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- Remembering What REALLY Matters
Over the last two years, I've written newsletters that run the gamut of strategies to help you improve your worship team and engage at a higher level with skills, mindset, and approach.
But not everything is logistics, efficiency, and optimization...
Sometimes, we need to stop and pause to realize that what we do MATTERS and really is FOR REAL.
Why Do We Worship?
The question above seems fairly simple, but the answers can get complicated and numerous:
"We worship to give thanks... to cry out in our need... to give glory... to receive blessing..."
The statements above aren't the reasons for the big "why"—they're only facets of the "how," in terms of our heart posture. The simple answer?
It's our call of obedience by our holy God, in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
God calls us to give Him praise, reflecting our purpose: to glorify Him and enjoy Him, and in the process, we encourage fellow believers and point people to Him as creator, savior, and king.
Re-centering Your Focus
This simple truth of worship as a call to obedience takes just a few words to relay a powerful and deep message—and taking time to reflect on that will transform how you lead your team and congregation. It's easy to be mired in the daily work of scheduling teams, putting out tech fires, making sure all musical/artistic elements align with the sermon... the list goes on.
But when you re-center your focus on your calling (not just individually or vocationally, but as a chosen member of Christ's body), then you reframe your mindset away from fulfilling tasks and "getting it right," in and of themselves. You actually use your daily work to steward that calling and encourage your fellow believers to simply join you in that.
Painting the Picture
I've been reflecting on this for a while now, although I need to be more strongly reminded of it at certain times. When leading our congregation in music, I focus on bring imagery into everyone's minds through powerful scenes from Scripture that illustrate this calling of obedience in glorifying God. Some great passages include:
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train[a] of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”
After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” 2 At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. 3 And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. 4 Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads. 5 From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings[a] and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God, 6 and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal.
And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: 7 the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. 8 And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say,
“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come!”
9 And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, 10 the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying,
11 “Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.”
When you take time to collectively meditate on these Scriptural scenes of pure worship, everyone has the opportunity to savor that they, in the present moment, are participating in a heritage from the past and prophesying of a future, never ending reality...
And that's something powerful.
Be blessed 👊✌️