Observations on Worship

After more than a month since retiring from full-time music/worship ministry, and after visiting several different churches, I have some observations to make about worship. My belief that our worship begins and ends with the heart has not changed.  The Lord looks at the heart.  Our own attitude of heart determines our worship experience; our encounter in His presence.

We've been in every size church and been reminded that the size of the church, the number of people gathered in His name, is not the determining factor in whether I worship or not.  It takes only two or three for the promised presence of the Lord.

We've seen different arrangements or orders of worship.  Again, my experience of the presence of His presence was not determined by the order of the different elements of worship.

We've heard all different styles of music used in worship expression.  The style doesn't get in the way of my worship as long as my heart is tuned for His praise and expecting to meet Him and His manifest presence.  

We've encountered every level of ability in those who were called to the leading of worship in all kinds of different churches.  Again, ultimately my own heart was the determiner of my experience with God.

So, ultimately, it is about my own heart.  Is it sometimes easier in certain circumstances of worship?  Sure, according to that which I am most comfortable with.  But, is every worship experience supposed to be easy?  Maybe not.  

In regards to that, I have been puzzled a few times where the worship leadership had not considered who their congregation is.  In preparing and going as a missionary to Zimbabwe, Africa many years ago, one of the things we were challenged to do was to study and understand the culture where we were ministering.  We could not force our own heart language, both musical and spoken, on the people in another culture and expect them to worship authentically.  

And here in our own country, we should not assume that every church is that same generational or sub-cultural make-up.  We should not do worship that is the "popular" way of doing worship today, forcing it just because it is the newest or most popular.  Nor should we assume that everyone's musical heart language is the same as it was 100 years ago.  We should understand who we are ministering to and with, taking that into consideration when we craft worship experiences.  That will make our worship experiences much more participative by all and more authentic in given situations.  Then we can stretch a bit by introducing either new and/or old to those worship experiences, enhancing and enlarging on that which may be more authentic; creating an environment of meeting needs of all sub-cultures and/or generations. mjm  

50 Years of Following

Sunday was a unique experience of worship for me as I led worship in my home church of Hollis, Oklahoma.  It was a full circle worship experience in following the calling of God.  I told the congregation that almost 50 years ago I was playing the invitation on the piano as church pianist and got up off the piano bench during the invitation, leaving the organist to play alone.  I walked across the front of that very room to share with my pastor that God was calling me to full time music ministry.  

In the congregation there sat my former Sunday school teachers, church training union leaders and adult choir members.  There were adults who had been in my 40-voice junior choir that I directed my junior and senior years in high school.  The lady on the organ Sunday morning was my accompanist for the junior choir.  The acoustic guitar player is a junior in high school and is the drum major of the Hollis Tiger Band (which I was also my sophomore, junior, and senior years).  I knew his grandfather.  

It was a great experience singing of the greatness and faithfulness of God with that particular congregation...at this particular time of following the Lord's plan for my life.  God has been so good and so faithful.  We look forward to knowing what He has in store for part-time ministry opportunities in the future.  

Someone asked me yesterday how retirement has been.  I'm not sure.  I've been with grandchildren, as of Friday, for 28 straight days.  I have been squeezing in time to work on orchestra scores for our Sept. 5th Rockwall Philharmonic Concert at the Harbor, played/sang for a funeral, a wedding, taught some piano and voice lessons, and led worship at my home church.  And, on top of that, Fran had a great mission trip to Zimbabwe where the Lord blessed abundantly.  

It has been wonderful to stop and see what the Lord has done and to contemplate His continuing to lead us in His plan for us.  We just continue worshipping Him!