Real Worship

I was “at the helm” again this week and led the whole of the worship service as Ali was on a weekend away with his wife.  The set list looked like this:

• Set Me Free (Mike Ellis)
• Lord You Are Good (Israel Houghton)
• God Of Wonders (Third Day version)
• Be Lifted Up (Paul Oakley)
• Lord You Have My Heart (Delirious)
• Amazing Love (Newsboys)

We are deliberately changing the style of our Sunday mornings – shortening the service, tightening up the whole “presentation”, sticking to set song arrangements, making the transition between song/prayer, or song/offering more “slick”.

God (and the senior pastors) still reserve the right to wade in and mess completely with the plan, but the intention is to stick to the plan.  The thinking behind these changes is to make Sunday morning our “shop window” for all – believers or not (to be the access point to the life of Redemption Church).  Of course, we also have other meetings that cater for other groups and are pitched at different levels.

Though the style of the presentation may have changed, the power and the passion of the content is in no way compromised.  In fact, if anything – it is intensifying, as more of the congregation are choosing to make better use of the time that is available and are actively participating in worship sooner; not allowing themselves the “luxury” of “warming up”.  What we’re also finding is that God doesn’t seem to be in any way put off by either the style or the length of the service.  As I said in a previous post, He is actively seeking those who worship Him “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23).

I was prompted again to read from Isaiah 12:4-6 (declaring the greatness of God in our midst) to start the service this week.  I can’t seem to get away from the truth that as we praise the almighty creator of the universe, we enter into His presence; and as we bring all that we have to the table, He brings all that He has – what a deal!!

We serve a truly awesome God!  And for those who came to church this week in need of healing, guess what He brought to the table.  God is good!  He is alive and well and at work in the lives of ordinary people – thank you God!

While I was on holiday recently, God began to speak to me about the power of praise. Since then, I have been chewing it over – reading around the subject and meditating on relevant bible verses.

In doing so, what I originally started to consider began to “morph” and develop into something else; something bigger & wider (perhaps it’s just the way my mind works; or perhaps that’s just the way it is with God – the more you try to know, the more you discover there is to know).  Anyway, I found myself following a particular train of thought…

• Who is God?
• Where does He live?
• What happens there?
• How do we get there?
• What happens when we do?
• What if we don’t want to?

Over the coming weeks I’ll begin to examine each of these questions in turn and as each post is published I’ll make the link from this post live.  Of course, some of these questions are huge  – we are going to be spending the whole of eternity discovering the answer to questions like, “Who is God?”.  So I’ll just offer a perspective in relation to my train of thought as I was meditating on, “the power of praise”.

Apologies for the late posting – yes, it has been 6 days since we had church, but there are 2 very good reasons why I’ve taken so long to write this post:

1. I have been really busy;
2. It’s taken me this long to recover and to try and understand what happened.

I had a coffee with our Senior Pastor yesterday (actually I had hot chocolate & he had water, but we met in a coffee shop). During the meeting I specifically asked him about Sunday’s service & he helped me clarify my thoughts.

I had woken up at 5am on Sunday (unintentionally) and had decided to pray & study rather than go back to sleep. I spent 2 hours with God and had a totally awesome time! I knew that as a result, something had shifted on the inside of me, in my thinking (I came out of that prayer time a different person). I had also prayed specifically for the morning’s service and felt “pumped” about what I expected to happen.

Have you ever had one of those service’s where things didn’t go quite as you expected…?

Right from the start it felt like I was wading through a thick, heavy fog (even from before the service had started when I was encouraging the team as we prayed together). The whole of the worship service felt like a constant battle. In fact, it has taken me until today to “recover” to the place where my predominant thoughts of the service weren’t clouded in heaviness.

Whether the cause of the opposition was warfare (from demonic forces), or people’s choice not to engage & enter God’s presence is largely irrelevant (though I believe it to be a mix of both – usually the latter caused by the former).

The facts are that there were people who did meet with God; there were times of extended free worship. Lives were impacted and changed; and after the word, people responded to a call to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit (to be filled with the Holy Spirit in power).

Incidentally, one thing I need to be aware of is that I don’t (and absolutely cannot) “earn” the right to enter God’s presence, just because I had spent time praying (I don’t believe I was thinking that, but it’s a worthwhile “check”). Although, if everyone who came to church on a Sunday had deliberately purposed in their hearts to worship and had spent time with God before the service, then I know that would have a radical impact on the way things go - more about that in another post.

The Bible says, “no weapon that is formed against us shall prosper” (Isa. 54:17) and goes on to say, “…If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Rom. 8:31).

The enemy might come to try and intimidate and say things like, “give up now”, or “it’s too hard”. Well, the enemy is “a liar and the Father of all lies“ (Jn. 8:44).

It’s interesting to me that even as I write this I am battling tiredness; yet the moment I decide to stop writing I am instantaneously energized. The bible says that “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” (Mat. 26:41).

So, whether I’m facing down the lies of the enemy, or the carnal sin nature, none of that changes the truth that God is good and His word is true; “God is not a man that He should lie” (Num. 23:19); He always has been and always will be, He is the beginning and the end (Rev. 21:6); all things were made by him and are held together by the power of His word (Jn. 1:1-3, Heb. 1:2-3).

God is soooo for us! Blessed be the Name of the Lord!! That just makes me want to echo the words of King David, “I will bless the Lord at all times” (Ps. 34:1); and “My heart is fixed oh God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and give praise” (Ps. 57:7) (emphasis added).

The set list this week looked like this:

• Lord You Are Good (Israel Houghton) Mike
• Your Grace Is Enough (Chris Tomlin) Mike
• More Than Words (Mike Ellis) Mike
• More Than Life (Hillsong United) Ali
• Your Blood (Ali Loaker) Ali
• Everlasting One (Ali Loaker) Ali

I am so glad that God isn’t put off or distracted by circumstances.  I am also glad when His people aren’t either.  Today there was ample opportunity.

We knew that we had to finish our service 1 hour earlier than usual this week, because the owners of the building we rent were letting out some of the rooms we use for the afternoon, and they needed time to prepare them.  We also knew that during the service we were going to dedicate the baby of a couple who are members of our congregation.  What I hadn’t understood however, was that we couldn’t set up in our usual venue, but had to transport all of our equipment along the corridor and across to another hall.

So, upon arrival – finding this scenario, I had a choice to make; do I give in to the temptation to be offended, or do I resist?  I chose to resist.

Ali had overall charge of the worship this week and had forgotten about the shorter service; consequently, he had to reduce the set list.  The final version looked like this:

• One Way (Hillsong United) Ali
• Forever Over Us (One Hundred Hours) Ali
• Love So Strong (Mike Ellis) Mike
• Who Is There Like You (Ali Loaker) Ali

Despite all of the changes (known & unknown) and the opportunities to be distracted, or stressed, we really “had church” today!

There were yet more new faces in the congregation; and even though all of the children and the “RKidz” staff are no longer in our service, the hall seemed to be just as full (if not more) as when they were.

From the outset, everyone chose to enter in.  The first two songs were played both in the same Key (C) and they have a similar rock/pop feel; and though the second song, One Hundred Hours’ “Forever Over Us”, was new this week, it didn’t seem to dampen people’s enthusiasm.

As has become our custom at this point in the service, one of the Pastors stepped up & gave the “notices”, followed by Pastor Mark who brought an encouragement and lead the church in prayer.  As he began to pray, Ali and our keyboard player began to quietly play the chord progression for “Love So Strong”; instantly, you could sense God’s presence.  In our church, prayer is very much an active thing.  During times of prayer, the whole congregation will actively participate – praying simultaneously.

The music continued after the prayer and through the dedication and provided a good platform over which Jon & Simone could make their vows & pray – thanking God  for their son Joel, declaring God’s truth over him & themselves, dedicating him to God.

It was easy to flow from that straight into worship.  The moment we began to sing I could feel the atmosphere change & lift.  All around the hall there were hands raised and eyes closed and people were passionately crying out to God, “Holy, holy are You Lord“.  We entered a time of extended free worship with a sense of awe at God’s presence; and I really felt prompted to say that in His presence, there was no fear, that whatever the circumstance – He is all we need.  As I said it, I could see people wipe tears from their eyes.

I felt we could go further, but also felt constrained by the time and wanted us to sing Ali’s, “Who Is There Like You”.  This is such a powerful, passionate, awesome song!

What I learned from today was that it doesn’t matter where you are, what your circumstances, or how much time you have.  God is actively seeking those who worship Him “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23); and the instant we we do that, we enter His presence. O the beauty of His presence!  As the Psalmist says, “One day spent in Your Temple is better than a thousand anywhere else” (Ps 84:10).

Wednesday night is our normal weekly prayer meeting night.  This week was the launch of the once-a-month “P5″ prayer meeting (which stands for power-filled, prophetic prayer & praise party).

Musically, it was a lot more intimate, with just me leading the worship – using my acoustic guitar & amp.  The style and flow of the worship were intentionally different to our Sunday service; on Sundays we plan for it to be more of a “shop window” (as widely accessible as possible) – with set arrangements etc; whereas the plan for this night was to leave a lot more space for there to be more free/spontaneous worship & for God to speak.

The songs on the set list were:

• You Are Good (Israel Houghton)
• Here I Am To Worship (Tim Hughes)
• I Will Worship You (Mike Ellis)
• We Bow Down (Viola Grafstrom)
• Facedown (Matt Redman)

The first four songs were all played in the same key (E), which meant that the flow between the songs & times of free worship was effortless.  There was such a very real sense of God’s presence – with worship, prayer & prophecy intermingled, all the while the music was continually being played.  I find that grouping songs together in the same key really helps to provide a secure environment where people can easily focus on worshipping God and not be distracted; it provides the space for worship to carry on between songs and for the dynamic flow of conversation between God & man to continue.

There was a short powerful teaching from Pastor Mark about prayer and then we went back into worship.  I began to play the chord progression for Matt Redman’s, “Facedown” (this time in F); the worship & prayer began to flow again; we had an extended time of free, prophetic prayer & worship and eventually sang the song to end.

We had met with God, heard His voice, declared His truth, advanced His kingdom and had a truly awesome time doing it!  It’s going to be interesting to see what God does with these meetings over the coming months.