Many things are a means to an end; not worship.

Most things in life are a means to some end or server a larger goal. In fact if you just look at something like a house payment, you spend a lot of your day working to accumulate hours in a day, days in a week, at the end of the week a paycheck, at the end of the month a portion of your pay to your house payment, that portion is one of MANY that fulfill the task of buying your house and owning it. All these hours are a means to the end of owning a home. Lot's of things are like that, so it's easy to be in that mode. Worship isn't.

I was reading John Piper this morning and a page just jumped out at me. I'll do my best to paraphrase. John says, worship is not a means. It's THE end goal. We don't have worship on Sundays as an outlet for musicians, we don't worship to make people feel better, it's not to attract larger crowds. We don't worship to raise money or get better or heal relationships. We worship for one simple reason. It's to express our deep satisfaction in the Lord and give Him glory. It's so simple. How about participating in something that is an end goal in itself!

Love is serving

I just listened to about 10 minutes of a sermon by Joe Stowell about the love of Jesus. There is no way in a few words on a blog I can really relay how it moved me. Joe talked about how Christ's love covered our sin.

That's how much he loved us, he covered our sin to make us acceptable to God. He took it on himself, undeservingly.

Have you ever taken the heat for a good friend or family member? Did you ever whitewash something someone for someone you loved? It's an impulse to do that with those who you love. What about other people? I have to admit I haven't been so great in this department. We've all said things like "if this person comes to me and asks forgiveness, maybe I'll forgive them, but I'm not going to them."

Woops. That's not Christ's brand of love at all. Thank God.

As I was parking my car Joe Stowell was beginning to paint the picture of Jesus washing the disciples feet. It's a servants job, but as important as taking your guests coats. When they entered the house you can kind of picture the disciples looking at each other thinking, "Who's going to do this? I'm no servant. What's the deal here? Where's the love."

Then Jesus, the best and most important human on the plant puts a towel around his waist and takes the servants role. He tells them to love.

I wanna love like that.

After the Rally...

Last night was the long awaited Unity in the Community Worship Rally. We've been planning for this for months. We had huge participation from the Grove. All of the effort was well worth it.

I couldn't be more proud to work with the group we have. Everyone was present and brought a cooperative and humble spirit. I appreciate all of the prepartion that everyone put in from Hospitality, to sound to worship. You guys are great!

It can't go without saying that it was awesome to see all the Grovers that attended.

Here are some thoughts I had in retrospect, that I just wanted to note so as not to forget.

Our church helped a lot, but look at that stage / soundboard /decorations /chairs setup/ t-shirts made....etc that we had NOTHING to do with! We fit into the Unity event like a cog in the wheel of a well oiled machine. Isn't this representative of the body of Christ (and how it should/could be)?

There were times during worship where we backed out and we could hear the 1,500 worship leaders, not on stage, singing out. That was overwhelming. It was hard to not lose my head!

The collective focus on Jesus was amazing.

God is in the details!

Wow.

So much going on in life. I'm not the only one feeling this. I have my family, my wife deserves communication, undivided attention, quality time. My new daughter the same. I love that part of my life. I look forward to stealing off with Amy and Ruby for an unplanned hike or just hanging out at home with no distractions (sorry iphone).

I have a job, that I love and requires not only a LOT of time, but a lot of energy & creativity. If I am honest, the job gets more than it's fair share. I work to set boundaries and then abide by them.

I have a spiritual life. I have serious responsibilities at church. The kind with eternal ramifications. It calls for spiritual growth and holding those in the worship team accountable for individual growht. Right now, we have May 3rd looming, before we get to that we have the Dress rehearsal at Crossroads. Extra practices, extra meetings, preperation....etc.

With all this going on, it's easy to get in a habit of running from one thing to the next. It's easy if you're proactive, to let your mind always wander to the next thing on you're plate. Never on what you're doing. Where you are right now.

Right now, is where God is. It's the joy in the moment. The smile on my daughter's face, helping a stranger with the door. It's tuning out the noise and connecting with God before sprinting into the next "thing".

Unity in the Community - 40 days to go!

Only 40 days left until the Unity in the Community worship service at Madison High School. I'm really getting excited. It's such a privledge for us to be a part of this. We have involvement from many of our Grovers.

Jan is heading up Hospitality.
Carolyn is working with Mark Winner to handle the media.
Don is working with a member of the Cornerstone church on sound.
Our worship team will be leading worship for the opening set and Vince will have an opportunity to join a song with other worship leaders from north east ohio.

This movement was started a couple years ago and just seems to be gathering so much steam. There are so many churches represented in the planning of it. I have to say that I've never been part of something with so many churches joining hands to be apart of it. Nothing spititually deeper than softball anyway!

I'm hoping to see a bunch of grovers and their friends come out and be a part of this.

Worshiping with you.

My last couple posts were about worship and what worship actually is. A lot of times we (all of us) get confused between what we call worship and what God calls worship.

Just to recap, sometimes we might refer to a song as worshipful. A song is just a song. It's a collection of words and notes and has no power or designation as worshipful. Someone who doesn't know God could sing and play that song masterfully and with great passion and not be worhsiping. It might have lyrics with a christian message, but it's still just a thing with no capacity to be worshipful in and of itself.

Without God, we're the same as that well intentioned song. God gives us the ability to worship Him. It's a bit perplexing actually. You, who God created, have no capacity to worship (which is your purpose) without God.

Now, apart from the fundamentals of worship, I have to say that I love worshiping with you. Often during any song I can be in my own little world. It's filled with the many variables of playing an instrument. It's filled with my desire to know God and sing praise. When I open my eyes or lift my head and look at you and see that you are praising God with full abandon, it elevates the intensity of my experience.

This is for a lot of reasons. To name a few; When I see that you are here to worship, it makes it a safe place for me to worship too. Because I love you and I want to see you fill your purpose. Because God's omnipotence is being demonstrated in your life right in front of me!

How can i close this out? I am so blessed to worship with you on sunday mornings! Thanks for making the Grove a place of worship!

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What else is worship?

How else do we define worship as Christians? The more I read from different authors, pastors, worship leaders the start to see a common theme. The "Worship Team Handbook" by Alison Siewart, Andy Crouch, Matt & Sundee Frazier says, "For Christians, worship has always been an openhearted response to the incredible grace of God." This is about as succinct as you can get.

I'm going to go back to the statement that music isn't worship for a minute. You can have an open hearted response to God's grace, while singing a song. More often though, if our response is serious, we're doing more than singing or playing an instrument. When we truly examine God's incredible grace (think about the sacrifice of Jesus) we WILL sing but before singing can be worship, we're doing something else. We're changing! We're becoming more obedient, we develop a desire to know Him more, we become thankful to our creator and we become repentant, thankful and more forgiving of others.

There is more to worship than just believing or knowing, James 2:19 says, "Even the demons believe - and shudder". In the Worship Team Handbook, Alison Siewart says, "Just believing more interesting things about God is not worship... Real worship permeates life in the way any really significant relationship does."

So, worshiping is not just for Sundays. It's life permeating. It will show up everywhere in your life that you don't decide to hide it!

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