The Worship Initiative Thoughts and Resources for Worship Pastors

My wife and I have felt led to undertake the challenge of reading the bible through in a year.  I looked at all kinds of different plans and no doubt there are many great plans out there.  After much research and thought I landed on the reading plan that Bethlehem Baptist uses (John Piper’s church).  It allows five catch up days each month.  We are only 6 days in and both of us are really enjoying the way it is set up.  It is not quite as technologically savvy as some other plans that can sync up with your iphone but its still solid.  Just print off the book marks, cut them out and place them in the appropriate place in your bible.  You have four different readings each day; Old Testament, Psalms (wisdom literature, and then a couple new testament readings.  This approach has already helped me tremendously to consider the entire biblical narrative whenever I sit down to read.  I have also put a link to a great sermon preached by J.R. Vassar regarding thenew year and your daily devotional times of cultivating a passionate relationship with God.

The Reading Plan:

http://www.navpress.com/uploadedFiles/15074%20BRP.dj.pdf

Vassar’s Sermon:

http://ow.ly/STME

This morning I was reading in Genesis 11 about the tower of babel and I was moved to confession and repentance.  The intention and heart of the people constructing the tower was complete independence of God.  They sought to be unified but it was the worst kind of unity.  It was a desired unity that boasted in the greatness and ability of man.  Not God, the creator and sustainer of man.  They sought to create a city that would prevent or hinder God’s plan in dispersing mankind across the face of the earth.

Here is what the people at Babel said, (11:4) “Then they said, Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”

As a church planter and a song writer I had to confess to the Father this morning that at times I long to make a name for myself.  I seek independence from him.  I want to plant a successful church, I want to write songs that other worship pastors want to use and that will bless the church and these are  no doubt good things that I desire.  The problem comes in when my twisted heart wants to plant a successful church so others will be impressed as to what I have accomplished with very little.  There are times when I want to write a song with the hope it will position me as a song writer to be followed by others.  These are evil desires and they are no different than what the people at Babel were trying to accomplish…self sufficiency, self autonomy, and a desire to make a name for themselves.

You know the rest of the story.  God showed mercy and did not allow the people to build their tower.  He mixed their once unified language and forced them to scatter.  He showed mercy by not allowing them to continue down their path of destruction and danger as a unified people with no regard and need for Him.  He had to make them need Him not because he needed them to need Him but because he knew their greatest need was only found in Himself.  And he continues this pattern of deliverance and mercy as he showed me this morning in calling me to repent from my desire to harness my own abilities to make a name for myself apart from Him.

My prayer of confession and repentance:

God my heart strays from you.  I have desired glory and recognition in the abilities you have given me.  I have desired glory and recognition that only belongs to you and you alone.  My flesh screams at me to make a name for myself to carve my own path so that I would be one to be admired by others.  Lord this is slavery that I have chosen.  You have shown me that true freedom is being bound to you and making much of you with all you have allowed me to have and do.  Thank you for coming after me and showing me mercy and not allowing me to continue down a path of death and destruction.  Thank you for Jesus and his constant pursuit of me.  Please continue to pull sin out of me every moment of every day that my taste for it would fade and my longing for you would increase.

This past weekend at CityView, we continued our current sermon series entitled “A Better World,” based out of the book of Ephesians.  This particular Sunday, we covered 5:1-21 which includes the very familiar verse 5:19 which says, “addressing (speaking to) one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart.”  In the past, this verse hadn’t had much of an impact in the way I led on Sunday mornings, but in the last year a couple things have clicked in my heart and mind regarding this scripture that have been edifying for our people at CityView as we sing praises corporately.  I would like to briefly share how this verse has come to bear on my life and the implications it has had in the way I lead/teach our people on Sunday mornings.  As a matter of disclosure, much of my opinions and thoughts on this passage have been heavily influenced and shaped by Harold Best’s comments on this subject in his book “Unceasing Worship.”  If you are a worship pastor and haven’t had a chance to read it, I would highly recommend it.

There are two basic principles that Paul states in this passage.  The first has to do with the role of lyrics or text, and the second has to do with the role of the music, or melody, itself.  I like how Best says it. Paul presents “two completely separate but coordinated actions, fulfilling two functions and going in two separate directions.” (p.146-147)

For a while I have been telling our people that the text of the songs we sing should be instructive.  Meaning, when we sing the songs we sing during our corporate worship times they should be instructive and telling of the character of God. Simply, we should be able to learn more about who God is by the songs we sing because they are rooted in scripture.  I don’t think I was necessarily wrong in telling our people this, but I don’t think I was thorough.  Not only should our people be able to learn more about who God is as individuals from the songs that are being lead, but more importantly, they should also be able to take the lyrics of the songs they are singing and use them to instruct (teach, admonish) others in who God is as well.  This is what Paul means when he says to address one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.  The text of the songs we sing should be “horizontally” focused, equipping our people to teach, admonish, edify, encourage and even correct one another in the ways of Christ.  This is what Harold Best was referring to when he said “…two functions and going in two separate directions.”  There is both a horizontal aspect to this passage like we just went over and there is also a vertical aspect which I will be getting to after I share a recent example of how I was given the opportunity to speak a psalm to a hurting couple that needed to be built up.  Several weeks ago, some close friends who were pregnant with their first child went in to the hospital at 29 weeks pregnant because the wife was experiencing some discomfort.  To their dismay they were informed that labor had begun and the baby would be coming into the world at any moment.   Shortly after delivery my wife and I with some other church staff friends were able to have a few minutes with the couple to pray with them and encourage them.  Right before we were about to leave the hospital room I felt compelled to share Psalm 34:1-8 with them, which says:

“I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth.  My soul makes it’s boast in the Lord; let the humble hear and be glad.  Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together!  I sought the Lord, and he answered me and deliverd me from all my fears.  Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed.  This poor man cried, and the Lord hear him and saved him out of all his troubles.  The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them.  Oh taste and see that the Lord is good!  Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!”

After I finished reading the Psalm we stood in silence for a few moments letting the truth of the words sink in and comfort a room full of heavy hearts.  It was an incredible moment of worship for everyone and I know God used this Psalm to minister to them in their time of need.  By way of full disclosure, in the moment when I felt lead to read the scripture, I by no means was thinking of fulfilling Paul’s words in his letter to Ephesus, but none the less God seemed to be working this truth out in my life in his own time and way.  Today, by God’s grace the baby and the couple are doing very well and are gaining strength daily in the Lord.

The second aspect of Ephesians 5:19 is simple.  Where the text of the songs we sing should be a blessing in a horizontal sense to the congregation, allowing them to edify each other in speaking the lyrics to one another ,the music or melody of our songs should be a vertical blessing to God.  To clarify, God does need to be blessed by our music or melody but he does take delight in his people taking delight in him.  Again, Harold Best communicates this best in his book when he says, “This is the direction, always, of music: vertical, to the Lord, first and foremost.  Music is not truth telling, and God   does not need truth; he is the truth.  But he wants to hear us use his truth prophetically even while we make music to him lovingly and praisefully.” (pg.147)

From time to time people ask worship pastors how they choose songs for their corporate gathering(s) or even how they go about writing a new song to be used  in the corporate setting.  As we all know there are many factors that go into both areas.  However, in light of Pauls exhortation in Ephesians 5 and even Colossians 3, I hope we can take away the great importance of writing and choosing songs for our weekend gatherings that our people can use to encourage, edify, admonish and teach the things of God horizontally to one another as well as bring glory to the Father with the melody or music that accompanies the text.