible. And I love You’. If we feel nothing, then that is fine, because we haven’t come to receive. We have come to give. We have come to pour out our love; to lay down our lives again and again. To say thank You; again and again. Our sung worship should be an overflow of the private relationship we have with God. I’m not being cold here. I’m not saying that God doesn’t want to bless His people because He does and will. He is gracious and full of love and WANTS to bless us. He also wants us to worship Him. It’s why we were even created in the first place! Like I said, if we praise Him but feel nothing, then that’s OK because that’s not why we have come. If God sees fit to pour out His Holy Spirit on us, or bless us abundantly, or sort out issues with us, then that is purely because He is a good God. Not because we have whined incessantly like petulant children!
There is a place for lots of different kinds of worship songs. I don’t believe that God has favourite songs or types of songs. He does care about our hearts though. And the moment we lose our focus from what He wants from us to what we want from Him, then we need to take a step back and remember exactly what He has saved us from and why; He loves because He loves because He does. Let’s lift His name up and join with the eternal song of Heaven and tell Him that He alone is Holy and He alone is Worthy.
Sometimes it’s really important for us to receive revelation in the form of new perspective. God is in the business of renewing our minds; more and more every day. He wants us to learn more about who He is and what He is about. This whole concept of simply worshipping God for who He is runs so deeply into the plan and desire He laid out for us. His design for us is incredibly basic: spend as much time as you possibly can in His presence before it is too late and you stand before Him and He says with a smile and a tear in His eye, “ We could’ve gotten to know each other so much better you know.” You see, it is far too easy to become passive in this life. Hours spent watching television, playing computer games, facebooking...it’s all time spent dulling your mind. And I can say that quite confidently because God challenged me about it, hence me writing this in the first place. Imagine it...you finally get to face The One seated on The Throne, and He says, “We used to know one another didn’t we...?” Pretty sobering. This life is just a blip on the radar of eternity. It is so easy to get sidetracked and distracted...laziness kicks in and before you know it, we’re no longer in tune with God and His plan for us. We’re just floating through life without a care in the world, taking comfort in the things we’ve filled the God void we created inside ourselves with (such as TV, Facebook, computer games etc).
I don’t know about you, but when I finally get to Heaven, I want to be as close to front as you can get. We’ve got to fight our way to the front in this life, once we’re in Heaven it will be too late. Don’t get me wrong, I imagine that being at the back in Heaven is more awesome than I have words for. However, I imagine being at the front is quite simply ________(if there was a word then it’d be in the blank). The Bible talks about reward; Jesus said to not store up riches on earth, but in Heaven. Heavenly riches acquired simply by committing a life to Him completely and then living within His presence. Notice that this talk of worship isn’t about songs, pretty much at all. Living a life of worship is an attitude and begins with choice. Everyday committing yourself to Him, pondering on Him, talking to Him, listening to Him, walking with Him and adoring Him in all that you do. It can only ever be about that. God did not make worship complicated; you don’t need to know anything apart from His love. He is the God of commitment, not of compromise. We should never let the relationship we have with him slide.
Joy unspeakable. Forgiveness unbearable. Grace unfathomable. Love - - - - - - - - .
Tim Davies
" Let the message about Christ completely fill your lives, while you use all your wisdom to teach and instruct each other. With thankful hearts, sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. Whatever you say or do should be done in the name of the Lord Jesus, as you give thanks to God the Father because of him. " Colossians 3 v16-17
What He wants from us
I have gone to and fro about what sung worship should be like since I’ve been leading at church. God has taken me on an exciting and challenging journey that I know I’m not at the end of, and He loves to keep stretching me and furiously loving me throughout.
When I was in my teen years, I was quite into keeping a journal, art, poetry and secular song writing. I was probably a typical angst ridden youth. One summer I attended Soul Survivor, and many of the worship songs that they were doing were lamentations. Songs with lines such as ‘when the tears fall, still I will sing to You’ and ‘when all around is fading and nothing seems to last’. God really spoke to me through these songs. I was struggling with various temptations you encounter as a teenager, and I knew that God was my refuge so these songs helped put into words how my relationship with God was. I would always run to Him...I’ve known God for a long time and even when I wandered off the trail, I knew in my heart of hearts that He was the one for me. He never let me get too far away and I knew then as I do now that I’m in the palm of His hand. These laments really softened my heart, and looking back now, I know that it was a very important part of my life. The mistake I think I made was then putting a huge emphasis on these songs back in church. I felt that because these songs had helped me out so much, that I had to then inflict them on everyone else. I genuinely thought that these were the ‘right’ songs to do; that I had reached a higher level of enlightenment. On reflection, I think that these songs suited my teen angst. It was easy for me to do them in church because in a way, they reflected the secular music that I listened to. God had some work to do!
I can remember being sniped when a couple of different people asked me to maybe do some more praise orientated songs, mainly because I thought that they just weren’t fond of the songs I was doing. How dare they! Later I would learn that God centred praise was a very important thing. Now I’m not saying that we shouldn’t lament to God. It is biblical. Jesus knew that we were going to get burdened with life and bewildered along the way. That’s why He said to take refuge under His wings. It’s a very bold and powerful declaration to say ‘life hasn’t gone the way I planned it to God, but You are bigger than I am and I will worship You regardless’.
Up until recently I was of a different thinking. I was into ‘receiving’ from God during the worship time. Nothing wrong with that is there? I want to come out holier than I went in. I want issues that I have resolved. I want to be ministered to...? What’s wrong is this: we haven’t said ‘I want to worship You because I want to worship You’. God knows what is best for us, but surely He has already done enough. He has given us salvation, and loved us while we were denying He existed. If we need some kind of ministry during the worship, let’s just let God do that. Let’s stop asking Him for things. Sometimes, we just need to raise our hands and say ‘You are Holy. You are beautiful. You are incredible. And I love You’. If we feel nothing, then that is fine, because we haven’t come to receive. We have come to give. We have come to pour out our love; to lay down our lives again and again. To say thank You; again and again. Our sung worship should be an overflow of the private relationship we have with God. I’m not being cold here. I’m not saying that God doesn’t want to bless His people because He does and will. He is gracious and full of love and WANTS to bless us. He also wants us to worship Him. It’s why we were even created in the first place! Like I said, if we praise Him but feel nothing, then that’s OK because that’s not why we have come. If God sees fit to pour out His Holy Spirit on us, or bless us abundantly, or sort out issues with us, then that is purely because He is a good God. Not because we have whined incessantly like petulant children!
There is a place for lots of different kinds of worship songs. I don’t believe that God has favourite songs or types of songs. He does care about our hearts though. And the moment we lose our focus from what He wants from us to what we want from Him, then we need to take a step back and remember exactly what He has saved us from and why; He loves because He loves because He does. Let’s lift His name up and join with the eternal song of Heaven and tell Him that He alone is Holy and He alone is Worthy.
Sometimes it’s really important for us to receive revelation in the form of new perspective. God is in the business of renewing our minds; more and more every day. He wants us to learn more about who He is and what He is about. This whole concept of simply worshipping God for who He is runs so deeply into the plan and desire He laid out for us. His design for us is incredibly basic: spend as much time as you possibly can in His presence before it is too late and you stand before Him and He says with a smile and a tear in His eye, “ We could’ve gotten to know each other so much better you know.” You see, it is far too easy to become passive in this life. Hours spent watching television, playing computer games, facebooking...it’s all time spent dulling your mind. And I can say that quite confidently because God challenged me about it, hence me writing this in the first place. Imagine it...you finally get to face The One seated on The Throne, and He says, “We used to know one another didn’t we...?” Pretty sobering. This life is just a blip on the radar of eternity. It is so easy to get sidetracked and distracted...laziness kicks in and before you know it, we’re no longer in tune with God and His plan for us. We’re just floating through life without a care in the world, taking comfort in the things we’ve filled the God void we created inside ourselves with (such as TV, Facebook, computer games etc).
I don’t know about you, but when I finally get to Heaven, I want to be as close to front as you can get. We’ve got to fight our way to the front in this life, once we’re in Heaven it will be too late. Don’t get me wrong, I imagine that being at the back in Heaven is more awesome than I have words for. However, I imagine being at the front is quite simply ________(if there was a word then it’d be in the blank). The Bible talks about reward; Jesus said to not store up riches on earth, but in Heaven. Heavenly riches acquired simply by committing a life to Him completely and then living within His presence. Notice that this talk of worship isn’t about songs, pretty much at all. Living a life of worship is an attitude and begins with choice. Everyday committing yourself to Him, pondering on Him, talking to Him, listening to Him, walking with Him and adoring Him in all that you do. It can only ever be about that. God did not make worship complicated; you don’t need to know anything apart from His love. He is the God of commitment, not of compromise. We should never let the relationship we have with him slide.
Joy unspeakable. Forgiveness unbearable. Grace unfathomable. Love - - - - - - - - .
Tim Davies
