week 6

Week 6

“They are public figures who symbolize private holiness and, therefore, are either drawn to their knees in regular, humble prayer, or are forced to become expert thespians, maintaining a consistent facade of righteousness.”  Stephen Miller

This is a profound statement.  After reading this chapter, I was reminded once again of the stakes in leading worship.  If I lose sight of what’s important I become a liar, trying to demonstrate something I have forgotten to do myself.  The gravity of this responsibility is daunting.   But at the end of the day, whether I am leading worship or not, my aim should be to the same: to be in the presence of the living God.  This is not something I should strive for only because I am doing worship.  It should be such a part of who I am and what I do that the idea of living life without God would be ridiculous.  I know these things, I have grown up hearing the importance of a personal relationship with God that is built in the secret places of my heart and the secluded places of my life.  However, actually living this out is so challenging.  I still do not understand why it is that my personal quiet time with God is the first thing to be neglected.  For some reason, it is the easiest thing to let slide.  Only after feeling life fall apart do I stop and realize wow, I need to spend some time with God.

It’s embarrassing to admit, but the struggle is epic right now.  I always thought that once I was an adult it would be easy to have a daily quiet time.  I never realized how intentional I would have to be to make it happen.  When I read the line “the single most important thing we can do is to stand before the Lord in secret.” I couldn’t help but agree.  And then I started to evaluate if I am living this out in my own life.  I have lots of great excuses and reasons why I haven’t spent time reading my Bible yet today, but the truth is that none of them are any good.  My challenge is to depend on God each day, and use some discipline to carve out the space to be with Him.  

week 5

Week 5

“God creates missionaries by putting Himself on display, so putting Him and his glory on display must be our aim.”  Matt Papa

Worship leading seems to be one of the things that fuels and cultivates missional living.  Throughout the chapter it seems that Matt Papa is trying to communicate how infectious worship can be when it is done correctly.  As a worship leader, the responsibility is to point the spot light at God.  When we do this, missions is a natural outpouring of experiencing God.  Authentic worship as we all know is more than just singing songs.  We do this with the expectation that God is going to show up and we will experience His presence.  The more time we are in His presence the more we become like Him.  God tells of His love for His people all throughout the Bible.  It is a natural course that as our worship is more authentic, our hearts are broken for the lost.  This leads us to missional living whatever that might look like.

Honestly I have never thought about the correlation between worship leading and missions.  I have a huge passion for both, and what impacted me was connecting the dots, and seeing how worship can really affect the missions culture of a church.  I am so thankful to be a part of the Vineyard where our priority is God, and from that worship and missions happen naturally.  Sometimes I forget my own experiences with worship.  I forget that God has spoken to me really clearly during times of corporate worship.  Some of the most pivotal moments in my life have happened during worship including a time when God began to really speak to me about the role that missions would have in my own life.  While I have not yet seen God’s plan with missions in my own life play out entirely, I have a much better grasp of how worship can ignite the spark for missions in the lives of a congregation.