If you’re doing the corporate Furnace Fast, or if you’re interested in fasting at all, you seriously need to read what God said about honorable fasting in Isaiah 58. Go read it, and check your heart and motives in fasting.
Isn’t it interesting how one thing can represent something else much more specific?
Think about it. We may hear, “The White House says ….” is this a modern day miracle? Did a building miraculously grow lips and begin speaking? Of course not! We know this is refering to what the president and his policies have said.
There are lots of examples. “Washington” often represents the legislators, the individuals. “the pentagon” is another place yet it often refers to the generals and military officials. The employees at the Fort Wayne GM plant refer to their bosses at corporate headquarters by saying something like, “We will wait to hear from Detroit.”
And when [insert your name] says or does anything those around them should know that they’re representing Jesus.
Wouldn’t it be cool if our names were synonymous with “a word from God”.
Okay so in the last post I talked about how the prayer furnace at new hope was doing a corporate 40 day fast. we are fasting from different things as the Lord directed.
In fasting the idea is to replace food with God. When your stomach growls, take it as a reminder to worship.
I’m doing the Daniel Fast which is only fruits vegetables and water. I occasionally have cravings for all the other stuff. That’s my “growl.” Some of us have given up other non food things … But the urge to do whatever can still be your “growl.” We must embrace the growl and let it remind us what we are doing.
But why don’t we?
Maybe its just me, but I’m tending to find other ways to occupy my time besides spend it with God. I even went as far as unplugging my TV for these 40 days to ensure I have more time set apart for God. But somehow I find other ways to fill that time. How silly. This is just a diet without embracing more time with God.
I’m gonna embrace the growl more.
There’s a saying … It might have come from someplace else first but it is at least a song lyric from the album Lakewood Live. It goes ‘every day with You Lord is sweeter than the day before.”
Every day with God is sweeter than the previous day?
Bull.
The concept of this lie is strengthening legalistic religion but is absolutely KILLIING genuine faith. Maybe that’s too harsh but my point isn’t.
A faith filled relationship with God has ups and downs. What about the times I do the thing I promised God I wasn’t going to do? What about the day I totally ignore Gods direction? Is that day sweeter? No, in fact I’d say that day is downright bitter.
But the faith filled relationship with God doesn’t stay there. Its filled with restoration and renewal. That is biblical; think of all the times the psalms asks God for restoration. That requires that something went wrong at some point if it is to be restored.
Here’s the big Diehl, we Christians all too often think that our spirituality is supposed to be a nice and shiny thing. The truth is if your relationship with God is not filled with bitter days then maybe your relationship with God isn’t as alive as you think it is.
Sin in your life is a GIVEN. If you’re not struggling and needing restored once again then that means you’re LIVING with it. Whew why don’t we think of things in this way?
Funny… When you realize the RICHNESS of a faith filled relationship with God it even makes conviction a pleasurable thing. Now THAT’S sweet.
If you haven’t read the post immediately before this, “Why Music?,” go read that first. Let me also add that I’m writing some of this TO other worship leaders, but obviously I want others to hear my thoughts.
Does the style of music we use in a church worship service matter? Yes – I DO think it matters. Absolutely, no doubt about it. Don’t misquote my motives though – read my explanation. 
Firstly, I think we need to consider what matters to God since its for Him anyhow. Does our style matter to God? Nope. I don’t think he gives a hoot. I don’t think so. God will hear our hearts (and specifically our attitude of excellence, for those of us with the specific Call to play skillfully (Ps. 33:3)).
So if it doesn’t matter to God, why should it matter to a worship leader? That’s a great question. Let’s consider what does matter. Emotions towards God matter. Devoted lives to Him matter. Our expression of worship to God matters (worship cannot exist without an expression of some sort, otherwise its just music). An assembly worshiping together matters to God (Unity), which is a great reason we use music in the first place. So if those things matter to God, how can our music meet that goal? Wouldn’t the style choices help us meet these goals?
Consider this lyric: “No hay nadie como dios.” For most of you, it will be impossible for this lyric to help you encounter God. But when I translate it into English, “There is no one like our God,” that changes everything. With this lyric you understand the meaning and actually stand a chance at joining me in magnifying God. It works this way because I’m speaking your language.
Can you imagine a church in inner city Los Angeles hee-hawing in a worship set with a banjo, mandolin, jug, and spoons? Can you imagine a church in the back hills of Kentucky connecting to God with an Urban-Jazz Black Gospel style like Yolanda Adams? Can you imagine any church in the Western World doing a worship service using the Asian “Gamelon” style of music; which has absolutely no regard for the 12 tone system (throw your “scales” out the window). Is it possible for people to connect with God with a musical style they’re not used to? OF COURSE IT IS! And the spiritually mature should be able to handle it. But as a worship leader I’m trying to HELP PEOPLE experience God, not make it more difficult for them because “they should be able to handle it.” In a large assembly I have to consider that people are at different spiritual levels; I’d be irresponible if I constantly throw artistic styles that don’t connect with my group. Can you imagine a missionary being so dense as to go to a foreign country and require their church to sing all worship songs in English?
So at this point, I think its pretty obvious that style does matter. It is something to consider. Now comes the messy part.
Musical styles are subjective. People come and go to church every weekend. Only SOME of them have a specific opinion of the carpet, chairs, paint, lighting, or even the sermon. But EVERYONE has a different opinon of the musical style. Which one is the right one? Which opinion is the one the worship leader needs to listen to?
See why its messy? There’s no good answer for this. The worship leader must consider the direction of their local church, the needs and demographic of their congregation, and the voice of the Holy Spirit. I’ve learned that the voice of the Holy Spirit is ALWAYS right and is ALWAYS going to work (isn’t it sad that I had to learn that? lol).
Does our music style matter? Yea, I think it does. It doesn’t matter to God, but our styles can help us accomplish the things that DO matter to God.
We all know (or you’re at least learning right now) that worship is not “music.” There’s a lot more to it. Worship is your entire life as a sacrifice to God. This is ultimate worship (Romans 12:1-2). Worship is doing the right thing when nobody is looking. Worship is connecting with God. Worship is carrying out God’s will on the earth.
If that’s the case, then why do we use music (mostly) in church “worship” services? I think that’s a good question.
Let me answer with another question: what else would we do?
Can you imagine a large group of people getting together in one assembly, and having a “non-music” worship service? What would it look like? Maybe hundreds of people raking a lawn — one leaf per person! Or we can all go down to the soup kitchen and serve food to the needy — the line to serve the food would be longer than the line to receive. Or maybe we can all assemble together and have a worship service by choosing NOT to look at bad stuff on the internet simultaneously. Now all these things are good – and all these things are worship. But we can’t do things things corporately very easily – you may have even laughed at my sarcastic examples.
What could the church do to worship God corporately in an assembly?
Music. THAT’S something we can do all together to worship.
Church history supports this, even back into the Jewish roots. There was a period of Church Music where all worship music was written for professional singers, and the choir sang with lots of polyphony (every part singing a totally different line, often with different lyrics). It was beautiful, but totally NOT intended for everyone to join in singing, it was meant for the general people to worship in their heart while listening. Bach wrote lots of that busy junk, and of music he said something like, “Music has no other purpose than to glorify God and for the enlightenment of the human spirit.” I don’t want to bother looking for exact references (and you probably don’t care), but there was one dude who started changing that trend and began writing music so people could sing along together. It was “congregational.” (There have always been congregational songs in Church history – I’m referring to the MAIN movement of music history.
This isn’t exclusive to the church either. In fact, MUSIC as a means of DOING SOMETHING TOGETHER transcends religion and culture. Take Indians for example – we have all heard of a rain dance, where they danced/prayed for rain. But the Indians also had songs and dance for no purpose except to build community – to be doing something TOGETHER.
Music needs to bring the church together to help the Body experience God together. Let’s worship God with our entire lives, including our thoughts and actions. Let’s worship God together in smaller groups with community building and accountability. Let’s worship God together in a large assembly with music.
Okay so Bill Johnson (Bethel Church in Redding California) got a phone call from a rather upset lady who said, “Ugh, I’m down here at the mall and nobody’s prayed for me yet. A friend told me that if i just went to the mall someone would be here to pray for me and I’d be healed. I’m here- nobody’s prayed for me yet.”
Bill Johnson had to give her directions to the church (his church prays for people to get healed A LOT… they literally are the healthiest county in the nation – nobody is sick – for real). lol.
another group came to Bill Johnson and said, “We want to be a part of your mall outreach ministry.” Bill replied, “Mall outreach? What are you talking about?” They said, “You know … all those stories you’ve told about people getting healed at the mall…”
Bill Johnson replied, “oh, our church doesn’t have a mall ministry. We just have people who shop.”
Welcome to NORMAL Christianity!
I dream of the day when someone asks if they can be a part of New Hope’s Evangelism team and I’d just have to say, “Sorry, we don’t have an evangelism team, we just have Christians.”
I dream of the day when someone asks about our student ministry healing program or our school outreach program that initiates evangelism activities in schools … and I can only say, “Sorry, we don’t have those. We just have Christian teenagers. They just do all of that on their own.”
I dream of the day when a Christian can pray for someone to be healed, or pray for them to receive Christ, and when the other person asks “Are you a Pastor,” they Christian can just respond, “Nope. I’m just the run-of-the-mill Christian.”
I’m not just dreaming. I’m praying. And I believe that day is coming very soon.
I just wanted to touch base with everyone about the past few days of my life. I’ve been in Indianapolis (still am) for a worship convention. It has been fantastic.
Just imagine, if you get several hundred worship leaders in a room and want to lead them in worship — you can expect the worship leaders are TOP NOTCH (although they wouldn’t need to be – I mean the worship leaders should be okay with a vocalist and a kazoo… if you’re too big to be led you’re too small to lead). They have a few worship leaders here that I’ve never heard of – Joel Auge (from Canada) and Mia Fieldes (from Hillsong). There was also the guys at Lakeview Church in Indy (Eric Cooper and Nathan LaGrange), and Ross Parsley and Jared Anderson from New Life Church in Colorado Springs. All of their ministries were top notch. Mia Fildes blew my socks off; her voice is spectacular. If you’re in my worship team you can expect to see some chord charts with her name at the top.
This is a worship conference by Integrity Media. Integrity is unique because they have.. integrity. They’re the only Chrisitan music supplier that’s not owned by a secular company. I’ve been told by several people that they aren’t out to “sell me stuff,” they want to “resource me.” That’s exactly how I’ve seen it as well. Another thing that sets them apart is that they don’t generate new worship “artists.” They aren’t a label that looks for the greatest band … they’re a label that searches for churches that have got “it” going on, and then network with them. I just love Integrity. (Attention Integrity Staff: if you send me free stuff, I’d be happy to write more blogs about how great you are… HA!!)
I’ve been greatly challenged at this conference. When I came down here I was more-or-less “vision-less.” I searched and prayed, but I couldn’t see where the worship in my church was going anymore. I seemed to have ran out of this leadership fuel about 2 weeks ago. But like I said, I’ve been greatly challenged.
I’ve been thinking about a lot of different things regarding worship at New Hope. Some of them weird and diverse. I’ve got so much to think and pray about.
Do you remember the old song that was simply sang:
Give me that old time religion. <br>Give me that old time religion. <br>Give me that old time religion. <br>It’s good enough for me.
What kind of song is that? I sang it repeatedly when I was younger, but now I’m thinking about it and I can’t help but laugh out loud. If you love this song I am truly sorry, but lyrically this does not have good implications. (It’s quite possible that this song meant something completely different 40 years ago and had very DIFFERENT implications than what I will be discussing in this blog. But as everything else, this is how I see it.)
On a positive note, it’s truly important that we look at the roots of our faith. God gave instructions in the old testament for His people to look back and remember the paths that brought them to where they were. That’s still important today; no question.
But this song seems different – almost defiant. It’s almost like it could be said, “My grandfather’s expression of faith was right. Yours is wrong.” Or worse yet, “I want a religion that’s so deeply rooted in old time history that I will stay negligent to the lost world or even bother to look around and notice that my religion is no longer effective.” Wanting “old religion”can only imply that you are rejecting any new expressions.
Any song that supports the widespread belief of the world that Christianity is irrelevant is a horrendous abomination.
In case you were wondering, my random rant of this song has absolutely nothing to do with anything anyone has said or done recently. I was just brainstorming “old songs” from my childhood and I thought of this one, and then realized how unbiblical it could be taken.
We need to be cautious of the songs we sing in our churches. Choosing songs based solely on the beat or musical construction is simply a horrible idea. People are singing and experiencing their theology during a music worship service — that’s no small priority.
1 Thes. 5 gave Christians instructions on how to handle a great move of the Holy Spirit when it told us us, “Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies. Test all things; hold fast what is good…” ”Do not quench the Holy Spirit.” That means that we should be careful not to “shut down” the Holy Spirit if He’s moving in our group. Now you might say, “If God wants to do it, then he’ll do it.” Although I’ll never argue against the supremacy of Christ, I believe there are seven very common ways that Christians can stifle what God is doing in the Spirit:
Control - Refusing to make room for the Spirit’s manifestations and activity. There’s nothing wrong with planning for a smooth church service, but we should be careful not the plan the Holy Spirit right out the door.
Exhibitionism - This is a lot like “control” but with a different motivation. This is when we add to the Spirit’s manifestations and draw attention to ourselves.
Neglecting the Word - This is neglecting to test all things by biblical standards. Some “trust” the Spirit’s leadership in a non-biblical way by trusting Him to uphold the Standard of the Word in our midst.
Prayerlessness - Some “trust” the sovereignty of God in a non-biblical way by “trusting” God in their prayerlessness to do the part that He has assigned to US (prayer!). This is not trusting God, but rather it is presumption. Some people totally screw up the truth when they think if God wants to do something, He’ll just do it. But God has given us a dynamic role in determining things with our prayer and fasting. Take the farmer for example, God provides the sunshine and rain … but the farmer has to plant and pull weeds. Don’t expect the Holy Spirit to move if you’re not praying.
Despising - We must not despise the times when God’s power is released in small measure. We walk in the tension of being grateful and faithful in the days of small things while continuing to be desperate to seek God for the full measure. We continue to pray for the fullness of revival because we see what we lack. However, we operate in faith by seeing what we have in God now.
Laziness - Some refuse the work and effort that required to regularly pray for people in need. It’s not easy, dude.
Compromise - You can’t grieve the Holy Spirit and flow in the Holy Spirit at the same time. We should seek to fully obey God by living out the Sermon on the Mount. We must seek to live without compromise by declaring war on all known sin in our lives. Prayer and fasting are never a substitute or lack of obedience. The pursuit of full obedience is different than attaining it. There are powerful dynamics that occur in our heart when we aim at pursuing 100% obedience. Sesame Street taught me to always compromise. That’s fine if all that’s at stake is 5 minutes with a Tonka Truck, but a compromise in your spiritual life is a bummer. “You never win when you compromise.”