Last summer many of you know that I was in a car accident that resulted in my shoulder being injured. The injury caused my hand to go numb quite often and sever pain in my shoulder.

This was my first summer being married. Angela and I had plans to be out during the summer on trips going kayaking, biking, playing sports and just having fun. However, the pain in my arm was so bad that I could not even put pressure on it to bike.

I shared last thanksgiving that after many prayers and fully relying on God I was healed of the pain. I now have no pain in my shoulder. My hand still will go numb after overusing my arm (i.e. using a sledgehammer) but it does not hurt.

So why do I share all of this with you? Well, this summer I do not take my time for granted. Angela and I have been outside more, to the beach more and have done more outdoor activities than we did combined all of last summer. God healed me for a reason. John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. I am living life to the fullest extent I can. This is not just by being active and being outside this summer, but it is also by worshiping God every time I think of His blessings. When I sit down to eat, I thank God for the money I have to get the food I am eating and not just the food. I thank God for a loving wife who put up with me all last summer even though she wanted to be out and about. I thank God for allowing me to live through that car accident. I thank God because He is God and deserves it.

So my challenge for you is to not take your life for granted. God gave it to you for a purpose. In the same token, do not take worship for granted. It is not something to glaze over on a Sunday morning, but it is something to live out daily. If you want to have life to the fullest extent God promised, then live a life of worship that is worthy of the calling God has placed on you!

Please feel free to share your thoughts or read more on the worship arts blog: fbcworship.wordpress.com

I have been working with the youth now since February and have loved every minute of it. It has been time consuming and physically/emotionally/mentally tiring but that is life. It was not until Angela and I decided to start looking for houses that the thunder started to rumble. At first, we were looking for houses for fun and soon realized how much we wanted one. We found a couple and viewed some. We found one we really liked and fell in love with it.

The very next day after viewing it, my Mother-in-law, Sharon, went in for some tests and we found out her blood work was very abnormal. So, in the midst of the business we thought we had found some happiness to focus on with the house but it was short-lived. Soon after we found out that Sharon had Hairy Cell Leukemia. So in a weeks time we went from looking at a house to finding out our mom had cancer.

Here is where we decided to draw a line. You can either dwell on the horrible prospect laid before us or you can give it all to God and ask for His guidance. Honestly, it is a whole lot easier to focus on what is going wrong. However, when you see your Mother-in-law, who is battling cancer, being strong and courageous in the Lord, you can’t help but follow suit.

So, in the midst of the storm, God has been our strength and even though I am just as busy He continues to provide. We made an offer on the house and it was accepted without even a counter-offer. We found out the cancer Sharon is battling is very easy to treat and she should be done with chemo on friday. Although, she will be weak from the treatments she should remain healthy for a long time and if the cancer comes back it is very treatable and not life-threatening. I also have seen the youth growing so much that you can’t help but notice God working in every area of life.

So my question for you is this: “In the midst of your storm in life are you going to let the rain continue to pour or are you going to ask God to be your shield and strength and ask Him to shine down His warmth on you?” If we are truly worshipers of God we need to expect that the words we sing are true. Read this song and realize there is truth in the midst of the lyrics.

How Can I Keep From Singing

Chorus 1

How can I keep from singing Your praise

How can I ever say enough

How amazing is Your Love

How can I keep from shouting Your Name

I know I am loved by the King

And it makes my heart want to sing

Verse 1

There is an endless song

Echoes in my soul

I hear the music ring

And though the storms may come

I am holding on

To the Rock I cling

Verse 2

I will lift my eyes

In the darkest night

For I know my Savior lives

And I will walk with You

Knowing You’ll see me through

And sing the songs You give

(BRIDGE)

I can sing in the troubled times

Sing when I win

I can sing when I lose my step

And fall down again

I can sing ’cause You pick me up

Sing ’cause You’re there

I can sing ’cause You hear me Lord

When I call to You in prayer

I can sing with my last breath

Sing for I know

That I’ll sing with the angels

And the saints around the throne

CCLI Song No. 4822372

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Chris Tomlin | Ed Cash | Matt Redman

For use solely with the SongSelect Terms of Use. All rights Reserved. www.ccli.com

CCLI License No. 567078

Please feel free to share your thoughts or read more on the worship arts blog: fbcworship.wordpress.com

We all had journals and wrote down some of the things that God was telling us.

We started with prayer and a song of preparation (“Sanctuary”) and then continued by entering His gates with thanksgiving:

We wrote down what we were thankful for and also gave testimony.

We then entered his courts with praise:

We watched some clips from planet earth and basked in the beauty of God. We also had corporate adoration.

Then, as they would have done in the tabernacle setting we moved on to sacrifice and surrender:

We sang the song “Lord, I Give You My Heart” and then we had communion and made a list of things we need to sacrifice to God.

We then made our way to the Holy of Holies. Part of this was interactive as we tore a veil in reference to Matthew 27:51 in which God made the way for us to be in his presence without a barrier.

We then spent time in solitude and silence and sate in the presence of God. We finished our time by singing “I Love You Lord”

The beauty of the tabernacle is that there was no back door. So people did not just go through these steps and continue on to leave. They had to go back through. So as we left we entered into these times once more.

We asked as we made our way through sacrifice, “What is one thing God wants me to surrender to Him this week?”

We gave praise by singing “How Great is Our God”

And we gave thanks to God once more.

This week we will be diving back into “Renew Your Worship” with a look at session 6: Worship Tells the Story.

As a group we discussed that in order for worship to be alive we need to discern where life is coming from and be a part of it. This means that if God is alive in your church via video, or if people are hurting, or if people are bursting with praise…be a part of those things. Allow for people to experience the life of Christ in those things. This helps them with the story. It allows them to move forward in worship and not catch up. It’s logical to help people focus on the time to worship.

Some of the things that help us focus in on worship are:

Prayer time, singing (thinking about the words), the wind down after announcements and leading into praise (this signifies the transition into our corporate worship), it’s also important to gather the people with a welcome and greetings, accountability (ask yourself, your spouse, your family, your friends “are you prepared to worship”. this is a question that helps center people in worship), and music that is infused by the Spirit. If we know that the Spirit is in all things that bring honor to God we know he is in the music and in all things that serve His purpose on Sunday mornings. We need to be praying that God will allow us to see him and that our eyes would be revealed to his presence in worship.

God will help us focus, move us into community and reveal himself to us if we just ask Him to.

This week during our time together on wednesday night we will be experiencing worship in a different way. We will be journeying through the tabernacle and entering his courts with thanksgiving, singing praise in the inner and outer courts, offering a sacrifice, and basking in the presence of God in the Holy of Holies. The beauty of the tabernacle model is that there is no back door so we need to do all of these things in reverse order as we leave.

If you are a part of this class, please prepare your hearts for worship and communion for tomorrow night.

The body life model had apostles, prophets, teachers, healing, miracles, help, administration, tongues and interpretation. In this model it was each individual that brought their gift to a corporate setting. We discussed that it was okay to desire these gifts as long as it was not for yourself and was for the good of the body of Christ. They also need to be exercised.

Within FBC we said that we have a heavy focus on apostle teaching. We also said that we don’t have a consistent breaking of the bread time in reference to communion. We have had signs and wonders as results of prayers being answered. Also, our teaching is strong. Some of the needs were more breaking of bread, signs and wonders, informal fellowship, and the idea that healing is available by telling people that the altar is open and that we can have laying on of hands. However, we need to keep in mind James 5

¹³Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. ¹⁴Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. ¹⁵And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. ¹⁶Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

This is just a short overview of our discussion.

This week we will be discussing Session 5, “Worship Gathers the People”.

Webber says that there are four parts to worship: acts of entrance, a ritual of communication, a ritual of eating, and acts of dismissal. If you are to apply this to a dinner party it is pretty simple. We enter someones home at their invitation…greet each other…then we sit and chat for a bit…usually followed by a meal amidst conversation…then we leave and say our goodbyes and thank-you’s. So if we look at worship this way we can see it as well.

Feasting: This was a topic that we picked apart a little bit. Within feasting we decided you cannot keep that to just the idea of communion. Our thought was that feasting was encompassing of many things. We thought it was being fed as well as communion/community/unification and substance spiritually.

What we did in class was took one of our actual orders of service and divided it up with these four parts. This was the result:

Order 1/24/10

Announcement Countdown
411 – Announcements
Opening Song – “Reign In Us”
Prayer
Congregational Greetings
Offering
Worship Scripture
Congregational Worship
“Victory In Jesus”
“Jesus Messiah”
“Jesus Paid It All”
Pastoral Prayer
Sermon
Closing Prayer

We discussed that the first five items were all acts of entrance. The ctdwn. was a time for people to enter in and converse…the 411 is in an invitation to the events happening at FBC, the opening song was not only and invitation to the people to enter into worship, but in this case it was also an invitation to the Spirit of God to reign in the sanctuary and in our hearts and minds…Prayer was another invitation and congregational greetings was a time to commune once again.

Offering – this was looked at as part of our feasting or a covenant meal. We discussed that through offering we are giving a sacrifice. So we are laying our best at God’s feet.

Worship Scripture – Teaching and also part of feasting.

Congregational Worship Through Song – Teaching through lyrics but also feasting and communing with the Lord

Pastoral Prayer – Communication

Sermon – Teaching and feasting together

Closing prayer – Act of dismissal

So we can see that this structure is very evident in our worship service. We did, however, discuss that our acts of dismissal was a little lacking. Sometimes service ends abruptly and we don’t have the opportunity to process and communicate and in some cases say thank-you to the Lord. As a result we had a long discussion about how we could fix this. I met with Pastor Gerten and Kris yesterday and we began to brainstorm some possible things that we could apply to the end of service. So we are in the process of figuring some of this out as we all saw it as a need.

Be encouraged that we take our discussions seriously and want to hear the voice of the people in the church. Feel free to share your thoughts.

We talked about the mystery and vastness of God. This is a direct parallel to our worship of Him. There is such a vast mystery in worship that we can overlook sometimes. If God is so big and unable to comprehend, then our worship should be a mysterious thing too. We often frame our worship into Sunday morning experiences of music and word and table. However, God calls us to live a life of worship so we must break down the walls of what we think worship is. As the book we are reading says, “Worship, like God, is a mystery that can never be exhausted.”

So let’s break it down.

First, Worship Extols the Character of God. p.12 tells us “God loves to be worshiped, God loves to hear us say, ‘We worship and adore you, we bless you, for you and you alone are God. There is no one besides you.’ This is what we do in worship. We worship and adore God simply because of who God is.”

Second, Worship Remembers Jesus Christ. “The God whom we worship – the God of the Bible – is a God of action.” – p.13. “Worship remembers the living, the dying, the rising of Christ. Through that action it promotes the overthrow of the powers of evil.”

Third, Worship Is An Experience of the Holy Spirit. We spent a lot of time on this thought. Here is why: “In worship we adore and magnify the Father…we remember the work of the son…we experience the work of the Holy Spirit.” – p.14. “Most of us in the western world are better at adoring and remembering than we are at experiencing…as we are open to the enabling work of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit brings us into communion with the Father and the Son…As we open ourselves to the Holy Spirit working in worship, the Holy Spirit will enable us to experience the healing work of Christ and to know the reality of God. Faith is rekindled and revived – not by reasons that prove God – but by the enabling power of the Holy Spirit at work in worship.” So as we venture further into the idea of worship we need to remember that we serve a trinitarian (if that is a word) God. Are we experiencing the Spirit in our worship? Are we wrapped up in His presence?

Ways We Have Experienced the Holy Spirit:

These are some of the things our class mentioned that we feel the Spirit was moving in our own lives:

- Physically – the spirit moved in a group of people to the point where they were overwhelmed physically with his greatness

- Voice of God – the promptings of the H.S.

- Invitation – He is inviting us into His presence

- Awareness of Communion with God – this is something that we can expect and depend on if we are living in community with God. He will be there with us.

Fourth, Worship Is the Sign of the Future. “Worship as a sign of the future is a momentary experience of the future. In worship we enter the future…with the angels and archangels, with the the cherubim and seraphim and with the whole company of saints in God’s redeemed creation to cry and shout aloud, ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, the whole earth is full of your glory.’”

Fifth, Worship Is My Response to God. “In worship we intend what it is that God would have in worship.” (Notice: it is not what we bring to worship but what God wants us in worship) “We intend to be open to God…to glorify and magnify God’s name…to remember the living…dying..and…rising of Christ…to receive…the power of the Holy Spirit…to be a sign of the church, the future.”

So, worship is such a broad thing that we cannot fully define it in a sentence. We also can’t expect to only experience worship on Sunday mornings. We must broaden our idea of what and when worship is. Feel free to share your thoughts.

So, let’s get started.

Last night was an introduction to the book “Renew Your Worship” by Robert Webber. In the first session we dove in to what worship renewal is. The question was raised from Robert Webber, “How is it, I asked myself, that this same community of people have so much fun at a church outing, a church picnic, a potluck dinner, or social gatherings in the home, but become so rigid, so lifeless, so formal and cold when gathered for worship?”

Here is what the group discussed:

Tradition: Many of us were raised with the idea that church is a place to sit and be respectful. You do not make a scene. You are there to watch a sermon and sing respectfully.

Fear of Change: Because of the above tradition, we find it hard to take a step forward in worship because we are afraid of what change might bring.

Relationships to God and others: Our relationship to God may be weak and therefore our worship is a reflection of that. While our relationship to others may be strong outside of a church setting.

Offending Elders in Church/Respect: There are many in the church that we have looked up to and consider men and women of faith. If we are to express our worship and be full of life we don’t want to offend those who may find it distracting or disruptive. It is an issue of respect.

Preparedness: We may not be prepared to worship. We come in with the weight of the world and are not ready to jump right into worship.

Space/Sanctuary/God’s House: The space in which we gather is much different than when we have a church outing, picnic, or potluck. When we are in the sanctuary we are in God’s house and we must be respectful of that.

So these are some of the hindrances, but what exactly is worship renewal? According Robert Webber it is, “the celebration of God’s saving deeds that results in a much clearer sense of the power of the gospel at work in the assembly of people who have gathered to worship. It is also the reception of God’s power in our own lives…”

The guys came up with our own thoughts on what worship renewal is:

Application of worship and relationship with God: It is an extension of Sunday morning “singing”. Worship is applying what we sing about and living in worship with our relationship to God.

Response to the Holy Spirit: It is an openness to the movement of the Spirit. We are aware that the Spirit is there and react to it when prompted.

Communal: It is something that happens with more than one person. It may start with one but should spread to the community.

Evaluation of Calling/What God Wants: It is a time when we evaluate how God is calling us in worship. We should first and foremost ask, “What does God want in worship today.” We should not be concerned with what I can get or even what I can give but should be aware of what God wants and desires from us in our worship.

So these are some of the many thoughts that came out of last nights discussion. Please feel free to share your thoughts in the blog. I have also attached a form to fill out that asks a few questions about our church worship. Please fill it out and get it back to me for my records. Also, don’t forget to pick up your book!

Worship Renewal Form001

Worship Renewal Form002

Read this verse through and think about this…we are chosen to declare the Lord’s praises. Why? Because we have been brought of darkness! Look back on your darkest hour and where you are now, today. What is it that got you out of the darkness. In some cases, it may have been your own strength. I can promise you that God was with you all the way. In other times, you may have felt God alongside you and you rested in His strength.

My prayer for this Sunday is that we can know we are brought up out of the darkness into His wonderful light! Think about the magnitude, beauty and sheer awesomeness of God and prepare your heart now only to sing His praises but to DECLARE them!