What's Important; Part IV The Final Piece

This is the last part of my sermon. It was too long for one blog post, but I did the whole thing as one piece on Sunday morning. I never claim to have any type of special insight, but wanted to share my passion for music and how I use it in my life to glorify God.

My view of church today.
I no longer see worship as just the singing part as I did when I was 5 years old. Of course the songs have a special place in my heart, but Worship is a more complete image for me.  I just talked about the church un-simplified. Now here is my view of Church Worship simplified. I see four elements of a church service that help us in our worship of Christ, as described by many theologians, including Dr. Robert Webber.

1. We gather together and prepare to worship. We come together as described in Ephesians chapter 4. "So Christ himself gave the apostles, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ." But what happens if we don't do that? Paul goes on to say "Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is Christ. (in case you missed who he was talking about) From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does in work." Here Paul uses very specific language that is so detailed. Gather together.

2. We hear God speak. God has much to say for the church, even today. We also hear God speak as we read from scripture. We then listen to God's word interpreted through a sermon. This is all included in the God speaks section.

3. We respond to God. We respond to his word through prayers. We also respond to God by being obedient in the offering and Eucharist. We gather at the Lord's table to respond to his promises.

4. We are sent out. After gathering to hear God's word and respond, we then go to make disciples. We are sent into the world not to go back as we came, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12) It says we will be able to test and approve what God's will is.

There are two questions to ask with regards to what is important. The first is; what is important to me? The second is; what is important to God?
In answering the first question, we can look at the story I told about my re-enactment of church. I did the things that were important to me. Even today we come to church with the attitude of looking for things that are meaningful to ourselves. For some of us the sermon is the most important. There are certain criteria that need to be met to have an effective sermon. There are time constraints. There is the presentation of the Gospel. You get the idea. For others the music is so important. We love to sing. Not always at 8 o'clock in the morning, but we love to sing. What style of music do you like? Can a church use drums? Electric guitar? Piano? Organ? How long should the singing go on? For some people I see on Sundays this is also the most uncomfortable time of the service. Some people would be happy to just say the lyrics in the form of a prayer. "I love you, I love you, I love You. Lord, Lord Lord." Other people say communion is the holiest part of the service. It is where we participate in one of the Sacraments. But some churches don't even have communion every week or some not at all.
Time to look at question two. What is important to God. In order to figure out what God wants from us, we need to know him more. We need to read His word in the Bible. We need to seek His voice in prayer. In order to do that we must expect to meet God. God speaks and acts today. He is interested in every one of us. God redeems our lives, for those who believe.
The world tells us what we do defines who we are. God says no; who we are defines what we do. Who are you? The church is your stage. Today is the scene. The story? We were designed for worship. Ready....action!

What's Important; Part III Insights of Worship

4 new insights to consider for your expectation of worship. Here is where I share my heart for worship. 

1. The primary work of church is worship.
Most people think evangelism is primary work. It is important, but worship is our primary function. Everything we do should come from our love of God. Evangelism flows from that. Missions flows from that. Discipleship flows from that.

2. Worship is a source of renewal. God speaks and acts in our service. The sermon is not just an educational or motivational tool. It is another way to hear God through our Pastors. Worship is not a rule or chore, it is something to look forward to. I always remember Carl saying people don't ever say they are taking a day off from going to a ball game or going to see a movie. Why do people take a day off from coming to celebrate Christ? Our service celebrates Christ. One great thing about our church is our Anglican faith. One of my heroes Andy Piercy says Anglicanism gives us tools, not toys. Tools are useful, toys entertain us. These tools are traced back to the early church. We follow a prayer book with hundreds of years of history. It frees us from inventing a way to draw close to Christ, or inventing a new way to celebrate Christ.

3. Worship is an active experience. Worship is God speaking and acting to us like He did to the prophets and apostles. We sing together. We pray together. We read scripture together. Scripture is not just a book, we hear God speak. We can respond to God, to his word. 

4. I desire a return of arts to the church. Music, banners, dance, drama, color. God came to us through flesh and blood...he died a physical death. Emmanuel, God with us. Thomas wanted to see the scars. We use art to help us in worship. Backgrounds, images that enhance the message. Flowers, banners. And when we sing, we use songs not to entertain, but to enhance our service. We hear His Word in the songs we sing. I really want to talk a bit more about this part. I know a priest who refuses to call the musicians in his church Worship Leaders. His reasoning includes the explanation that all of the service is worship, therefore, the priest is the Worship Leader. I agree with him, but I would add that our service is led by the Holy Spirit, and many people share in following the lead during our worship. The prayers of the people are led by the people. The Gospel is read by one of our Deacons. At any point of the service, a person other than the priest could be leading. At that point they are the appointed Worship Leader for that time. My time is to lead the church in song. I take this seriously. Every week I seek God to find a theme for Sunday. Sometimes I find it in Scripture, sometimes I find it through prayer, and other times, such as this week, I find it in where I feel God is speaking to me. After attending the inaugural meeting of our new Anglican Mission Society, I felt the Spirit saying we needed to steer the focus away from organizations and the work of people. What does that look like for me? I heard clearly God was reminding me that He alone is Holy and worthy of praise. Our songs today reflect that. The opening hymn was O Worship the King. During our time of singing our praise to God, we sang Holy is The Lord God Almighty, I Cannot Hide my Love, How Great is our God, and "my Jesus, my savior, Lord there is none like you", in Shout to the Lord. Our praise time is as purposeful as the scriptures we use every week. It doesn't end there. I want our music to reflect the words we are singing. This is done through the arrangement of our songs. Arrangement not like as in the order of songs, but directing how the music will sound in each song. We shouldn't be singing 3 different parts in a song that claims "we are all as one." We shouldn't have drums beating like running horses if we are singing "Soaring on the wings of an eagle". Is it too much to ask for details such as this? To get back to the stage, story and scene, an actor portrays a different person by his or her costume. They can speak in an accent. They use props where detail is important. All of this is like arranging a song. Words are the script. Our instruments are the props. When detail is important we leave nothing to the imagination. We paint the image of calm in the way we play. We display the image of majesty in a well-played trumpet part.

All of this is to say worship is more than a trendy band with electric guitar and drums. But those trendy bands can bring our culture into the church in a way that people identify with. The line between being trendy for the sake of entertainment and bringing the music of the church into relevance is a fine line.  If we walk that line in the context of the stuff I already mentioned above, we will probably be ok.

What's Important; Part II Church Un-simplified

What about our culture? Our American culture has reshaped the way we worship.
There are four consequences of this re-shaping, reflected in comments of people who are cynical in their view of church.

1. Worship is entertainment. We have become focused on what we get out of worship. We need a good band with nice singers. I hope the Pastor tells some jokes during his sermon. If the show is good enough, we will put some money in the offering plate as payment. I often have joked about putting a coupon in the Oak Forest newsletter as part of our advertising. $5 dollars off your next offering.
   2. Worship is over- sensitized. The reason we hear so much about no more crying in the Bible is because there is plenty of it going on today in our churches. We want a feeling or an emotion when we come together. Our culture has shown us that emotional responses are an indication of success. The cameras zoom in on a person weeping at a wedding or funeral. If we are not moved visibly to an emotion, somehow our church is over-intellectualized. This brings us to the third consequence.

3. Worship is over-intellectualized. We have become a culture of explanation. Any person with cable TV can learn the secrets of magicians, myths and legends de-bunked, or how to make that favorite restaurant food yourself in your own kitchen. Many churches today will explain the Christian faith to you. We will read from scripture and the latest book to teach you everything you need to know about Christianity. This was an interesting concept in India. I was told several times that Hinduism is not a religion. It is a way of life. You can't read how to be Hindu in a book. You have to experience it. They were telling me this because our culture is known for explaining Christianity in an intellectual way.

4. Worship focuses on the self. I need to tread lightly here with all of the counselors we have in this church. I don't need to remind you of all the American preachers under fire for the prosperity Gospel message being preached in many churches today and on TV channels broadcast across the globe. Since much of our culture focuses on the self, it shouldn't surprise you that many of our churches focus on the self. I don't want to make any enemies here, but an example of this for me is the "I am second" campaign. I know they do great things and they want you to say God is first, but I was always bothered by the title. There are two ways to state their campaign. I am second. God is first. By saying "I am second", we focus attention on our position in relation to God. Worship doesn't focus on where we are. It focuses on where God is.

Enough said about what cynical people think.
Back to my trip to Uganda, Africa. I was asked to visit to help recover the sense of Festive worship. Festive worship is centered around an event. It is hard to have a party without a theme. We celebrate birthdays, National holidays, weddings, and many other events. On Sunday we celebrate the Christ event. What is that you might ask? Well looking back to the Old Testament, Jewish worship was centered around the Exodus event. When Jesus came to die for our sins, we have an event to celebrate. I went to a soccer match in Uganda. It was a big deal. The King of Buganda, Uganda was there. The Kingdom of Buganda was playing against another Kingdom area of which I don't recall, but that isn't important. The important part was how they celebrated after each goal. The people would run up to the king's feet and bow. Not just bow, but throw themselves flat on their faces before him to honor him for the goal. We went to church that following Sunday. I noticed nobody bowed. Nobody was excited at all. It was as if they had forgotten why they were at church. It is a celebration with our God who saves. We honor him. We bow before him. Later this morning we will sing "We Bow Down". I commented during my rehearsal on Thursday that I expected to see people actually bowing down. I was excited to see people demonstrate last week how deep, high, and wide their love for God is. Do we believe the words we sing? Can we catch a bit of celebration in the moment? I challenge you that this type of event is only good when you are here. Have you ever taken pictures of a really great party and shown them to someone later? Somehow the pictures can't capture the moment. We use phrases like "Well, you should have been there." We recorded many songs in India. We had some great moments of worship. When I listened to the recordings they didn't sound as good as I remember. I think it's because I was listening for quality of music. I listened to the voices as one would listen to determine if the recording is worthy. It wasn't. But we were not singing to make a recording. We sang to worship God. On Sundays are we worshiping or listening? If we listen, our music will always fall short of expectations. If we worship, God joins in and when God joins in, he brings it! There have been moments for me that the music or singing lacked in my expectation. It is on those Sundays that people come tell me how amazing the worship was. What is your expectation?

What's Important; Part I

I was asked to preach on sunday in my church. I don't get asked very often, so when I do, I want to say something that makes sense. Since I write so much, I decided to write my sermon out as a blog, then use it to preach from. Since I wrote it out, I figured I may as well use it here for people to read. It was kind of longer than a blog post should be, so I decided to break it into a couple chunks. Here is part I.

One of my fondest memories of my grandfather was when I was a kid. I used to play church with him. We would march around the house singing from the hymnal. I would go in front carrying a hobby horse, holding it high. He would walk behind me carrying the hymnal singing what now are some of my favorite hymns. He would use some sort of cloth around his neck as a stole. That was pretty much it. Later I would celebrate communion with Necco wafers. Most of the time that was by myself. As I look back my grandfather was probably tired from marching all over the house so that was all he could do. I remember mumbling as many words from the Eucharistic prayer as I could make sense of. That part of the service was there but not all the time. As I look back on this story it tells me what I thought about church as a kid. I was probably 5 years old. What was important to me as a kid? The processional was important. Evidently the cross part of it wasn't the important part. It was a symbol for me that had some meaningful part of the service. I could substitute the cross for any item that had a stick and we could carry it. A broom would do, but the horse was better because it was something cool to look at. I saw church simplified as the processional. We sang. I didn't substitute other songs for the hymns. It had to be hymns. Hymns were all we had back then. There were no praise and worship songs so I don't know if I would have sung those songs. That part of church influenced my life so much to this day our processional songs are always hymns. To me its a rule. Another rule was the person holding the "stick" had to go first. The priest had to come in last. That was important to me as well. I obviously understood the processional carried an order of significance. There was no sermon. Pretty much my view of church consisted of marching around singing hymns.

We all have things that are important to us. Sometimes we don't acknowledge or recognize them as important, but our actions define them. When we traveled to India a couple weeks ago we noticed fences everywhere. Not complete fences. A fence made of brick only 2 or 3 bricks high surrounding a piece of property. Fences go up before the first brick is laid to build a house. Not just a few sticks to mark the property line, or some rocks laid. Bricks. Cemented together. It was explained that people had to mark their property lines to keep out squatters. Apparently bricks 12 inches high do the trick where some rocks or a wire fence tied to posts would not. When the property is finished enough to move into, the wall around the property will be finished with a proper gate. The gate often times was very ornately decorated. Opening the gate led you to a house nearly completed, but having an amazing looking front door. Entrances. This is important. As you approach someone’s home the appearance of the entrance is important.

The house always has a room to gather. Social interaction is important. Not a room to watch television, but a room to gather and talk. This is similar to Africa. I recall Kezlon, the Dean of the Cathedral in Uganda, moving into a home here in Oviedo. People had gathered couches to donate for his new home. I rode around in a U-Haul with Jon Holland and Sheryl, our Missions Pastor, to collect these donations. After collecting 3 couches and seeing the size of Kezlon's small home, we told him this was enough. He insisted on picking up the next two couches. When we got to his home, he wanted us to arrange all the couches into the living room, all against the wall. We tried to help him by selecting a few couches that would work, then moving some of the others to storage. Once again he insisted on arranging all the couches in the room all facing in toward each other. It wasn't until six months later that I made my first trip to Uganda. Upon entering the first home of a family in Uganda, I looked at Sheryl and we laughed. Every home had a room in which it was filled with mix-match couches and chairs, all facing inward. It was for people to sit and gather to talk. This was important in their culture. We got it.