Worship 1 Series

I am the recipient of gifted people.

 Ed Lair does the bulletins every week.

 Ed Rhoades finds people to do communion meditations.

 We have wonderful people to donate their time and energy to come and play instruments every week.

 Also everyone who pours their heart into singing specials.

 Pete Spearman does soundboard every week.

 Plus we have wonderful Sunday school teachers.

 We also have wonderful ladies who prepare food when we have potlucks.

I feel blessed to be apart of a church that just loves God and loves people. Your attitudes aren’t a ME attitude. I went to Joplin this week for their Preaching and Teaching Convention. I heard powerful sermons that were both thought provoking and challenging.

One reason why I say that I am blessed to be here is because while at the convention there were classes we would go to such as:

1. Raising G-rated kids in an R-rated world.

2. A one year plan for preaching

3. Programming your worship ministry to grow.

4. It takes a team to build a children’s.

5. Finding harmony in church music.

While all these classes are great, that last one is the one that made me feel the most blessed. During the class discussion there were people telling horror stories of division within the church over the style of music and instruments used at their churches. I felt blessed because so far all I have noticed here are people who are supportive and encouraging to those who play instruments or sing specials.

I remember learning this while I was still in High School and going to Adrian Christian Church. There was this older man he must have been in his upper 80s or early 90s. This man would get up and sing a special and you really couldn’t understand this man and he would cough and choke his way through the whole song. I remember thinking why do they even let this man sing. I can still remember this older couple behind me say to each other, “Isn’t it great that he still wants to serve the Lord.”

Then at my last church in Indiana we had a worship band that consisted of guitars, drums, piano keyboard and even maracas and there was this young kid about 12 trying to learn the guitar and he was on stage with the band playing his heart out and messing up sometimes and I remembered what that older couple said and I thought, praise the Lord He wants to serve you.

There are people in churches everywhere that think that the service is about them or about the people in general. We get into this mentality sometimes where we think we are the AUDIENCE. But we’re not the AUDIENCE God is the audience. The service isn’t about us it’s about HIM.

This problem isn’t just a 20th century problem the Lord said thru Isaiah in Chapter 29:13 “These people draw near with words and honor me with their lip service, But their hearts are far from me.”

Jesus said the same thing in Matthew 15:8-9 and in Mark 7:6-8.

Jesus says: “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: These people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. In vain do they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’ Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.”

Illustration: A man died and was in heaven with the Lord and Jesus was showing him around. Jesus said to the man “it’s Sunday on earth and your congregation is in the middle of their service would you like to see.’ The man was ecstatic and said he would love to. So God took him over to a balcony overlooking the congregation. The man could see on the page of the hymnal that they were singing his favorite song but he couldn’t hear anything so he looked to the Lord and asked if He could turn on the audio. The Lord looked at him with a sad face and said ‘we can only hear things that are from the heart.’

What is true worship? This month we are going to try and look at several different aspects of worship. Today we’re looking at how worship is more than just singing.

The minister invited the children to come forward for the children’s sermon. After they had seated themselves on the steps, he announced he was going to talk about frogs. He asked the group, "When I say ’frog’ what’s the first thing that comes to your mind?" Promptly a child answered, "GOD." Surprised, the preacher asked with obvious puzzlement, "Why do you think about God when I say "frog?" The child replied, "Because I know you didn’t bring us down here to talk about frogs."