Worship Without Ceasing

So I am going to try to get back to this blog and try to capture some of the goodness that is going on in our Thursday night worship team time. This week we are going to be singing "Revelation Song" as part of our worship service. So tonight we had a little discussion on Revelation chapter 4, which describes the four beasts (living creatures) and the 24 elders and their activity in heaven. There are two main themes to take away from this chapter related to worship:

(1) This activity of worship is continual. It does not stop. It is ever-present. It will continue forever. As frail human beings we just don't understand this concept of worship-without-ceasing very well. We try to think of worship as a discrete thing that has a beginning and end. But for these heavenly personages, this is a continual and continuing activity. Paul exhorts the church at Thessalonica to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thes 5:17). What would our lives look like if we worshipped without ceasing.

(2) The content of how the creatures and elders praised God is revealing. The four beasts proclaimed the holiness of God. The elders spoke of God's worthiness and His power over all creation and all things. That's it. God is Holy. God is worthy. God has power over all things. There is no flowery language about how beautiful God is, or how majestic, or how wise. God is Holy. God is worthy. God has power over all things. Simple.

Live from Worship 2.1!!

LIVE FROM GREEN VALLEY, IT'S FRIDAY NIGHT!!!!
(A few messages left during the night by God's people that gathered to Worship Him in so many different ways. A fresh fragrance unto You Lord.)


Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna in the Highest!!

Lord, the more I seek You the more I find You!!! How great!!

Lord you are the giver of hope, may it overflow in me
Lord you are the giver of peace, may I rest in you
Lord you are the giver of life, may I live it to the full
Lord you are the giver of words, speak to me
Lord you are the giver of thought, may I think of you always...

"For thus says the Lord God: 'Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out.'" Ezekiel 34:11

Here I go Lord, I'm getting ready to climb a huge mountain. I'm so thankful to have to as my light, leading me into what I do not know, blind. Thank you.


What are you doing to advance His Kingdom?

where else can i go but to the LORD ! masterG


SWEET SWEET SPIRIT !masterG

He's coming back...He's coming back for you! for me! He's really coming back...in a very little while is the end of all things! It's all TRUE. He's coming. He's COMING! HE'S COMING! Lord Jesus, Come! May it be today!



What an awesome night! Praise to You alone Lord Jesus! You are good and Your love endures!

Amazed by Him,
W2

Worship 2.1: Fresh Fragrance

"Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."
Ephesians 5:1-2

So Ashley came to me about a month ago and wanted to share a night of creative worship and hopefuly expose us to some new ideas about what it means to worship God, and how we do that. How we express our worship. So the idea for "Fresh Fragrance" was born. The idea here again is not so much that we are trying to do something new, as that we are trying to create an environment where the possibility of something new exists. Maybe you've never thought about using play dough as an expression of worship to God. Maybe you've never really danced before God. Maybe you'd like to try.

I had the opportunity to attend a worship training conference in Laurel a couple of weeks ago with a few of the worship team crew, and there was a great session there about creativity in worship. The session was led by Michael Gungor. (BTW, if you havn't heard me tell you about getting his album "Ancient Skies", you need to stop reading this post and go buy it. It is easily my favorite album that I am listening to right now.)

Anyway, there were some really great ideas there, but one of the things that he talked about was how all creative expression is just a reordering of creation. This is an idea that I have seen in many places, that all artistic expression is just our own way of trying to share the beauty of what God has already created. The point is that maybe creativity in and of itself is worship, in that it reflects the goodness and character of our creator. The other point that he made was that each church body is unique, because its expression of worship as a group is uniquely created by the personalities that reside in it. There cannot be any other group or individual that can create the same expression of worship as we can. This was something that was clearly demonstrated at "Fresh Fragrance", when you looked around and saw what we had created. Our worship to the Lord was a unique expression of creativity.

I can't wait for Friday night, when we get to try this little experiment again. I hope that you will come. But more importantly I hope that you will come with a blank slate and let God motivate you to create an expression of worship that you may not have expected.

Amazed by Him,

W2

ABANDON

So I have been stuck lately on a single word: ABANDON. For me right now, this is what genuine worship is about. Allow me to lay some dictionaritication on you:

abandon
–verb (used with object)
1.
to leave completely and finally; forsake utterly; desert: to abandon one's farm; to abandon a child; to abandon a sinking ship.
2.
to give up; discontinue; withdraw from: to abandon a research project; to abandon hopes for a stage career.
3.
to give up the control of: to abandon a city to an enemy army.
4.
to yield (oneself) without restraint or moderation; give (oneself) over to natural impulses, usually without self-control: to abandon oneself to grief.

or how about this one:
--- give up with the intent of never claiming again; "Abandon your life to God";


The real question is, what are we doing when we worship God? Or, more appropriately, what are we supposed to be doing when we worship God? I believe it has something to do with this last definition. We are to give ourselves over to Him, without entertaining the notion of reclaiming control. What is it that we find ourselves doing though? Do we try to find a safe place, a comfortable place, to worship Him? Are we establishing some safe places that we can fall back to if things get a little out of hand?

I don't think that is the kind of worship that David was exhibiting as the ark of the covenant was returned. I don't think that is the kind of worship that God wants from us.

I have been thinking a lot about the story of Jesus calling to Peter to come to Him on the water. I think that even in the midst of the storm that was raging, the boat probably seemed pretty steady, pretty safe. But that's not where Jesus was.

Worship is abandon.
-W2

Worship Hunger Pangs

Well, I hate, er, I mean I really dislike those other bloggers out there that have these posts that say something like "well, I hadn't blogged for a while so" or whatever, but yeah I'm guilty of that too. Actually, that was probably the worst sentence ever written in the history of the English language. At any rate, I finally had something to say, so I thought I should say it.

This past weekend we had intended to be away in WV for some family stuff, so we were going to miss worship on Sunday. We actually ended up coming back early due to some sick children, but we missed worship anyway. And as more time went on through Sunday and Monday, I realized that I really missed that time of worship. I don't think I have missed a Sunday worship time since we were away the last 4th of July. And I came to realize that that steady diet of worship had been interrupted. And it was almost the same feeling as if I had skipped a meal and I became hungry. There was an important bit of nourishment that I had missed and my spiritual self had a need, something that required some sustenance. I wonder how often we treat our time with God this way. Do we hunger to be with Him? Do we become thirsty when we have neglected time in His word? Have our praise muscles become soft and flabby because we have not been exercising them? Worshipping our Lord should be something that strengthens us and trims the excess weight. It should involve our entire being (full-body-spirit-mind-soul workout). And it requires some working up to. You can't just jump into mind-blowing awesome fire from on high worship. It takes some time of learning about God's character, and experiencing His presence in the day-to-day places. It takes some meditation and contemplation of His love, His existence, His power. And finally it takes some practiced activity of actually involving ourselves in worship. Then we can start to become well-toned worshipers.

Sorry for the extended metaphor, but I am just really hungry to be in the presence of God's people worshiping him again this coming Lord's day. Be blessed, dear reader.

Amazed by Him,
W2

NEW WORSHIP GEAR

Well, sometimes we just need to get some new equipment. It's not that the old stuff is no good anymore. It's just that, well, sometimes we need to inject some newness back into what we do. It is often when we try something new that our past patterns of behavior become invigorated. In light of all this, behold the workmanship of Mr. Paul Reed Smith:

So I finally broke down and got a new axe. My thanks to Mr. Paul Mercer of Bill's Music fame, who made by sales experience truly awesome. Paul also managed to find me a great deal on a tube amp to truly convey the sweet sound of my new instrument, a used Peavey Classic 30:

Yeah. That's a lot of tubes. I can't wait to rock the house with the new gear.

-W2

Worship 2.0 Fallout

Wow. Worship 2.0 was awesome! Thanks to all of you that came out and got a taste of what God can do outside of Sunday. I do want to make a point about Worship 2.0. The idea is not that we are necessarily trying to do something new. The point is that we are trying to create an atmosphere in which we are open to the possibility of something new. The focus of the Worship 2.0 series is really about freeing ourselves, kicking down boundaries, opening our hearts and minds, and surrendering all that we are to praise the Lord for all that He is. When we do that we cannot hope to ever remain the same.

It took me a while to follow up on this because I just felt really drained. This is something that has been on my heart for a long time, and I just felt like I poured everything I had into it. And afterward I just seemed to have run out of juice. I was exhausted. I am reminded here of some words from a song by Brenton Brown (based on the end of Isaiah Chapter 40 - remember Isaiah 40, its where the inspiration for "Teach Me How to Be in Awe" came from, anyway back to the blog):

Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord

Well sometimes strength does come when we wait. But sometimes strength comes by just diving back into the fray and letting God work it out. The SMYDEK worship time last night became that for me. Evan rolled to the house and sat in with us, and he and rest of the boys really rocked the place. I was totally reinvigorated. I felt like I had been given new strength:

'Cause when we see you we find strength to face the day

Another line from Mr. Brown along with Paul Baloche in the song "Hosanna".

Are we looking to God first to provide our strength? Or do we try to work it out on our own first? Being of the control-freak nature, I am often inclined to do the latter. I guess that's something I need to work on.

To all of you fellow laborers in Christ, may God renew your strength today.

Amazed by Him,
W2