Week 7-Using Our Tools Wisely

Day 1-It's Not About Style

Today's thoughts are great and true. Truthfully, it's a truth that is only accepted after the individual has embraced a mindset of servant hood and humility. Our writer very appropriately put this subject directly after week 6 which was all on Leadership and went in depth on truths like:
(summary on week 6) Are we Ministers through Music? Is Ministry what we do or is it who we are? / Recognition isn't required! The very nature of our "business" is help people fall in love with God and ONLY God. / The Law of God's Elevation. What comes down in through humility will go up through Christ-like exaltation. Because we were created for God's glory, glorifying Him brings us the most fulfillment possible. The challenge is releasing our definition and terms of what that exaltation and His glory in us looks like. For many it's suffering, loss, hardships, etc. His glory is revealed when His grace is sufficient. /Earning God's privilege to lead. Those who should sing are those who are called. Those who would sing are those with passion. Those who could sing are those with discipline and those who get to sing are those with integrity. / The Discipline of Difficulties. If you haven't been tested by fire, you do not know who you are, you cannot be a leader.

A man found a cocoon in his office. He set the cocoon on a shelf and waited for it to hatch. After a day or so, nothing had happened and the man grew impatient. He took a razor blade and
slit the cocoon ever so carefully. Sure enough, within a few minutes, out came a beautiful Emperor Moth. As it spread its gorgeous wings, the gentleman waited for it to fly high into the air. But instead, the moth wandered over to the ledge and dropped off onto the floor. Distraught, he asked an entomologist why his prized moth couldn't’t fly. The insect expert explained that when the man slit the cocoon, he deprived the moth of the very struggle it needed to build strength in its wings. In fact, the expert said, the moth would never fly.

So, after week 6 and all it's probing truth, we approach the ever-brewing subject of style. I love our writer's Biblical observation: Worship throughout the Bible doesn't follow a standard of style, new songs or old. You find it all: lament, rejoicing, dancing, silence, knees to the earth, standing, lying in bed, creatures around the throne, creation, Old songs (Jeremiah 6:16) and new songs (Psalm 96:1). The only current theme through it all is the focus of the worship, the theme of the song. It is God and God alone. For His is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory forever, amen!

Week 6, Day 2

Recognition Is Not Required

1 Peter 5:6a- "So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God..."

There's a really interesting point today regarding recognition for the Worship Leader. List the Prophets and Preachers in the Bible. Then besides their names, list the Worship Leaders from the Bible. A bit different, uh? Why?

"The more recognition and popularity we as musicians and worship leaders are showered with, the more difficult it is for us to point starry-eyed people from us to the Father. By the very nature of our "business," we must help people fall in love with God and only God."

What are three reasons you could come up with today, to tell someone as to why they should lift Jesus higher than yourself? Will you use one of them today?

Week 6-Qualities of Leadership

Day One: Ministers Through Music

Today was such a goodie! "We may impress people from distance, but we'll only impact them as they see our lives up close."

How do you see yourself: as a musician who is a Christian or a Christian who is a musician? The way we answer that question will determine how we approach music throughout our lives.

Four levels of Effectiveness:
Level One: The Song Leader. This person wants to show up, sing/play then leave. "It's better to have 10 people who are sold on music ministry than 100 who are just showing up."
Level Two: Music Director. They know how to sing or what to play and have a focus on excellence and their organization is great. They tend to forget or lose sight of why they're doing it.
Level Three: Minister of Music. Committed to excellence and pleasing God. However, their ministry is limited to the church stage.
Level Four: Minister through Music. They still desire the excellence of level 2 and see the blessing musical praise can beto God and others! However, Level 4 realize that our music is not the minister, we are the ministers. God didn't ordain the music to bless Him and others, but ordained us to serve Him. And we have a responsibility to serve whether we're making music or not.

"Ministry is more about who we are than about something we do."

Week 4-5

It's been a while for the blog post! I'd like to give a short review of weeks 4-5.
Week 4-Hearing God's Voice
"We must learn to look below the surface of what we can see and hear with our physical senses. We must discern what God is up to." This requires us to be saved, sensitive and surrendered. Perhaps you are saved but sensitive? Surrendered? Jesus said, you who have ears, let him hear. Jesus knew everyone he spoke to had physical ears, but he knew not everyone was listening.

Are you?

Why listen to God? Let's answer that by developing our crisis mind-set.

• Desperation for God. This desperation will come when we see our true state of urgent need of Him.
• Determined to hear from God. Do we want to hear from God or do we HAVE to?
• Decided that God would speak. God's move and power isn't just a hope or a wish, it's a waited upon response to our plea. It's not presumption, it's faith. It's not a matter of if; it's only a matter of when.

The Characteristics of God's Voice-is it Familiar? Personal? Simple and Clear? Loving?

God's Words:

• are consistent with the Bible
• may conflict with human wisdom
• may clash with our fleshly nature
• will challenge our faith
• will require courage

Fine-Tuning our ears:

• Practice Listening
• Focus our thoughts
• Respond to every impulse from the Holy Spirit

In week 4, we have spiraled up. We have developed a closer relationship with the Holy Spirit. We have learned that we're His sheep that can hear His voice. We learned that as worship leaders we MUST hear from God. And we learned to fine-tune our spiritual hearing ears to more easily hear from the Lord.
WHY? Because our goal every day is to connect with Almighty God.

Week 5-Essentials of Effective Worship Services

• Prayer-"every work of God can be traced to some kneeling form." -Dwight L. Moody
  What if the entrance exam to the Choir loft each week was, "are you hearing from Heaven"? Prayer puts our focus where it belongs. "God can only bless people who are in tune...with Him and with one another. That is why we begin every choir practice with a season of prayer...The choir's ability to minister can never be better than their spiritual tone." -Carol Cymbala (Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir)
  Prayer sensitizes us to God's voice. Prayer gets results.
• Planned Spontaneity-We plan out distractions and plan in both flow and freedom to obey whatever God tells us to do. Are we ready for our planned song or music set to be interrupted for God to do something else? Maybe as a Choir member your reply is, "sure!" But are you ready for Him to do the same in your day today?
• Pliableness-Our willingness to be flexible. This comes down to trust. Trusting God even when we don't understand Him. Whether in a spontaneous worship moment in Church or in your week. Either God is Sovereign or He's not. To be pliable means to be bendable, workable and moldable.
• Power in the Spirit-Jim Cymbala, pastor of The Brooklyn Tabernacle in New York City, writes,“Our attempt at ministry will be an absolute exercise in futility if we are not
  expecting and experiencing divine help through the power of the Holy Spirit.
  It is not enough to teach and preach about the Spirit. We must experience him
  personally in new depths, or we will accomplish little. Without the Holy Spirit
  there is no quickening of the Scripture. Worship is hollow. Preaching is mechanical,
  never piercing the heart.” If in Luke 3:21-4:19 Jesus needed the power of my Spirit to be effective in ministry, how much more must you have the Holy Spirit anointing your life?
  Adrian Rogers writes, “In my estimation, the cause of Christ has been hurt far more by Christians who were carnal and not Spirit filled than by Christians who were drunk.
  To be filled with the Holy Spirit is really more about getting unfilled with ourselves.
  Here are the simple steps necessary to ensure we remain filled with him.
  (1) We must completely surrender every room and closet of our heart’s home.
  Well has it been said, “If he’s not Lord of all, he’s not Lord at all.” (2) Then we
  invite him to come and fill us up with only himself. (3) To continue being filled,
  we must daily claim his filling and continually surrender afresh to his voice and
  direction.
• Pastoral Direction-Before we can have the blessings of God on our music ministry—or any other ministry, for that matter—we must acknowledge and submit to the authorities
  God has placed above us. (See Hebrews 13:17.)
  Please read 1 Peter 5:5. Notice what our attitude should be.
  1 Peter 5:5-In the same way, you younger men must accept the authority of the elders. And all of you, serve each other in humility, for "God opposes the proud but favors the humble."

The most fruitful day for me was day 5 of week 4: Expecting to Hear, pg 71-73. The exercise with Psalm 23 was amazing. WOW-God's Word IS alive. Can I beg you all to do this before Sunday? please?
Love ya Choir! O, here's a video for you. After the Psalm 23 exercise, I was reminded of this song I sang in High School Choir. It's SO different than what we sing in church, but I still LOVE it. Even though it may not be your style, I'd ask you to just listen and meditate on the passage.

FBCLB Homecoming 2009

Week 2-Understanding Praise

Day 1-Praise is Inevitable. In the "My daily praise" section we're instructed to read Revelation 5 and even make up a tune when the verses express a song. If I can be honest, I feel like this could be an easy "opt-out" for most of us. Make up a tune? How silly? What if someone hears me? Let me urge you to read Revelation 5 as truth, and that scene is happening right now, and one day, you'll be in the scene as well! Don't lose the Heavenly perception of God and the praise He's due. He's far more more worthy than our minds could imagine, so go on, sing to Him.

Day 2-Perfect Praise. This is so convicting. Perfect Praise emerges from a worshipful heart, happens when we approach Him trusting, humble and in total dependence, like children, and Perfect Praise happens when we depend on God to initiate and perfect our praise. WOW! So it's our responsibility to have a pure heart, child-like approach, but ultimately, we must depend on God to put the praise in us. Is our praise of our own mustering and manipulation of emotion? Or is God birthing praise from the Spirit of God in you?
Day 3-Ways to Praise. Eight expressions of praise starting with the visible: kneeling, dancing and raising hands. I love how I'm learning real definitions through this study. Like when 2 Chronicles 20:18 says they worshipped the Lord, the word worship is the Hebrew word "shachaw", which means to bow down, reverence, fall down, stoop and crouch. "Yadah", the Hebrew word in Nehemiah 8:5-6 & II Chronicles 20:21b. Yadah is praise and thanks to God by lifting your hands, throwing out your hands! When the singers went 1st before the enemy is II Chron, they not only were singing, but they were lifting their hands, NOT in surrender to the enemy, but in praise to God! WOW! That could be a good southern gospel song right there!
Day 4-Vocal Praise. If you're redeemed, say so! Shout! Sing! Speak it! I think you'll experience a break through in your visible and vocal praise when its not up to you to come up with it. When it's praise that God initiates in your spirit, you'll say so, you'll have to.
Day 5-Audible Praise. I can't help but be drawn back to this point. Praise in inward-out. Look over the 8 expressions of praise: kneeling, dancing, raising hands, shouting, singing, speaking, playing an instrument and clapping. If these expressions are far removed from your real day to day life, then you must return to Day 2 of this week. God must work something in you. Don't let this week's study pass you by. It's absolutely essential.

Expression literally means: "indication of feeling, spirit, character, etc., as on the face, in the voice, or in artistic execution." An expression is secondary to the source from which it comes. In other words, you can't express gratitude to someone if you're not grateful. And if you do, they usually can tell you're not sincere. You can't express love to someone you don't love. You can't express praise to God if praise isn't in you. Is your heart worshipful? Are you coming to God in trust, dependence and humility? Are you seeking for God to put the praise in your heart?
Psalm 51:15-"O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise."

Week 1, Day 5-True Worship Changes Us

This video below is the song that the Lord has put in my heart lately. It's over 400 years old, but the words are like a salve or ointment to my heart and soul. I do believe that songs can bear an anointing from God and I believe this one does. My mind and heart has been very anxious for months now and this song rings in my heart continuously and is a calming truth from God's comforting spirit. I can't help but rest in His Sovereign love and truly I am changed when I worship Him. Thank You, Jesus.
Psalm 73:24 You guide me with your counsel, leading me to a glorious destiny. 25 Whom have I in heaven but you? I desire you more than anything on earth. 26 My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine forever.

Week 1, Day 4-Lifting Up Thanksgiving and Praise

For what it's worth, I want you to know that I haven't read ahead and done the devotions before you. I wanted to learn together. So, each day, I read and am confronted just like you are. I love how day by day, the foundation is being built for great truth and learning to take place. PLEASE don't miss it by rushing through or waiting until Saturday or Sunday afternoon right before Choir practice to read through the previous week's material. You will miss it if that's the case.

Today, this Biblical principle of Thanksgiving and Praise isn't a shallow or simple truth. Just like in the devo's example of a life situation that took the couple by storm, they were faced, like we all are, with life circumstances out of their control and to be thankful in them? Impossible, it seems! The truth of I Thess 5:18 is the key: be thankful IN the circumstance, not because of them. The only way this will be is if you have an "upward" focus on the Sovereignty of God and take refuge in Him.

Look at this played out in one of my favorite passages:
Lamentations 3:
16 He has made me chew on gravel. He has rolled me in the dust. 17 Peace has been stripped away, and I have forgotten what prosperity is. 18 I cry out, “My splendor is gone! Everything I had hoped for from the Lord is lost!” 19 The thought of my suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond words. 20 I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss. 21 Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: 22 The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. 23 Great is his faithfulness;his mercies begin afresh each morning. 24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!”

Week 1, Day 3-Worship in All Directions

Upward, Inward, Outward: Click on the Devotion's Title Above! This will link you to a short video from the Youth Choir Camp I took our Middle Schoolers to and the evangelist, Derwin Gray, taught us this concept: Upward, Inward, Outward!

There's not too much I can add here. This is where the rubber is starting to meet the road, where this devotion goes from casual to convicting and compelling.

I'm eager to get into upward! But I confess, too often I do find myself trying to keep worship one direction, upward. This is the first clue that the very definition of my worship is off, right? As we read in our text, our outward relations are a outflow of our worship to God. ouch for sure! When I'm crossed, disagreed with, challenged or questioned, what's my reaction like? Is it flesh that conflict coincides with or is it a Spirit-filled Worshipper? Well, I've confessed! Now it's someone Else's turn!

Week 1, Day 2-"Created for His Praise"

Created For His Praise? When I read the passage for today, I was somewhat detached from the excitement you hear in Paul's writing. vs. 3 "All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ." Then, after reading it a second time, now with a heart focus rather than an academic focus, the Lord opened my eyes to observe the source of Paul's joy and excitement. Notice how every mention of "us", meaning you and me, there's a direct link or connection to God/Jesus or something only He can do. This was humbling and thrilling. vs 4 Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5 God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.
So, if you can find "us" in the grand picture of creation, you find God making the way for us to be there. No wonder Paul was so excited and said, "did this so we would praise and glorify him."

Truly, we were created to praise God. You can find yourself mentioned in scripture! You're spoken and accounted for because God put you there by His fore-thought, love and grace. Do you put yourself out of it? Do you work against your created purpose of praise? "Our future doesn't depend on our faithfulness but on His, who saved us by grace in order that we might show His glories forevermore."

Week 1, Day 1

First Day and it's already sparked my inner man to action. I shouldn't say "it", rather, the Word of God.
I've read II Chronicles 20:1-30 many times actually several time over the last year. It started with a publication I used to receive for Worship Leaders that included an article on this passage. Some of you probably remember me referring to it. When I read the instruction to read the passage, truthfully, I almost opted out, because of my familiarity with it. I'm so glad I didn't bypass this part. His Word isn't like a movie or something that since you've seen it a few times, you can skip it. Why? Because the Word of God is the only...thing, for lack of better a term, that's a tangible, real, object that has a real and true supernatural power. So all that to say, don't be like me and think you could skip the scripture reading when it's familiar.

vs18 of our passage today says: "Then King Jehoshaphat bowed low with his face to the ground. And all the people of Judah and Jerusalem did the same, worshiping the Lord."

"According to Strong's Concordance, the word worship here means 'to bow down, prostrate oneself before a superior in homage, before God in worship.'" -Pure Praise Devotional, pg 13.
If we aren't surrendering to Him as Lord, not just acknowledging that He is Lord, but surrendering ourselves to His lordship in us is a prostrate type way, then our worship isn't Biblical.

The challenge is to put worship or what we think of it under the scope of a Biblical worldview and be honest with ourselves. Perhaps we've drifted from this Biblical worship. Perhaps? Nah, most assuredly we have.

In the section, "My daily praise", the question is posed, "How has God recently shown Himself gracious, merciful, or powerful in your life?" (pg 14) It would be very easy to run right through these words and give them little consideration because of our Christian vernacular. Please don't. Take each word and write it in the provided section on pg 14 of your workbook, and describe how God has shown Himself each as each of those ways: Gracious, Merciful and Powerful. This will be a great way to begin this study.

Love ya Choir-Let me hear back from you all on any of these thoughts. YAY-we're bloggers!

Pure Praise Study Begins

Dear Choir-

Isn't this exciting? It is to me. I've purposed in my heart to be a learner and hopefully lead to learn as well. This video is just an introduction from the author. I pray you'll be ready this Sunday to discuss week one of the study. Please go by the welcome station and pick up your notebook if you haven't yet. This blog will be a great way for us to share throughout the week what the Lord is teaching you through the study. It is designed for you to post your thoughts, etc so please take advantage and may the body BE the body and admonish one another. See you all Sunday at 4:00-special time for Kick-off!