Well let’s talk about last Sunday.
We have currently been working on a Hillsongs United song (All for Love) that we intend to introduce to the congregation.
Last Tuesdays worship practice I felt we needed to simply “worship” with the song as a team and forget about the technical aspects for a change…. we did and had a profound worship meeting…sooooo…I said we would just go ahead and do the song regardless of our abilities…
On Saturday that all changed.
As I prepared for Sundays worship I felt quite strongly that we were not ready as a team “spiritually” to introduce the song…the song has become a very powerful template and many on the team have seen or felt prophetic significance surrounding the song as we prepare for it, but as I prayed and prepared for Sunday I saw that we would not be doing the song.
Now mind you the first thing I thought about when I made the decision to wait was how do I deal with disappointing our worship team? And to add insult to injury I needed to be honest when I explained why I felt we needed to wait…we weren’t ready “spiritually”...talk about bumming down a pre-service worship team…man I was apprehensive about how to communicate this and keep a positive vibe going.
As I prayed about Sunday’s service I also felt that we needed to “worship” more, and I in turn chose a more subdued worship list…BESIDES the fact that I had decided to introduce a new song THAT very Sunday…without telling anyone else.
Sounds like a recipe for a disaster, and I’m cooking.
In the past few weeks our worship services have been a mix of shouting, jumping, dancing, and occasionally screaming, but the bottom line is they have been very up-tempo and I have been breaking strings every week (believe it or not this is an indicator to us that some kind of break-thru is happening, I go to a lot of trouble to avoid this but when we are breaking thru the density of spiritual walls things happen in the physical and one of these things is I break guitar strings).
So I feel a more “subdued” kind of awe-struck list is in order, and choose songs that I felt suggested that.
What I did not know was that God was doing His thing and stretching my understanding of worship.
We did three songs.
We introduced one of them.
We had people shouting, spinning, RUNNING, and dancing…. all with my “subdued” list…
I have no template for this.
I have no idea what it means.
But what I had challenged the team with that morning was that we should be trying to get to a place where our worship was Glorious, Wondrous, and Dangerous.
Ultimately I have decided that we should be asking ourselves…not was it good, or did it go well, not even “did the people respond”, but we should find a baseline to understand and see if God was pleased…
Again, I don’t know but I have some theories…
-Mark
I have read this a couple of times now, and kind of hoped for some responses from some of us who were there that day. I wasn't. But I have been looking for clues in scripture that indicate God's pleasure. One that sticks in my head is "I will bless the Lord at all times, His praise will continually be in my mouth." It gets back to the fact that it is our daily walk, and also what we talked about with Joe. Glorify God in every thing we do. And I keep thinking about Moses asking God to show him His glory. God made it happen...and we are no different than Moses. So if we ask Him....I think He might be pleased, or maybe that's where dangerous comes in?
ReplyDeleteMark I like that "Dangerous"!!!. I just got through readin the Torch and the Sword by Rick Joyner, and I wonder how much we need to learn to tremble and fear God as much as we think he is our best friend. It is a dangerous place drawing close to the presnce of the Holy One. We have lost the idea that GOd is jealous, or the God of wrath, we have made Him a weakling making Him fit our paradigm. Yet he is not weak he just chooses not to move in areas we refuse to see Him in. this is where it becomes Dangerous!!, that we might see Him for who He truly is, and it might catch our hearts on fire, for others to truly see Him through us. God is lloking for a bride who wants her wrinkles pressed out and spots removed, and drawing near to The Father is where that will occur, it is meant to be dangerous, and fearful, and at tiem scary, not everyone can go there, the faint of heart will never tread there, nor will the too busy or too tired or too anything, but those bent on seeing His Glory will endure all to get just the glimpse of his backside. Which by the way is where he took the stripes for us, moses looked down throught he ages and saw the striped back of Jesus, now that is dangerous. be blessed canyon chapel, if we will learn to let the spirit lead we will change the world again like the 12
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