Worship

Hi Friends
I asked my friends Brett to let me know what he felt about worship, Brett is an artist and a great worshipper of God.
Here is his answer to me. I have taken the liberty to share it with you all. - Enjoy

When we in the church come to talk about how we might worship together, it seems that we can often get hung up on the formal and practical aspects of playing and singing songs.

A thousand questions spring to mind like;

How far can we push the style?
Where does my gift of creativity come in?
What is the extent of the worship leader’s responsibility?
Should there be any talking between songs?

And so on.

If we take all of these things into consideration, we can certainly come up with something that looks and sounds like worship - that is, as it has been given to us by our church culture - but we may just be missing the point entirely.

If we start with all of the questions of practice, context and creativity as above, we’re approaching worship in reverse order - the focus becomes ourselves and what we’re going to do for God and His glory.

To start off on the right foot, it seems that we must constantly re-direct our passions and energies towards simply loving our heavenly Father in the deep, emotional way that only comes by experiencing Him. The quality of our worship depends on the extent to which we allow our enthusiasms, admiration and hopes to revolve around Him.

I found this insight from the preacher, John Piper particularly helpful with regard to the centrality of worship in the Christian life; he states -

God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.

To glorify God is the essence of worship - we want him to look great - making much of God is what worship is about. God is made ‘more of’ amongst us when we are satisfied in him, when we treasure him above all things. Which means that emotion is essential; emotion is the fire and the engine of Christianity. But if it’s not there, then the Lord is less honored.

Even with sound doctrine and right thinking about God, Jesus said that our worship is in vain if He isn’t the object of our joy.

So, a New Sound in the praises of God is not an aim in itself - it will rather be one of the inevitable fruits of our decision to love and enjoy Christ above anything and everyone else.

Brett Richards

Andy Strajnic, 18/10/2011