Community Life…It’s sort of a buzzword in the church. We like to use it as a catchy name for our small groups. It invokes thoughts of people being together doing life together. What does that really mean? I believe we are called to be in each others lives intimately. Knowing each other and being together in peace is what God wants for us. One of the things we overlook or input on our own is community ‘part of’ life. In the church our groups are part of our busy lives. Now I know that these are generalizations, but hear me out…

I’m a sports fan. Whenever you watch sports news or interviews, people are always talking about chemistry. It’s not only what happens on the field, but it’s the relationships and ‘life’ that happens off the field. The most successful teams always talk about how much they were like a family. Yeah, things got tough and I’m sure they fight, but they were family. The things you don’t see highly affect what you see on television or in the stadiums. What’s in the heart comes out on the field.

How does all of this apply to corporate worship? I’ve read and talked to people who have said they feel like something is missing on Sunday mornings. When you ask them about it, they feel disconnected to the people around them. Church becomes more like a concert or a conference. It is easy to get lost in the crowd and then you begin to pick and choose the things that you like and don’t like about a specific church. Then it becomes more and more about you. It makes it easy for you to choose one place over the other and jump from church to church.

We can begin to experience deeper, more intimate worship when we know the people around us that we are worshiping with. What relationships do you have with the people around you on Sunday morning? Do you really know them? Do you have any community within your church body? If there’s one thing that I’ve learned, it’s that people need community. Churches need people in community. Worship needs people that are in community. Think about what the worship in your church could look like if the people worshiping together actually KNEW each other? I don’t think I’m quite done with this thought, so there may be a part 2 to this one in the near future…

Looking at that question the answer seems pretty obvious.  But why is God’s design more important that our desire? Is it because he was here long before we were? Is it because he created us and knows much better what we need? Is it because in order for us to understand this life we have to talk to the one who started it all? YES! But is there something deeper than that? I don’t know if it’s deeper, but there’s something so cool about this to me.  I’ve struggled for a long time with my own design being opposed to God’s.  Trying to do something that’s in complete opposition to the Father is not easy or fun.  I actually found that out as a teenager living at home.  I thought I knew what was up because I was a teenager and I had a job.  But my father was always trying to help me and set me up to pass.  He had all these ‘rules’ and ‘plans’.  I didn’t want rules and plans.  When I look back at those times, I realize now that if I had been more aligned to what my father was trying to show me, I probably would have had more freedom than what I had.

As I put that into a larger perspective, I think about my life and how I think it should go. When I see things happen around me, I wonder what would happen if everyone would just stop and listen to me. How cracked up is that? Anyway, I have to step back and listen to God and hear HIS designs and plans. As I dig into that point even more, I realize that I’ll be doing even better if I stop trying to live in opposition to the father.  That’s when Psalm 37 starts to become more and more clear. Delighting in the Lord has nothing to do with me and everything to do with him.  I’m not trying to please him so he gives me everything I want. I need to be positioning myself to fit his will for me.

As I always try to do, I want to find a way to make this fit in with today’s worship scheme. I’m not calling anyone else out, I can only talk about myself. The rest is up to you. But when we worship, are we looking for the worship that we desire, or the worship that God has designed? Have we commited our worship to him so that he can act? Or are we searching for what looks and sounds and feels good to us? I believe that if we are looking more to our desire than God’s design, we need him to come and ‘redefine’ what our worship should look like to him…

“Lord, I pray that you would help me to trust in you. I want to align my heart with yours so I can know what your design for my worship is. I want to give you all that you deserve. Help me step out of the way so that you can have all of me. Blessed be your name…”

“Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will act.” Psalm 37:3-5

That is such a loaded statement.  It doesn’t seem like it would be to hard to follow, but we seem to have a hard time doing in consistently.  I wonder why that is.  As Christians, our desire should be to worship God for everything that he has done.  But so many other things get in the way. The awes of life and the many distractions pull us away from what we are to be doing.  This line is so powerful because in Revelation it is being said to someone who is a follower of God. John is writing the book of Revelation and is constantly amazed by the things that are being revealed to him.  At this point he had seen SO much and was trying to sift through everything the Lord had shown him.  I have to believe he had to be overwhelmed and a little over stimulated with everything and began to worship the angel that was there with him.  But the angel was quick to readjust his focus.  He told him to worship God.

So many times we get focused on the things going on around us.  During these times in our country and world it is so easy to get distracted by all the news and recession and gas prices and lack of money.  But God has never changed and he never will.  So what am I saying to you? I’m saying that even though there are so many things vying for your attention, you need to stop, refocus, and worship God. He’s got all the answers and he has everything in his control.  It may not look like it and therefore you may continue to try and fix things on your own.  But trust me when I say this, he knows so much more than you and I. So instead of focusing on the money and the commercialization of Christmas and buying presents, worship God.

“I John am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me. But he said to me ‘Don’t do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers the prophets and all of who keep the words of this book. Worship God!’” Revelation 22:8-9

So, I’ve been working on a song for the new CD project. Since I’ve changed the name of the ministry to worship180 and purchased the domain name worship180.org, I’ve been working hard on trying to define what God wants this ministry to be. I’ve also been thinking of ways to express my feelings through song. So I’ve decided that the worship CD project is going to be called Redefine. I have been working on a title song as well as other things and things are starting to come together.

I’m excited to say that the ball is rolling on the new title song for the project. I thought I would share what we have so far. All I really have is the chorus/hook part, but it is going to be good. Oh, did I mention that I’m co-writing this song with Kaleb Krueger? I’m pumped about it. Here’s what we have so far…

The canvas of my heart, Lord
Lies open here before You
Rearrange, redeem, renew my spirit

Time has drawn so many
Lines of limitations
Come shape my life to Your design
Redefine…

This thing is really starting to come together and I can’t wait to see what is going to happen from here on out. Keep checking in because it can only get better…

So, I’ve finally gotten to the point where I can start to put some of this stuff down. As some of you know, I’ve been dealing with this idea for a little while, and God won’t let me put it down. So now I’m working through the details of what it all means. I want to share with you my thoughts about this concept, and then use this space to share other ideas, praises, prayers and anything that God is sharing with me.

So what is redefine, anyway? Well, it started in my mind as a way to lead people to the cross. I’m a worship leader, so by design my goal is always to find a way to lead people in worshiping Christ. But as I thought about it, worship leaders should be leading that charge all the time. We always say things like “Worship is a Lifestyle” and “Worship should be in our hearts all the time.”, but how can we lead in that? We have to start working on people’s hearts and minds to help them realize that worship is more than just what happens during that hour or so on Sunday morning. Worship is something that happens all the time, whether we realize it or not. We were created to worship, and no matter who we are, we all worship something. So the question is, what are we worshiping when we are not at church?

The concept of redefine is a two-fold concept. The first ‘fold’ deals with those of us already involved in the church. Like I said before, worship has to be more than just something that happens on Sunday morning. Well, how do we do that? And more importantly, how do we get others to realize that? The gospel. The gospel is the only thing that never changes, and it continues to show us our inadequacies. At the same time, it continues to show us that our Savior is there to fill in the void. In order to see that, we have to have a daily ‘redefinition’ of the severity of the gospel in our lives. That will lead us to a deeper, more intimate worship with Him everyday.

The second ‘fold’ deals with those outside the church. If I’ve learned nothing in my life, I know that there are 2 things that bond people like no other; sports and music. We want to use music to engage those outside of our walls, and then help us to create relationships with them that are real. Our goal is for everyone to come to a saving knowledge of Christ, but we aren’t seeking that to the detriment of the relationship that could be built. So we do things that help them see that Christians aren’t all about just saving them to pad stats and numbers. We want to know people and touch hearts. And you can learn a lot about a person by knowing what they listen to and why…

The purpose for this is to be a ministry to ministers. As I worship leader, I know how hard it is to make this concept make sense within the church. However, this is more than just a ‘consultant’ job. I want to help spark real conversation about worship that is real, relevant and God-glorifying. I can also sing a little and I can help in reaching out to your community with music.

This is all still coming together and I would love some ideas and thoughts about how to hone this idea in and make it more laser beamy. I know I just made that up, but oh well…this is my blog! I don’t plan for the others to be THIS long, but thanks for reading.