More Thoughts on Worship From Sunday
Yesterday was awesome at Western Hills. God continues to blow me away in this series – the depth and meaning of these simple rituals.
Yesterday, after the first service worship set, I could barely talk. I was supposed to ‘wrap-up’ the service with about a 8 minute spiel on worship and completely flubbed it. I was completely torqued and upset at myself after first service when one of our folks interrupted my pity party and said — “That was a home run. Simply awesome. Thanks for creating space this morning for us to connect with God.”
Which was God’s way of slapping me upside the head to remind me — “It’s reallllly, realllly, reallly, not about you. Trust me on this one. If I used a donkey to talk…well, you can figure the rest out from here.” Second service went much better after that wake up call.
2 HUGE shifts that 1st Christ-followers had to make to ‘get’ worship. First, we worship in response to God’s mercy, not to get it. Very different from other religions. Second, Worship is a living sacrifice, not just a specific encounter or moment.
A living sacrifice is when Jesus gets the last word on every one of our decisions. That’s worship. Real worship starts the moment we hit the door to leave a church service.
2 Responses to “More Thoughts on Worship From Sunday”
Funny that you mentioned that we worship in response to God’s mercy. That’s EXACTLY what God reminded me during out worship time yesterday. He must really want me to think on that!!
Have you read “Crazy Love” by Francis Chan? I’m on Chapter 4, and I can already tell I’m going to have to read it again. Some great stuff, and the bit about worship being a response to God’s mercy, not to earn it really lines up with what Chan is talking about.
It’s a good read, you should check it out if you haven’t already.