⁷ And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods ⁸ and walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel, and in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced…

¹⁵ They despised his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them. They went after false idols and became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the Lord had commanded them that they should not do like them. 2 Kings 17:7-8, 15

I can’t help but be blown away by this passage. For a little back story, we are in the midst of some pretty ridiculous kings. There is a lot of treachery and horrible practices taking place with these guys. At this point in the story, Israel has fallen and has been exiled to Assyria and we are getting an explanation as to why. There is no big philosophical reason that is hard to understand and needs to be reviewed by brilliant judges. They get exiled because of their idolatry and the results of their actions.

In out Bible study we began to talk about how that would look in our lives today. These guys were building idols and putting them everywhere. The conclusion was that we have just as many idols today, but they are hidden. Our idols aren’t put up on hills and under trees so that we can go and worship them at specific times. Our idols are in our pockets and on these screens and we can obsess about them in the secrecy of our own homes.

As a worship pastor, I began to think about the never ending question of contemporary vs. tradition. Praise chorus vs. hymn. And it caused me to at least ask the question: Are we fighting for our own musical idols…in the church? I’m convinced that God doesn’t care about this as much as we do. But down here on Earth, we have blogs, books, websites, magazine articles, conferences and other things devoted to this one conversation. This is sad for a few reasons. It’s scary, at least to me, for one reason in verse 15. “They went after false idols and became false.”  Yikes. Sometimes we become so attached to something that we aren’t even ourselves anymore. The Internet has done this faster than anything I can remember. We are allowed to create profiles and make ourselves whomever we want to be. We have these profile pictures that don’t look anything like us, or they are that one picture we all have that we think we look the most amazing we have ever looked. So we use that one. We create an idea in the heads of others that we are this person.

In church, we have created this idea about the way worship should go and we have crafted it and shaped it and worked to make it look prettier than any other worship style. However, I believe in many ways people end up looking at the person that is arguing more than the argument itself. The fight goes away from glorifying God and turns more toward our righteousness and winning the argument. We become the idol. We want our voices to be heard and so we try and say something more profound than the next person. We become the idol. We think that we are going to reveal something new that has NEVER been discovered that will blow the top off of this age old discussion. So we put ourselves in situations and create conflict about who worships God better. Who worships God better. Hmmmm…we become the idol. We become false.

Has winning the argument become more to you than worshipping God? Have you worshipped this idol to the point of becoming false yourself? Where do you stand?

I Have a Dream speech. Gone With the Wind. The Cosby Show. Charlotte’s Web. Leave it to Beaver. Don’t Stop Believing. Bohemian Rhapsody.  Huckleberry Finn. Michael Jordan’s jump shot over Craig Ehlo in 1989. The Thilla in Manilla. The Miracle of 1980. I could go on for awhile, but I think you get the point. These are all things that we look back on and consider them classics. Moments in history that define everything around them. Over time we have created instant classics, moments that happened and right away we know they will be talked about forever. For instance, the moment the in 2004 when the Boston Red Sox came all the back, down 3 games to none against the New York Yankees to win 4 straight and go to the World Series. Or the St. Louis Cardinals last year avoiding elimination twice in Game 6 before winning in extra innings and then winning the World Series the next night. All of these things are considered classics.

When we look at the word classic, it has a connotation of something that has been around for awhile. Consider that a classic is something that was also considered a bit of a game changer, a paradigmatic force that shaped everything and everyone around it. For instance, Michael Jackson or Elvis or Boyz II Men or James Brown or Motown or U2 and The Rolling Stones. Across this spectrum there are many people who will look at what each of these groups are people have done as classic. You’d be hard pressed to find someone who can deny those claims either. You can’t take away hit after hit or the week after week of being number one on the charts. Most importantly, you can’t take away from people the moment, the instance where they can remember what they were doing when they first heard a specific song. Or how a song meant something to them in a particular place in their lives.

Are these the things that make something a classic? Are there other things to consider when giving a song or a book such a title? Are there different criteria for hymns and other church music? A recent comment to this question went with the line of reasoning that hymns are classic because of the words speaking truth about the story of who God is and the Gospel. I would tend to agree with that.  I also believe that we can look at their impact on the church at the time of their release. If you look at that, then classic doesn’t just apply to hymns. And before I go on, this is NOT a knock against hymns, but a lot of times that’s where the word stops. I also think about people like Andrae Crouch and The Winans. Bill and Gloria Gaither. Steve Green and Twila Paris. Thomas Whitfield and James Cleveland. Micahel W. Smith and Carman. Stephen Wiley and T-Bone. All of these people were game changers musically as well.

The funny thing about music in the church or the Christian culture, is the fact that it is so polarizing. I guess as I think about it, music in general can take that approach. People may accept what one person did, but because of personal feelings or preferences may not give the same respect to someone else. This causes me to wonder what this conversation looks like in 30 years. Will Holy is the Lord or Hosanna be considered classic? Will college students be writing their songs based on the words of that old song How He Loves? So again I ask you, what makes a classic? What are some songs or moments that you consider to be classics?

1. You have longed for sweet peace,
   And for faith to increase,
   And have earnestly, fervently prayed;
   But you cannot have rest,
   Or be perfectly blest,
   Until all on the altar is laid.
   • Refrain:
     Is your all on the altar of sacrifice laid?
     Your heart does the Spirit control?
     You can only be blest,
     And have peace and sweet rest,
     As you yield Him your body and soul.
2. Would you walk with the Lord,
   In the light of His word,
   And have peace and contentment alway?
   You must do His sweet will,
   To be free from all ill,
   On the altar your all you must lay.
3. Oh, we never can know
   What the Lord will bestow
   Of the blessings for which we have prayed,
   Till our body and soul
   He doth fully control,
   And our all on the altar is laid.
4. Who can tell all the love
   He will send from above,
   And how happy our hearts will be made;
   Of the fellowship sweet
   We shall share at His feet,
   When our all on the altar is laid.

Not much else really needs to be said. I LOVE this hymn by Elisha Hoffman because it is so direct. It causes you to look right at yourself and ask the question. Have you given all of yourself to the Lord? In certain circles you will hear people talk about how people have realized their need for a savior, but the whole Lord thing is messing them up. In a lot of ways that’s true. But it’s true for most of us. Giving up control is something that we all struggle with. The funny thing to me is that we never had any control in the first place. So this struggle to control things is immersed in the fact that we are always trying to maintain the control because things can go awry at any moment. Because we all have this mindset, we attribute these same deficiencies up Christ as well. We assume that when a tornado hits or someone dies or our home is broken into or a spouse cheats and a marriage ends in divorce that Christ let things get out of control. We act as if He sits up there running from plate to plate trying to keep them spinning and can’t get back to ours in time and something bad happens. Just in case you were wondering, that’s not true. But because we feel that way, we tend to believe that we have the ability to help God out. We think that if we do certain things for God then he won’t have to worry about us.

Picture this: if God needed your help to make things right and keep the ship moving, why did He send His Son to die on the cross? Wouldn’t that be excessively unnecessary?

So when you pray and petition God for help, do you walk away from that time fully believing that God, and ONLY God, can handle the situation? Because if you walk away thinking that you’re gonna have to do some work to get things done, then you’ve missed the point of 1 Peter 5:7. I think when we talk about laying our cares on the altar, sometimes we are still too close to them and it makes it easy for us to just snatch them up again before we walk away. The Greek word used here for cast means to throw it away. Don’t keep it anywhere close to you. Get those cares as far away from you as you can. It doesn’t matter how far you throw them, because God is sure to be there to pick them up. And you won’t be fast enough to pick them up before He gets to them.

So, are you able to truly lay all of the things that are troubling you in life on the altar? Are you able to place you job, kids, husband, wife, school, dreams, desires, plans (they are probably bad anyway if you made them on your own), house, cars- all of these things on the altar? Can you truly trust God to handle it all? When you get to that point, you will realize just how much we should be depending on him. Think about that this weekend as you head to church. You will more than likely have an opportunity to pray and give everything to Him. Will you do it?

Just in case you forgot, I don’t always get it right. Actually, more times than not I get it horribly wrong. But then there are sometimes that things couldn’t go any worse even if you wrote the script for the new Meet the GrandFockers movie for Ben Stiller (that’s not a real upcoming movie. I made that up). It is times like these that make you wonder why it is you do what you do everyday. Am I the only one that has had moments like these? I have put together worship sets, scheduled a band and rehearsals, laid everything out for all the team players, given advance notice to everyone that requested it, only to have 2 vocalists get sick, someone forget rehearsal, 3 people changed their emails and didn’t tell me so they never got the memo about the TPS reports (I’m all movie references today), and then Sunday morning half of the board doesn’t work.

Looking at that situation as it stands, it would be easy to just chalk up a week like this one as a loss. I’ve wanted to do that many times. But it’s times like these that God steps in and does what He was always planning to do. There’s no way to know just how He is going to work, but His work is ALWAYS evident. Something that hit me earlier today. I was writing out some plans on my big board and realized that when God is in the plans. It isn’t like that I didn’t know that already, but people frequently talk about how when I stepped out of the way then God stepped in. Well, my words of wisdom for today is that we (myself included) should be including God earlier in the process. Whenever I spend the time to ask God what He wants me to do before I even start planning, I find that even the planning process goes much better. Then when I get to the end and look back, I can see His hand through the whole thing. Sometimes I may want this huge band, and God wants to break things down to where we are forced to let Him fill in the voids created by silence. Sometimes, He wants to use that still, small voice to firmly guide us toward the cross.

We always look to the famous passage about God’s plans for us (Jeremiah 29:11) because it talks about our prospering and having a hope and future and all that fun stuff. But the plans won’t just pop into your lap as you’re walking down the street. The verses that follow give verse 11 something to stand on. When I go and pray to Him, He will come to me. If I go and seek Him with my whole heart, He will come and find me (my paraphrase of verses 12-13). When I’m planning out my services, I have to seek God out in THAT stage, then even those plans will be revealed as I work. When you are in the beginning stages of a plan or idea, add God then. See how much of the back end crazy gets avoided when you do that…

No, I’m not being anti-patriotic. I’m not saying that everything the people of our country fought for should be removed. Don’t get mad at me. I’m still an American and love it. I’m speaking about a different liberty. The liberty that we exercise when it comes to speaking in front of people. You’ve heard pastors say it from the pulpit many times as they are preaching and they take a view of a passage or a situation that isn’t easily seen or just based on how they think. I am not going to blame them because I’ve done that myself. I’m speaking of those who have walked out on a breaking limb and said some things that may not even be true or edifying for the body, but say these things under the auspices of taking their own liberties.

As leaders we have to be REALLY careful about the things we say from the stage. People listen to everything and they form their thoughts and opinions about things from what they hear from the stage. ESPECIALLY in the church setting. It doesn’t really matter what it is. I was speaking a couple months ago as I was introducing a song that my wife was going to sing in Spanish. I got ahead of my thoughts and ended up making a really funny mistake. But 5 or 6 weeks later and people are still talking about that. What we don’t always see as leaders is how people respond to some of the things that we say in all seriousness that send people out forming opinions and lifestyle changes that we really don’t want them to make.

Being one that is on stage weekly, I have a sensitivity to us that spend so much time in front of people. I know that we only have a short time, particularly as worship pastors and leaders, to share with people and pour into them from that position. So we want to say something and find that line or couple lines where people we go “man, that person gave me something I had never heard before. How smart and insightful!” But I want to warn us against just saying things because we want to say something. Let’s be conscience of what we’re saying. I will leave you with one of the WORST examples of this I’ve seen in a while. It’s a video from a church service where the pastor took some liberties to try to get a point across. It’s flat out bad. I was intrigued as the name of the church is the Word. I was wondering if I had missed something at my own church, but turns out it was another church. Speaking of The Word at Shaw, our new website is finally up and running. Check it out by going to www.thewordatshaw.org. Or you can just click here.

Let me also preface this clip by saying to you that he doesn’t actually say the word. So when you see the title, don’t get freaked out. I don’t want anyone to miss out on this for thinking I put something up THAT wrong. This is a blog about worship after all.

I’m sitting in my kitchen right now at 8:10 on Thursday morning. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I’ve been sitting here since before 6 o’clock this morning. That’s probably a little bad. Waking up isn’t a bad thing. I have been trying to do that a little more consistently (not quite THIS early though…). Here’s the bad thing for me, and I know I’m not alone. Musicians are quirky creatures. We like things to be a certain way and we seem to not work as well when they don’t work out. As a result, we obsess about things and hope that they go well. No matter what they say, musicians always obsess about music and concerts and upcoming shows.

Just in case you didn’t know, I am a musician. I am a musician who has a concert coming tomorrow night. If you haven’t heard the news, here’s the info. I am really excited about this concert because I love this aspect of being a musician. I love sitting on a stage and being able to interact with the people that are in the audience. It’s not an easy thing to do, and I love watching people that make it look effortless. And it’s something that I strive for when I do shows as well. Also, for those of you who know me, you know my heart and passion for music and worship. If you haven’t read it before now, here it is here. So trying to make sure that all of these things are portrayed in one evening is a big deal for me. How does that play out in my head? It plays out like this…

I tried to go to bed around 11:30 or midnight last night. I laid there and sort of slept for about 6 minutes. I spent the rest of the night tossing and turning. I had one of the most retarded dreams I’ve ever had. Something on the lines of going to an outdoor church service where the whole thing was sponsored by Bud Light and they had this HUGE holographic display. Then halfway through the sermon time, someone screamed that the piano player (not me) had JUST caught H1N1. Everyone ran off screaming and it just got more and more awkward from there. Anyway, around 5:30 I couldn’t take it anymore so I got out of the bed. I had been laying there thinking about intros and breaks and chord changes and harmonies and what I’m going to say and what the lights should look like and if the recording will work and how many people will show up and if any one will enjoy it…

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I started writing out song structures and laying out how the night will look. All I can say is that I’m in full obsession mode. Will it matter? Probably not as much as I think it will. Either way, it’s where I am. I hope that many of you can make it tomorrow night. My friend Liz Hitt is opening for me and she’s pretty good. This should be a fun night and I’m excited for it. I am blessed to be surrounded by some great friends and musicians and can’t wait to share this music with them and you if you show up. For information about the church and where it is, here’s a link to the church.

Pray for me that I can get some sleep between now and tonight’s rehearsal and tomorrow’s show. Did I mention that I am jumping on the highway Sunday after this CRAZY weekend? Yeah, I’m nuts!! Oh well…

I’d like to announce to you all that the beginnings of the new website are up! Yes, it’s true. Worship180.org is officially up and working! Thanks to my buddy, Charlie, who has been helping me get things up and running, there is a website to go to now. As of right now, you can find there what you see here, but the format is different and you can see the new logo/banner. There has been a lot of work put into this and even more to come, but I am excited about what has happened already. Things to look forward to: Once we start to put some things in place, there will be a page for tour dates and opportunities to worship together. I’m also doing what I can to get some more video and hopefully some audio up in the near future. I’m working on getting some recorded so maybe we can have some sneak peeks posted. Keep checking in.

There’s a lot of great things happening right now. I’m currently sitting in Kaldi’s Coffee in Chesterfield Valley getting myself prepared for rehearsal at Rockwood Baptist in a couple hours. I’m also putting some music together for tomorrow night’s rehearsal. That’s gonna be fun as well. OH! Something else I almost forgot. Me and a couple of my favorite guys, Daniel Meyer, Evan Pitchers and Tim Schafer are going to be playing at the Gateway House of Prayer Friday night from 10pm-12am. If you want to come and worship with us for a couple hours during the Watch for the Lord, come join us. While I’m sitting here, I think I’m going to put a quick page together with upcoming dates and stuff like that. I’m singing in a few different place over the next month.

Before I go, I want to just say that God can truly bless you even in an intense storm. I am totally speaking from current experience. Even when things seem so out of whack and we don’t know where money is coming from or what utilities we will be able to keep, God is still working in ways that continue to surprise me. As I sit here right now, I don’t know what you might be going through, but I do know that God can handle whatever that is. He has that kinda power. He is GOD! Just in case you were wondering…

In the quiet, in the stillness I know that you are God. In the secret of your presence I know there I am restored…

There is no one else for me, none but Jesus. Crucified to set me free, now I live to bring Him praise… -Brooke Fraser

Have you ever thought about what it means to really just be quiet and still before God? How much time do you actually spend in the stillness? I am the first to admit that I don’t spend much time in quiet. My life is crazy busy most of the time and I really miss those opportunities.  What is the verse of this song saying? It says that in the presence of God when you take the time to settle down and spend some time with him you get that restoration that your heart so desperately needs. How does that time look for you? Are you struggling to figure out when that time is right now? How important is it for you to have time where you let God restore your heart? Important enough to let some things go?

Right now, I am in the process of talking to 4 different churches about my future as a worship pastor. I never thought I’d be in this situation, but here I am. Let me tell you…if this process is anything like today has been, this is going to be a busy season in my life. However, I know that if I don’t take the time to be still before God and let Him restore my heart and mind, I’m not going to be my best as I let Him lead me in my decision making. I could very easily do something that He’s not calling me to do. As I write this, I realize that blogging is one of those quiet times for me. My life flows through my fingers during these times and it’s therapeutic for me. God speaks to me during these times and I’m able to just be…

You should try it sometime. You will be surprised at what He might tell you. I know I was…

So, this year has already brought challenges in my life. I expected it to, because life always brings challenges. I didn’t think that I wouldn’t get through 10 days before things started to happen. Oh well, that’s life I guess. I think that God is getting me ready for something big…something I haven’t quite imagined yet. I don’t really know WHAT God has for me right now, but he doesn’t do anything half way. Here’s what I do know. I’ve been called to lead people in worship through song and I’ve been given a gift that I cannot take for granted. I know that if I’m going to do what it is I want to do I have to just step out and start doing it. I am preparing myself to move forward. I don’t know what that means quite yet, but I’m writing again. I’m even going as far as starting to set up possible opportunities to sing. For those of you that know me, this is a big deal. I don’t normally just promote myself. I don’t really know how to do that.

Anyway, I’m asking for your prayers as I attempt to step out of a comfort zone that has been there for a really long time. I’m quite scared, but I want to be obedient to God. Pray that I can listen to God AND respond the way I’m supposed to. That’s been the big issue for me. I have been running from some things because I’m scared of the outcome because I can’t see it. I need to start following God’s lead. Believe it or not, I’m not that great a leader…

I am called to lead people in worship. I am called to minister to people through song. I am called to be a servant. I am called to be a leader. I am called to help people unite their hearts with Christ. I am called to help people turn away from the distractions of life and focus on the God that saves and sings over us.  I can’t do any of that while I’m looking backwards and holding on to my fears. I can only do that if I turn around and begin to move forward. So lead the way, God, lead the way…

Okay, so the title was a BIT much, but at least you looked at it.

I was reading about my friend David and ran across the passage in 2 Samuel 6 when David was dancing before the Lord as they brought the Ark back to Jerusalem. This struck me in a couple different ways. The first thing that stood out was that Michal was upset that he was doing that and called him on it later, but we’ll get to that. The other thing was the completely uninhibited worship that David gave to the Lord. Now, I’ve read this passage many times, and I’ve always taken notice of it. But as I look through the redefined filter, I see something that excites me. Yes, we have heard it mentioned that David danced out of his clothes, or that he didn’t care who was around because he was dancing to the Lord. I think what made me take notice today was that David was free. That freedom came, however, after some teaching.

I recalled that David and his men, some 30,000 of them were already celebrating as they were bringing the Ark back. There was a little break in the action when Uzzah reached out to touch the Ark because the oxen slipped. When he was struck by God, David got mad, then scared and wanted nothing to do with the Ark. After 3 months of seeing someone else receive the blessings of the Ark, and I’m sure there were some conversations with God, he realized that the Ark was good and he must complete the mission at hand: getting the Ark back to Jerusalem. David’s understanding of who God REALLY was and his plan for the covenant brought magnificent freedom in the heart and soul of King David.  It was THEN that he was seen dancing in his underclothes. I think you really have to be dancing hard to dance completely out of a layer of clothing!

So what am I saying? True worship and true joy come from understanding. Yes, they were already celebrating before, but it wasn’t until after Uzzah died and that time in between where God showed himself through the Ark that the Israelites realized how much they had to celebrate about. We can watch other people worship and even have a basic understanding of what it means to worship ourselves. But true, unfiltered, ‘naked’ worship comes from a deeper understanding of the God who loves us so much that he sent his son to die in our place so we wouldn’t have to. That’s a reason to jump up and down and dance with all our might. And when you’ve completely stripped away all the hindrances between you and God, you can experience something so powerful and you won’t care what you look like to others. People will approach you about how your worship looks, just like Michal did to David. But you will stand firm in knowing what God has done for you. I love David’s response to Michal in verse 22. “I will make myself yet more contemptible than this, and I will be abased in your eyes…” He was basically saying, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!”

Are you willing to be naked in your worship before God? Are you willing to take your worship to a new level? That really means that you have to listen to God for a better understanding of who He is and what He has done and wants to do in your life. Let Him begin to redefine your worship and you’ll start to strip away some of the ugly things that stand between you and him.