The Warmth of Worship

It's been a while, so I thought I would try a new post to stimulate some conversation and dialogue on our parts as lead worshipers...

Today while I was getting ready for the day a thought hit me concerning worship. I was thinking about what Louie Giglio (the head of Passion) is always saying (as he tries to unpack worship and why we do it to young adults), "Worship is our response to God." And I think there has been agreement on this point and mini-definition for all or most of us based on previous discussions at this blog (and if you are new, feel free to read back to see where we started this whole conversation).

This was my somewhat fresh thought surrounding the idea of worship and what it is and what we are actually doing when we worship God and our motivation behind it.

"Worship is not a physical connection... It is a physical response to a spiritual connection"

And by physical response I mean it's what we do to show our devotion, not necessarily singing, not necessarily bowing, raising our hands etc. but even our physical prioritization of our time, where we place Him in our daily lives. That is worship AND most importantly this physical response is based on (and here's the kicker) a 'required' spiritual connection.

So I would go so far to say that if you are "worshiping" God in song (for example), but you are not spiritually connected to God by salvation through Jesus Christ, then you are simply singing. The same can be said for our service, study of the Bible and a load of other disciplines.

The key is that it is two fold and circular. We worship mainly in a physical way, because we are physical. However, our worship is reliant on a spiritual connection to God. And the reverse can be said as well, in that when we have a spiritual connection to God, our obvious response to his greatness and fame - is to worship Him. We give our lives, our time, our attention etc. as a sacrifice, in a willing fashion b/c of His love for us (Rom. 12:1).

It's not a perfect definition, and I'm not really looking to define worship here, I was more hoping we could look at it from a different perspective and look at it with a different spin.

As always your thoughts and comments are welcome.

Lyrics

I wanted to share a few thoughts from a book I'm reading which is a teaching aid for writing congregational worship songs which are 'contemporary.' I thought the following things were both challenging and encouraging as we seek to write to worship songs for the body of believers in which we exist. I think some of these thoughts are practical, while others are more spiritual, but I truly hope you are encouraged to speak into the lives of those around you through your experiencing of God. Added italics are my thoughts...

Words are so powerful. God spoke creation into being with a word and His Son is described as the Word. (see John 1: 1-5)

Reflect the Universal: We all share universal experiences. The same stories and emotions repeat themselves endlessly in human experience. The same great themes of love, loss, sacrifice, hope, war and death move people everywhere we need to connect with those universal experiences and emotions (I always try to be mindful of evoking emotions - because God is not an emotion and I believe that worshiping Him is a choice and should not flow ONLY out of emotion.)

Express Reality:
Write from your own faith experience remembering that you only need to be on the journey, not to have arrived.

The worship songs that we find in the Bible come out of deep personal experience and that should be the template for us.

Avoid falling into the trap of trying to say too much. Make sure that every word counts and contributes to the message of the song. Strong lyrics are generally built on short phrases rather than long rambling lines... Maintain a clear focus in your song - don't try to cover multiple topics in one song.

Express Old Truths in New Ways:
...you need to see your faith through fresh eyes. Those fresh expressions will then stay in the mind and the heart...
example: 'A place that has to be believed to be seen' by U2 ('Walk On'). The songwriter (BONO) has reversed the usual phrase "has to be seen to be believed' to create a memorable line.

Overall, I just encourage you to simply write and trust that God really wants to say something to our church - scratch that, His church, and that He would use you!