Worship Matter

New Songs At Church

2010-12-22T15:48:00.003-06:00

First - I can't believe it's been over a year since i last posted something on this blog - shameful.

Been thinking about new songs at church. After chatting to a few worship leading friends, and visiting a few churches lately - it seems not all teams are staying current with new songs, fast song, corporate song, etc. So, here's a list of some great songs we've tried and liked at Church In The City. Before i give you the list though - I like to pick songs that are God focussed (upward) focussed, singable for a corporate gathering, fun for the team to play, etc. So here are a few - if you're reading this, and you have done other songs in your church that are really "working" at the moment - let me know!

- For Your Glory by Matt Redman
- Forever Reign by Rueben Morgan
- Praise the Father, Praise the Son by Chris Tomlin
- The One Who Saves by Ben Fielding
- A Mighty Fortress by Christy Knockels

to the choirmaster ...

2009-10-11T16:29:00.001-05:00

Did you know ...

Of the 150 psalms, 56 were written with the subtitle "To the Choirmaster"

Worship and Emotion

2009-09-02T10:25:00.002-05:00

If there is one thing i can't understand, is the terribly stoic, unemotional approach to worship that can be seen in some circles. Just singing the song about joy, without looking joyful, or singing a song of praise with the look of boredom on your face.

BUT, there CERTAINLY are times when you should NOT allow your emotion to get involved ... that's when you tell yourself to Worship, in spite of how you feel, especially when you don't feel to do it, worship God.

Ps 146:1 Praise the LORD!Praise the LORD, O my soul! ²I will praise the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.

Ps 27:8 You have said, "Seek my face."My heart says to you, "Your face, LORD, do I seek."

Ps 42:5 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.

Talk to yourself - talk to your emotions - and tell yourself to Worship God, for HE IS GOOD!

What's In Your Diet?

2009-07-20T19:46:00.004-05:00

Have you ever looked at the song "diet" you're feeding the church? Recently I've been pondering this for us as a church, and as a principle. Some church groups lean towards very personally emotive songs, sometimes erring towards very inward, "me" focused songs. Not that these songs in themselves is bad, or wrong, but that the "diet" is too much of one type of thing. Other groups will err on the side of only upward focused songs, with no mention or room for the personal response to God, or even crying out for Him in our situations, in our lives, in our troubles. And so on it goes.

My question is this - is the "crying out" song for God a personal thing, or a corporate thing? Is the emotional song for the personal setting, or is there room for this to be done corporately? There are songs like "Rain Down" by Delirious, which is a cry, a creative expression of this desire to see God move. There are some hymns, "Great is thy faithfulness" which are so full of truth, and upward focus.

Interestingly, i found 2 verses in Psalms 6 that were very puzzling. A Psalm for the choir master - it's a corporate worship song. Where do we place a song like this?

I am weary with my moaning;
every night I flood my bed with tears;
I drench my couch with my weeping.
My eye wastes away because of grief;
it grows weak because of all my foes.

Anyway, bottom line for me is this. Everything is balanced, too much personal, too much me me me, creates that theology in your church, creates that view of God. Too much "God out there" too far to be personal, too majestic to know you intimately, also creates that view or that theology. God is Massive, yet intricate. God is just, and merciful. God is to be feared and honored, as well as called upon with us pouring out our hearts, lives, problems, pains, fears, joys, excitements, fun, into his loving arms, staring at his eyes of fire.

I want to keep a good diet of vegetables, meat, starch, sugar, liquids, fruit, etc etc etc. Imagine living on fruit alone. Imagine living on red meat alone. Imagine living on bread alone.

What are your thoughts regarding this? Have you looked at the diet of songs you feed to the church? Have you looked at the plethora of topics covered as corporate songs in the book of Psalms?

Worship God ... in truth!

2009-06-29T15:47:00.003-05:00

At church, we've just started a mini-series on Worship, and last week i preached on the first installment. Our approach was not to start with, or focus on the "responses" in worship like lifting hands, shouting, kneeling, clapping, running, etc, but rather to focus on the object of our worship - GOD!

Matt Redman's song says "no one can sing, of things they have not seen" ... and that's exactly the reason we are dedicating 3 weeks to studying the revealed "attributes of God".

In the follow up to my preach, it was hard to not stop every few minutes to adore and admire God for the things He has revealed about himself in scripture. I truly believe that to worship God in "Spirit and in Truth" - John 4:23-24, we need to know Him, as He has chosen to reveal Himself.

So, here is a small extract of some of what i covered last week. (For a full download of the notes, click here, or listen to the message here.)

WHO do you worship? Thinking thoughts of God that are not true - makes Him to be
something he is not, and if we worship that - it's idolatry.

If we in our minds worship a God who is really small, and really insignificant - we're not worshiping God.
If we worship a God who isn't always true - we worship a God who is imperfect - that's not God!
If we worship a God who never disciplines us, never rebukes us, never corrects us, we're worshiping a God who doesn't care about us - that's not God!
If we worship a God who never cares, never loves, never stops you in your tracks and lavishes His love on us, then we're not worshiping "Our Father" - a Father who has good things for his children - then we're not worshiping God!
If we worship a God, an old man, a grumpy man, who sits on a throne on an inaccessible cloud somewhere, who doesn't really get involved in the details of your life - you're also not worshiping the true God - that's not the God of the Bible!

"A right concept of God ... is to worship what the foundation is to the temple; where it is inadequate or out of plumb the whole structure must sooner or later collapse." - AW Tozer.

The Eternity of God
God has no beginning or end, and he sees all time equally vividly, yet God has a plan
and a purpose for a time and a place.

Psalm 90:2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
Job 36:26 Behold, God is great, and we know him not; the number of his years is unsearchable.
Rev 1:8 "I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty."
John 8:58 Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am."

The Goodness of God
God is good. His ways are good. Goodness is measured by God as the standard. God is a good father. God gives good things. God's will for our lives is Good. God's grace, mercy, and patience are examples of God's goodness in dealing with us!

Luke 18:19 "No one is good except God alone."
Ps 100:5 "For the Lord is good, his steadfast love endures forever."
Gen 1:31 "And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good."
Ps 119:68 "You are good and do good, teach me your statutes."

The Truthfulness (and Faithfulness) of God
"God's faithfulness means that God will always do what he has said and fulfill what he
has promised"

John 17:3 "the only true God"
Deut 32:4 "He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he."
Num 23:19 - God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?

The First Corporate Worship Service Ever!

2009-04-07T16:39:00.004-05:00

Have you ever wondered where this idea of corporate singing began? I heard my friend, Alan Frow, preach on this once, talking about the "law of first mention", which is a common thought in theology where you look at where in the bible things are mentioned first, which then normally sets a precedence for things going forward. I think this is a law term too - where cases are used as precedent - but I'm not a lawyer, so it could just be LA LAW educating me on that one.

Anyway, the first mention of corporate singing is found in Exodus 15:1-19. It was right after God had delivered the Israelites from the Pharoah, and they had crossed over the parted seas. Moses then breaks into song. This is a great song (although no idea about the tune with so many words, but nevertheless), with themes of God's greatness, Praising God, About his love, etc. v11 says:
"Who among the gods is like you, O LORD? Who is like you; majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?"

It's a great song.

Interestingly, at the end of the song, Miriam the prophetess picks up an instrument, and starts singing the first line of Moses song.

"Sing to the LORD, for he is highly exalted. The horse and its rider he has hurled into the sea."

I would say, this is a great example of what we should do as lead worshippers in the church. We as musicians, singers, prophetic singers should pick up a line, or the heart of what God is and has been saying to the church, and put it in song. It's like Miriam took the whole song of Moses, and summarised it in that one line, so that all could sing along, and the result was that "all the women followed her, with tamborines and dancing".

Worship leaders, song writers, let us hear what God is saying, put it to song, and lead people in this response to the Lord!

My friend Hue

2009-03-23T19:07:00.006-05:00

At Church In The City we are doing a 6 week course called "This Family". My friend Hue spoke at a small group on the importance of prayer, worship and the word. He did a great job, and Vanessa cooked a fantastic meal.

Hue highlighted a verse that really had stood out to him, and has had me thinking about it since then - i had to share it. The verse was was

1 Samuel 30:6 (ESV)

"And David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in soul, each for his sons and daughters. But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God." [emphasis added]

I loved hearing that. Not, David 'sulked', or 'looked for comfort in food', or 'wrote a song to make people like him', or 'rode his bike'. "David strengthened himself in the Lord his God."

May we run to God first, and actually worship, pray, meditate on his word as we are built up, encouraged and comforted in the Lord our God!

What is a Church Worship Team?

2009-02-24T19:37:00.002-06:00

What is the worship team's role in the life of the church? Are we:

the warm-up act for the preaching?
singers because that's what our parents did, and what all the other churches do?
a "live jukebox"?
a team of musicians who facilitate the corporate singing of believers on Sunday?
Prophets?
Poets?
Heralds?
Watchmen?

If any of these are our idea of the purpose and function of the worship team, then these things will dictate the effort, importance, personal investment, we put into our role on the team. Remember, our vision sets the path for our journey.

I want to suggest a few "pictures" of what role the worship team could and should play in the corporate life of the church. This is most certainly not an exhaustive list, and some of these scripture references don't talk specifically about worship teams as we see them in the church today. But i believe we're believers first, children of God first, before we're musicians, before we're worship team members.

In short, we're to be anointed, warriors, who adore God, and seek to advance His Kingdom.

1) Worshippers in front of army - WARRIORS

2 Chron 20:1-23
20And they rose early in the morning and went out into the wilderness of Tekoa. And when they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, "Hear me, Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem! Believe in the LORD your God, and you will be established; believe his prophets, and you will succeed."

21And when he had taken counsel with the people, he appointed those who were to sing to the LORD and praise him in holy attire, as they went before the army, and say, "Give thanks to the LORD, for his steadfast love endures forever."
22And when they began to sing and praise, the LORD set an ambush against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah, so that they were routed.23For the men of Ammon and Moab rose against the inhabitants of Mount Seir, devoting them to destruction, and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir they all helped to destroy one another.

2) David playing for Saul - ANOINTED

1 Sam 16:23 And whenever the harmful spirit from God was upon Saul, David took the lyre and played it with his hand. So Saul was refreshed and was well, and the harmful spirit departed from him.

3) Dedication of the temple glory of God - ADORING GOD

2 Chron 7:1 When Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the LORD filled the temple. 2 The priests could not enter the temple of the LORD because the glory of the LORD filled it. 3 When all the Israelites saw the fire coming down and the glory of the LORD above the temple, they knelt on the pavement with their faces to the ground, and they worshiped and gave thanks to the LORD, saying, "He is good; his love endures forever."

4) Nehemiah building wall. One hand building, One hand fighting - ADVANCING THE KINGDOM OF GOD

Nehemiah 4:16 From that day on, half of my men did the work, while the other half were equipped with spears, shields, bows and armor. The officers posted themselves behind all the people of Judah 17 who were building the wall. Those who carried materials did their work with one hand and held a weapon in the other, 18 and each of the builders wore his sword at his side as he worked. But the man who sounded the trumpet stayed with me.

Matter

2009-02-21T20:03:00.005-06:00

I simply love to worship God. I love to sing, to play music, to read, to live for Him, and that's what Worship is all about. It's about everything for Him, for His Glory.

John Piper says: "Missions exist where worship doesn't." I love that!

The primary part of worship I'll be writing about is the singing, playing, corporate, private music part of worship. The band stuff, the heart stuff, the songs stuff. I'm not expert, there are many more capable of writing than me, but i feel more like I'm going to burst if it don't write thoughts down, personal revelations, and share experiences with songs, and new music, and things we're trying at church, and as worship leaders.

Maybe it's entertaining to you, maybe you learn something, maybe it gives you reason to pray for my sanity - i don't know ...

Why "Worship Matter", firstly because "Worship Matters" was taken, but also because Matter defines what things are made of.

David