Living a Life-style of Worship

We most commonly think of "worship" as something we do for 60 to 90 minutes on Sunday mornings.

And we would be right.

You hear the call to worship from Scripture:

Come, let us bow down in worship,
Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker. Psalm 95:6

But thinking bigger and broader ...

1) Worship is both:
a. Personal and communal
b. Secret and public
c. Interior and exterior
d. An attitude and an event
e. Something you live and something you do
f. Something you possess and something you express
g. A gift of grace and an exercise of our will to cooperate with that grace.

2) These characteristics of worship are so interconnected as to make each of them seem a precondition to the other in one respect and its fruit in another.

In other words you might say,
"You can't fully worship with the church
if you are not worshipping as an individual"

But you can just as truthfully say,
"Corporate worship is the wellspring of my life as a worshipper.
It is where I am fed and filled."

"Praise & Worship"

Recent post on a church music email list followed by my response ...

From: Frank
Subject: Praise & Worship?

Hi there,

We are having a bible study on worship. The relationship of "Praise" to worship and "Worship" as in a service? From a musical standpoint, can someone explain?

Thanks for sharing, look forward to your feedback.

Frank



From: Angelo
Subject: Re: Praise & Worship?

Hi Frank,

First to the words "praise" and "worship".

"Praise", when directed towards Almighty God, (as opposed to praise of our poodle, children, coworkers and astronauts) is a form of prayer. We praise God simply because HE IS. HE IS the great I AM. To differentiate from other forms of prayer like confession or supplication, the prayer of praise is "disinterested", it gives God glory for His own sake.

We use the English word "worship" as the translation of what really means "to bow" and "to give obeisance" or homage. Check out Young's Literal Translation of Psalm 95: 6 "Come in, we bow ourselves, and we bend, We kneel before Jehovah our Maker." The NIV reads, "Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker."

I read a book by the late Ruth Ward Heflin called "Glory" where she talks about moving from "praise to worship to glory". I understand and have experienced what she is talking about but think her choice of words is confusing. She is describing a movement from exuberant celebration, to reverent adoration to a keen sense of God's manifest presence/glory.

Now to the music part of your question.

In some circles the worship leader says, "OK, we'll start with some praise songs and then move into some worship songs". But songs of praise, songs of adoration, songs of confession ... they are *all* expressions of worship ... they all give voice to our bowing before the Lord. Staying on track with music here, if we want to categorize songs, look to the lyric, not the tempo and instrumentation. "Lord Have Mercy" by Steve Merkel is a confession song. "King Forever/Oh Our Lord and King" is a praise song but so is "These Things Are True of You" by Tommy Walker.

When we say, "Man, that song is worshipful" I think we mean, "That song is reverent and ushers in a sense of wonder towards God."

Peace,
Angelo Natalie

The F.A.C.T.S. of Worship

Finding Authentic Christianity Through the Sacrifice of Worship

Here is a simple guide for daily, personal prayer. The A.C.T.S. approach has been popular for many moons. "Faith" has been inserted as the first step. A scripture has been selected to powerfully describe each step of prayer followed by a verse from the Psalms. Suggestion: copy and paste this into your word processor, delete this little paragraph, print it out and place it in your Bible. Bring your prayers of faith, adoration, confession, thanksgiving and supplication to the Lord. He waits in the stillness for you. Peace, Angelo

FAITH
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Hebrews 11:6

PRAYER OF FAITH:
Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you. Psalm 9:10


ADORATION
Jesus said the first and greatest commandment is: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.î Matthew 22:37,

PRAYER OF ADORATION:
I love you, O LORD, my strength. Psalm 18:1


CONFESSION
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9

PRAYER OF CONFESSION
Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD "- and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Psalm 32:5


THANKSGIVING
Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 5:19,20

PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING
I will give thanks to the LORD because of his righteousness and will sing praise to the name of the LORD Most High. Psalm 7:17


SUPPLICATION
Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. Colossians 4:12

PRAYER OF SUPPLICATION
Hear the voice of my supplications when I cry to You for help, When I lift up my hands toward Your holy sanctuary. Psalm 28:2

Buona Pasqua

"Buona Pasqua" is the Italian equivalent of our Resurrection Day greeting "Happy Easter". However, it is not a literal/parallel translation. Pasqua is a direct reference to Christ as our Passover Who was sacrificed for us. When discussing the events and the implications of Christ's cross and Resurrection theologians speak in terms of the Paschal Mystery. In fact, the Italian word for the Jewish observance of Passover is Pasqua ebraica -- the Hebrew Passover. For those who embrace Jesus as Messiah, Easter becomes the Christian Passover.

So where do we get the term Easter? "The name 'Easter' derives from the Anglo-Saxon goddess of Spring (Eostre or Ostara), but the Christian festival developed from the Jewish Passover (Heb. pesech, Gk. pascha), because according to the Gospels the events of Jesus' last days took place at the time of Passover." (Harper Collins Bible Dictionary)

I have no argument against the Christianization of pagan holidays or symbols like Easter, the celebration of the Christmas on December 25 or the use of an evergreen tree. In fact it speaks to the power of God to transform a pagan into a saint. When preaching Christ to the Greeks in Athens, the Apostle Paul quotes pagan poets: "In him we live and move and have our being". And this is in the context of Paul's reference to their altar dedicated "To an unknown god": What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you," he said.

It just seems unfortunate that, for the English speaking world, the raw and life changing significance of the Christian Passover is somewhat muffled behind the comparatively nebulous meaning of the term Easter ... as in Macy's After Easter Blow-out Sale.

Buona Pasqua, my friend!

Welcome to church. I do hope you feel some discomfort this morning.

I am a music director/worship leader at a Presbyterian church. After the 9:30 AM service this past Sunday, a friend, who is also an elder, spoke with me about his concern for the unchurched visitors in our midst. You see, twice per month we end the service by joining hands and singing Albert Malotte's well-known setting of "The Lord's Prayer". My friend argued that this would blow the seeker away and we'd never see him/her again. I hope I'm not misrepresenting his position, but the idea is that lost souls can't relate to churchy behavior -- they don't know the drill nor do they understand the lingo. The "seeker service" was born from this idea. I share my friend's burden for lost sheep even if we don't agree on the means to reach them.

When a seeker steps into the midst of a worshipping assembly, shouldn't s/he encounter God ... He who is high above all nations and yet closer to us than we are to ourselves? And shouldn't the language of our celebration reflect that transcendence and intimacy -- His power and peace? The seeker *should* experience things in worship that s/he will never witness in the world. There are signs that are peculiar to worship that may be outside the seeker's comfort zone. But these same signs resonate in the deepest places of the heart, calling all to conversion ... to become child-like. If an unbeliever doesn't feel uncomfortable (i.e., conviction) maybe we are not fully cooperating with the Holy Spirit in our times together.

"But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or an ungifted man enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all; the secrets of his heart are disclosed; and so he will fall on his face and worship God, declaring that God is certainly among you." I Cor 14:24,25

It's Monday, January 6, 2003. Merry Christmas!

That's right. Merry Christmas! How are you enjoying this blessed and holy season? "Christmas is over", you protest. "My tree is down and my manger scene is packed away with the ornaments." Sad really. Christmas was just getting started on 12/25 and *blam* we're done with it already. Why? Maybe 'cause we skipped right over the season of expectation and anticipation (aka Advent) and started singing "Hark the Herald" the day after Thanksgiving. Why the big hurry to get in and out of Christmas? Maybe we're more driven by worldly commerce than we'd like to admit.

Yesterday the Church remembered The Epiphany of the LORD -- an important event in salvation history worthy of celebration. If the Three Kings were to show up at our homes yesterday (and even some of our churches) would they have been late for the party?