What is worship?

"Worship is the means by which we interrupt our preoccupation with ourselves and attend to God." - John Pritchard

"It's our response to even just the smallest glimpse of Jesus.. and as we respond in awe, in praise and action, He reveals a little more of Himself.. And we are once again ruined for anything else." - Ben Fielding (Hillsong)

"Saying Thankyou to our maker." - Martin Smith (Delirious)

"Worship consists of the words, the walk, the works and the wallet" - John Wimber

"A gifted, choice." - Eoghan Heaslip

"The starting place for worship is that we belong to the Lord. We're bought with a price. It's our joy and privilege to honor him in all things. Our God-honoring life is expressed in the way we use our time, energy and money. It's expressed in the way we treat people, both at home and in the workplace. It's expressed in how we plan for the future, how we prioritize our activities. To worship is to have an ongoing conversation with the Lord all day, everyday. Much of the time that unspoken 'conversation' will be playing in the back of our mind while we go about our business. To worship is to have a "Godward life". To worship is to be attentive to the voice of the Holy Spirit and quick to respond to his nudging - the ideas he plants in our mind." - Andy Park

"...to put it simply, to me worship is our hearts response to our amazing God." - Lex Buckley

"Our natural response when we realise the majesty, awesome power, grace & love of Jesus our God." - Pete Wilson (Hillsong)

"Becoming a living embodiment of our love for God, in the way we relate to him, the way we sing, we think, we speak and live." - Vicky Beeching

"Worship belongs to God - it begins and ends with Him." - Nick Herbert

"The response of the heart in revelation to the TRUTH of Jesus Christ." - Darlene Zschech (Hillsong)

"Our all-consuming response to the all-deserving revelation of God." - Matt Redman

"We worship what we value most in life...what consumes our thoughts, our imaginations, our time, our hearts... that's worship. it's all of us, every part... it's done together as a congregation and individually as well. " - Chris Tomlin (Passion)


(Source - WorshipCentral.org, '10 Questions' Blogs)

His WORD. Our words.

Speaking to a friend of mine this week about songwriting, they made a comment that got me thinking.

"Using Scripture for lyrics works when you're singing them as Scripture. They start to sound corny when you just use them as a convenient 'safe' lyric." - That really resounded with me, and stuck with me over the last couple of days.

What are we aiming for when we're writing songs? To say something new? To express a truth? To expound a Bible passage? Songs can be different. Some are personal, some are congregational. Some are anthems and some, you might say, are 'album' tracks... 'B-sides'.

Personally I've always had a hunger for the congregation worship songs which bring God's church together with one voice. The struggle when writing these kind of songs can be that we want to say something new and creative rather than always sticking with Scripture. What we can end up with, however, is a dodgy lyric which just ends up sounding obscure - we think the congregation 'won't get it', or that it might stick out like a sore thumb and spoil an otherwise 'normal' song. On the flip side we try so hard to make our songs easily accessible that we end up with typical, predictable, Scriptural lyrics which (although true) don't necessarily bring us a deeper revelation of God.

Really what we need to do is be honest when we write - striking that balance between expressing our worship in a fresh creative way, and declaring God's own words, the Bible.

I don't how accurate my friends comment was in itself, but I sort of agree with the sentiment -

We're not just singing Scripture because it saves us writing lyrics, or it makes our songs sound like 'proper' worship songs. We singing it because it is true, and it is powerful. When we use Scripture in songs it has to be for those reasons. We need to write from our own revelation of those precious words.

God, let our words and Your WORD change peoples' lives as we sing and glorify Your Name.

Rest & Reward

Ok, so I've not blogged for nearly 2 months. But what a 2 months it's been.

Since the New Year we've got back to normality after almost 5 weeks of 'church-LITE' as things dialled down for an easy going Christmas at church (something many of us were puzzled by, and are determined to not repeat this December!).

We've finally moved to 2 separate worship bands. It's been a long time coming and we finally took the plunge now that we're fortunate enough to have musicians to serve both bands. This has been a really exciting and important change.

We've all either been there ourselves, or seen others experience the dreaded 'Burn Out'. Overworking and under-appreciating people in ministry can be a dangerous combination. A few years ago our church went through a period of 4 services a day and only 1 main worship leader - and even the most dedicated leaders found it a massive struggle which inevitably ended in burn out and the need for a well deserved sabbatical. Since then we've steadily built the worship team to where we are today, and have learnt a lot along the way (some of it the hard way). But now we are fortunate to have 4 main worship leaders, several on the fridges or in training, and a pool of deadicated musicians eager to grow in their craft. Moving to 2 teams has meant that nearly everyone has every other week off.

Every church is different and sometime it's hard if the leaders and musicians in your church are few. Even so, it's good to make sure we look after those we are working with, and ourselves. Schedule time off, weeks when you can join the congregation to worship, and even take time out for yourself and your family, and in those times seek God's face and rest in His presence. Be renewed and refuelled. That way you can keep the fire burning bright, without burning out.