Passionate Worship
5 Practices of a Fruitful Youth Ministry
2 Samuel 6:14-16 - "14And David danced before the Lord with all his might. And David was wearing a linen ephod. 15 So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the horn. 16 As the ark of the Lord came into the city of David, Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, and she despised him in her heart. "
Almost anytime someone says the word worship, we think of a church service. Or maybe we think of a convention like Invincible or WOW. Usually we associate worship with church in some way. We think about a music leader on stage guiding us through songs, scripture and then the sermon. Sometimes the order changes, sometimes it doesn't. The components are usually the same, just in a different order. To most of us, that is all the worship we know. But worship is so much more than a church building and a music leader...
I. What is worship
. Worship is defined as:
Reverent love and respect for a deity or sacred object
Set of ceremonies or prayers by which this devotion is expressed
Love of and devotion to a person or object
Have you ever thought about that when you walked into the church for service?
When we think about worship, some of us think worship looks like our 8:30am service. very formal, lots of reciting it is spending quiet time with God outdoors it is painting a picture or writing a poem or song or dancing like we are out of our mind it might look like this video...
[Play Mighty to Save video] sing along if you want.
Small Groups:
** Answer the question, my idea of worship is...
** What did you come up with?
Let's take a few minutes to take some polls, see how you rate worship:
How would you rate the worship during the 9:30AM service?
How would you rate the worship during Refuel?
What do you think we need to change for Refuel?
We all have our own opinions of worship. Partly that is the problem. We think worship is about us and what we gain from doing it. We walk into church expecting to be entertained, because that happens everywhere else we go. We go to the movies, entertained. We go to a sports game, entertained. We see our favorite band in concert, entertain. We plug in our video game system, entertained. We watch TV, entertained. We walk into church, we want to be entertained.
Worship isn't about being entertained. Lets go back to the definition, Reverent love and respect for a deity. Our worship is about expressing our love for God and what he has done for us. Expressing love comes in many different format. Worship isn't always about the songs we sing, whether they be contemporary or traditional, slow or fast, rocking with an electric guitar or sung acapella. We can experience worship without any music at all. There are times in my life, when I will be driving and just shut the music off and spend time in conversation with God. This is worship. We worship, when we express our love to God.
As we move forward, I would challenge any of you that don't like the way we do worship to ask yourself, do I come to church prepared to worship or be entertained. Think about that for a minute...
The Bible is filled with versus commanding us to worship God. The term worship is used over 200 times in the whole Bible, Jesus uses the words 13 times. The Psalms are said to be words of worship to God from King David...
One of the most interesting stories of worship comes from King David. We will look at 2 Samuel 6:14-16, actually I will read to the end of the chapter.
"13When those who were carrying the ark of the Lord had taken six steps, he sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf. 14 David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the Lord with all his might,
15 while he and the entire house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouts and the sound of trumpets."
David was no stranger to worship. He didn't dance only when people agreed with him. He didn't hold back because he was worried what people would think. David DANCED before the Lord with all his might. He wasn't just gettin' jiggy with it, he might have looked like this....
[Evolution of Dance video] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inLBPVG8oEU
But David wasn't without his critics, as we continue on in 2 Samuel 6, we see that even his wife thought he was crazy.
"16 As the ark of the Lord was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she despised him in her heart. 17 They brought the ark of the Lord and set it in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it, and David sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings before the Lord. 18 After he had finished sacrificing the burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord Almighty.
19 Then he gave a loaf of bread, a cake of dates and a cake of raisins to each person in the whole crowd of Israelites, both men and women. And all the people went to their homes.
20 When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, “How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!” 21 David said to Michal, “It was before the Lord, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the Lord's people Israel—I will celebrate before the Lord.
22 I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor.”
23 And Michal daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death."
David didn't care. He loved God and he wasn't worried about how he looked or how he sounded. Again, worship isn't about us or how we look to others, worship is about expressing our love for God and all that He has done for us.
When we talk specifically about Passionate Worship and how that might look during our Refuel service, we also have to look and remember Radical Hospitality. If we are greeting people and making them feel welcome, not matter how good our service is, they won't get into it. This goes for new visitors and regular attenders.
Each piece of our service needs to work together and be smooth. How many were here this morning during the 9:30 service? What did you think of when one of the praise band singers didn't know when the song started? Did you focus on that for a while? That was not Passionate Worship. Passionate Worship is worship that focuses all our energy to God and allows us the ability to express our love for Him and all that He has done for us. As we move forward with our services, you will see some changes. You will see different opportunities for you to worship God, not always in song and words but with silence and meditation.
As we come into the Easter season, we need to especially remember that Jesus died on the cross for us. He died so that we could worship. Jesus didn't die so we could stand around like this [Mimic a sad worshiper]. He died so that we could dance like David, undignified and unashamed. We need to drop all our misconceptions about worship and come before God humbly and with excitement. We need to forget about what genre of music we like and focus on the words of the songs and what they mean to us. We need to quit worrying about the friends around us and sing as loud as we can, it doesn't matter to God what your voice sounds like. Remember, worship isn't about us...
Before we leave tonight, I want us to sing one song. I am going to ask everyone to come back down to the front. I want everyone to sing. You might know this song, you might not. If you need to close your eyes to focus on the words, then do it. Ignore the friends around you and just worship God...
