Worship Leader Blog

The "studio" version of Session 16 of the college and 20-somethings Bible study of the gospel of Mark is now available on the Audio page. I neglected to bring my portable recorder to the study Tuesday night, so I recorded this a couple of days later at home...

The newest Passion CD, "God of this City" is out now--it's the eleventh release from the Passion team, and it's a good one. It's a mixture of material, some of which has already been released (Let God Arise, O For a Thousand Tongues, The Glory of it All, for example) and new material (You are God, God of this City, and several others). The material comes mostly from the Passion '07 event, and overall, it's an excellent release, with plenty of material for worship leaders to use.

"God of this City" is a great song that has become an anthem for the Passion World Tour, but there is a lot of really nice stuff here. One of my favorites is Charlie Hall's "You are God"--Christy Nockels' "Hosanna" is very nice, as well. Chris Tomlin's "Sing, Sing, Sing" is going to be sung in a lot of churches, too. "Beautiful Jesus," a new tune from Kristian Stanfill, has one of the most beautiful lines I've heard in recent years: "Your love, O God/displayed for us/as crimson covered over sinless hands".

I've just begun listening to this new release--I'll try to have a more thorough review later on. But after two or three listens, I can offer my wholehearted recommendation that you go get this album. You can get it on iTunes for a mere $9.99.

Sessions 14 and 15 of the Mark study are now available in the Audio section. Enjoy...

"It is in the process of being worshiped that God communicates his presence to men."

--C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms

I ran across this quote the other day, and it rings true to me. If you lead worship or serve on a worship team, you know what this means. Consider Psalm 73--this psalm of Asaph begins with a frank admission of feelings:

For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong...
Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence...

Asaph goes on like this for several verses, and then:

When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me
till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.

Being in the sanctuary of God brought clarity about things to Asaph the psalmist--worshiping God gave him perspective on the way things really were, the true condition of his own heart, and perhaps even more importantly, it gave him a sense of the presence of God:

When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered,
I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you.
Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand.

In the Temple, most likely in worship, Asaph became aware of the constant presence of God. In some translations of Psalm 22:3, the psalmist says that God is enthroned on the praises of Israel--in other words, he inhabits, or dwells in the worship of his people. God is everywhere present, or omnipresent, as the theologians would say, but there seems to be a special way in which God shows up in places where people are worshiping him.

That's what we're aiming for, for ourselves and for our congregations--that our worship services would be events where anyone who enters and worships God can find that same clarity and perspective, and experience his presence. And it deserves our very best.

The MP3 of last night's Bible study on Mark has been posted to the Audio section. If the list of files seems out of order, it's because I've been editing file names and such, and apparently, the postings are ordered in the order of the most recent edits. Sorry if that is confusing to anyone; all of the sessions of this study are there, so just look around and you'll find them.

In my last post on this topic, I suggested that we, as the lead worshipers, need to be able to "take people where we've been" ourselves--that is, if we're going to lead them into God's presence on Sunday morning, it helps a LOT if we've been in his presence in worship ourselves before we walk onto the stage. In this post, I'm going to suggest some ways that we can do this.

In most churches--and this is certainly true of our church--the worship team is a ministry that involves a very high level of time commitment. Our team has a weekly rehearsal that lasts from two to three hours per week, and since we lead worship in two services, most of the team is committed to another three hours each Sunday morning. On top of that, some members of the team are involved in preparing music, practicing, creating song charts--all on their own time. In many other ministries in our church, volunteers are often asked for perhaps an hour or two per week at most, and many ministries involve only a monthly commitment of an hour or two. In other words, the members of a worship team already invest a lot of time. It's a labor of love for most of us, but how do you find even more time for personal worship?

I once heard a well-known worship leader suggest (to other vocational worship leaders) that you should take some time to go to your sanctuary or auditorium alone and sing through your worship set sometime during the week, when no one is around, and use that time, both for rehearsing the material, and for personal, private worship, just you and God. That's great if you're a vocational worship leader, on a church staff, but even worship pastors can be so busy with other responsibilities that this can be tough to do. And the truth is that many, if not most of those who lead worship do so as volunteers, or perhaps bi-vocationally (i.e., while holding down a day job). So where do you find the time?

I've often used "windshield time"--time when I'm driving--as worship time--this is particularly useful on long drives. I'll put a CD in (or these days, my iPod), and crank up some worship music--usually the same material that I'm going to be using in church the following Sunday, and just sing with it, and let the meaning of the lyrics and the beauty of the music sink in. If you're like me, there are certain songs that always put me in a worshipful mindset, and you may want to set up a playlist on your iPod, or make a CD that contains a few of your favorites, to help you move from the distractions of your day into an awareness of God's presence with you. But be careful, and watch what you're doing--I've driven 20 minutes past my exit on the highway because I was absorbed in worship, and in at least one case, ended up late for an appointment as a result! If you find yourself in tears while worshiping in your car (it's often happened to me), don't hesitate to pull off of the road for a little while to regain your composure--drive safely out there!

A few hundred years ago a monk named Brother Andrew wrote a little book titled Practicing the Presence of God, in which he explained how everything he did during his day, even the most mundane things, like baking bread or doing his chores around the monastery, can be acts of worship, if your heart is in the right place as you work. These days, it is possible to carry your worship music with you (with an iPod or MP3 player) almost all the time, depending on the kind of work you do, and this can be a very worshipful experience.

If you exercise regularly, those times can be put to good use as well, either listening to music, or memorizing Scripture, or praying. Most of us, if we look at our schedule and our activities through a typical day, can find times during which our minds can be occupied with worship while we're doing other things. A quiet evening walk through the neighborhood can be a significant time of worship if you are intentional about it.

Last, but certainly not least, your daily Quiet Time, or devotional time, or whatever you call it, should definitely be a time for worship. Set some of that time aside for devotional reading of the Psalms, for example--you may want to have some worship music playing in the background as you read your Bible, or as you pray. If you play an instrument, such as the guitar or piano, you may want to use some of your Quiet Time to just sing and play your instrument to the Lord. Be sensitive, of course, to the other occupants of your household, particularly if they're not awake yet! I often take advantage of any solitude I get at home, when everyone else is out of the house, to sit and play my guitar and sing the songs that are most meaningful to me.

The bottom line is that over time, our whole lives should be characterized by an inclination to worship wherever we are, whatever we are doing. Imagine what a difference it would make if, instead of spending your walking time thinking and worrying about some stressful situation in your life, you were to use that same time to focus your heart and mind on God and his attributes, or memorizing passages of Scripture, or praying through a Psalm, or listening to worship music and reflecting on God's glory. Imagine how your life might be enriched if, while washing dishes, you were singing (in your head, if not aloud) songs of praise and adoration to God.

When we worship outside of the context of the worship services we lead, we prepare ourselves to lead people into the very presence of the God we love to be with. As a worshiper in the pew, wouldn't you rather be led by people who know what it means to worship God, not just great singers and players who know how to make good music?