For your Friday afternoon edification, here’s another animation by Chris Powers of a Sovereign Grace Music song. This animation is set to go with “The Gospel Song.” I posted another animation several weeks ago.
Impacting the Kingdom Through Worship,
Here in Your Presence
Here in Your Presence
While the physical CD won’t be available until August 31, you can download a digital version now. In fact, if you preorder a CD, they’ll give you immediate access to the digital version so you can listen to it while you wait for the actual product to arrive.
I’ll add that if you don’t follow Dennis on Twitter or Facebook, consider adding him. He’ll announce from time to time online sessions where he’ll sing and stream live right from his living room. Those are always a lot of fun.
Impacting the Kingdom Through Worship,
The Cost of Discpleship
I started teaching a six-week Bible study on discipleship this afternoon. We’re using Being a Disciple: Counting the Real Cost from Precept Ministries. I appreciate the way Precept approaches Bible study, so I’m looking forward to using their materials.
The first session of the study doesn’t paint a very pretty picture of discipleship. Jesus called his disciples to leave everything–and everyone–they knew to follow him. He assured them they would be harassed, accosted, and even killed for their faith (Matthew 10:17-18). In other words, it would cost them everything in order to be a disciple of Christ (Matthew 10:38).
That doesn’t paint a very pretty picture of what it means to follow Christ, does it? It isn’t something we would naturally be excited about. But, while Jesus gave some dire warnings to his disciples, he also made some wonderful promises.
Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows. Matthew 10:28-31 NASB
Jesus promised that no matter what travails his disciples encountered on earth, God would care for them. It’s comforting to know that while discipleship isn’t easy, we are valuable to God and nothing can happen to us apart from His will.
Impacting the Kingdom Through Worship,
Jernigan's Here in Your Presence
Dennis Jernigan will be releasing a new live-recorded album entitled Here in Your Presence! Live from San Antonio sometime around the end of August. I have a pre-release copy of the CD and I absolutely love it. It’s full of the redemption story of Jesus Christ and Dennis’s testimony makes it all the more powerful.
My five year old son told my wife the other day, “Mommy, I love the music we listen to in the van.” The music we’ve been listening to recently has been Here in Your Presence. He borrowed his sister’s CD player and walked around the house singing along. At the risk of sounding like I’m placing a man a pedestal, the notion of which even Dennis himself would reject, this CD is Dennis Jernigan at his best.
Be on the lookout for this CD and grab a copy the first chance you get.
Impacting the Kingdom Through Worship,
Worship Is a Deliberate Act
Yesterday, I began a discussion entitled “Toward a Definition of Worship.” This is a working definition of worship that I’m discussing with a group members at the church I serve, and we can break it down into several components. As a reminder here’s the definition:
Worship–the act of God’s people submitting and drawing near to God in spirit and in truth to declare His worth and to ascribe to Him the glory He is due
Worship Is a Deliberate Act
When you think of worship, what do you think about? Does your mind automatically bring up an image of a time and place, like a church sanctuary on Sunday morning? I’ll be honest; mine does. And I’ve been leading worship and teaching worship theology for many years. The first thing that pops into my mind–I’m sure out of habit more than anything else–is eleven o’clock Sunday morning. Why? Because for the vast majority of my life, I have joined in corporate worship at that time on that day of the week more than any other.
What that tells me is that ingrained in our 21st century minds is the idea that worship is a noun. It’s a finite time or place. It has a specific beginning and end. That’s only part of the picture, though. When we speak of corporate worship, out of necessity we do need to have a specific time and place so that everyone in a local body of believers can set aside that time to gather. But the gathering itself is not worship. Worship is the act in which we engage when we gather.
Abraham Demonstrates Deliberate Worship
The first time we see the word “worship” in an English translation of the Bible is in the account of Abraham’s obedience to God’s command to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham’s long-awaited son (Genesis 22:1-10). In verse 5, Abraham tells those traveling with him to stay where they are. “I and the boy will go over there and worship.” Abraham uses the word “worship” in an intentionally active sense. It was something he was going to do, something he was going to offer. While it had a specific geographical context, it was the act of offering his only son as a burnt offering to which Abraham was referring when he said, “I and the boy will go over there and worship.”
In his book Worship is a Verb: Celebrating God’s Mighty Deeds of Salvation
Worship is something we do, not something that is done for us (by ministers and musicians). Again, the mental and physical “doing” must be acts that express the love and commitment of our total selves. For instance, true worshipers do not give money in the offering primarily to support the work of the church. They do so as an act of worship, a token that all they are and have belongs to God, One-in-Three.
In much the same way runners cannot “go for a run” (noun) without running (verb), believers cannot “go to worship” (noun) without worshiping (verb). We may find ourselves in the presence of believers who are worshiping, but unless we are actively engaged in the worship of God, we are simply bystanders and observers. In biblical worship, there is no credit for simply showing up.
Impacting the Kingdom Through Worship,
Toward a Definition of Worship
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I’ve recently been having a conversation about worship with several members of the church I serve. So that we could all be on the same page in our understanding of what worship is and what it isn’t, we looked at a few passages of scripture (the book of Leviticus, Isaiah 6, John 4:7-24, and Hebrews 10:19-25) to help shape our views. Because we’re all fallen beings, we couldn’t rely on our own understanding of what worship is; I wanted the group to learn–or at least to be reminded of–what God says it is.
Looking at these passages gave us an opportunity to form a biblically-based definition of worship:
Worship – the act of God’s people submitting and drawing near to God in spirit and in truth to declare His worth and to ascribe to Him the glory He is due
This is a working definition and it could easily change through the course of our subsequent conversations, but it’s a good place to start. I’ll break it down here and walk through the individual parts in later posts.
Worship is:
- The act
- Of God’s people
- Submitting
- And drawing near to God
- In spirit and in truth
- To declare His worth
- And to ascribe to Him the glory He is due
Impacting the Kingdom Through Worship,
Be Thankful for Your Volunteers
Tonight, our Children’s Choir Ministry Team is finishing up the year with our children’s choir by having a s’mores roast. It doesn’t have much to do with music or worship, but it’s a fun way to end the year. Last week, they hosted an open house for families to show how a typical rehearsal goes. From musical training to Bible study to Bible memory, this team has been faithful to train the children of our church in worship leadership over the past year.
I’m not one who needs accolades. Because of that, I have a tendency to forget to thank others for the work they do. But last week, I shared with the families that this is my eighth year of full time worship ministry and my seventeenth year of worship ministry overall. This ministry team who helped me by serving our children is the best I’ve worked with.
If you’re a worship leader, you work with volunteers all the time. Imagine if you had to do what you do without the support of ministry volunteers. It would be impossible. Have you thanked your team recently?
Impacting the Kingdom Through Worship,
Sovereign Grace's "The Prodigal"
I rarely repost something another writer has posted elsewhere. I might post a reaction to the original, but I try not to be a “re-blogger.” That’s a lazy way to maintain a blog.
Bob Kauflin has posted a YouTube video that’s too good not to pass on. It’s an animated video of a song on Sovereign Grace Music’s Sons & Daughters CD. Chris Powers created the video.
I think the image of Christ’s accepting those who were once lost as part of His Bride is particularly moving.
Impacting the Kingdom Through Worship,
The Importance of Song Texts
As a worship pastor, I make it a matter of priority to read through the texts of songs planned for upcoming worship services. Even if I know a song well, I usually read through the text to make sure there isn’t something I haven’t caught before. Believe it or not, it’s easy to gloss over things in songs we’ve sung many, many times. There are several reasons I do this, but the main reason is that I want to make sure the text is theologically solid and declares the truth of the gospel. The music we sing in corporate worship gatherings is far more than a “warm-up” for the sermon. It–and everything else we include in the worship gathering–must proclaim truth just as fervently as the sermon does. If any component of worship does not “preach,” it does not belong in worship.
At The Blazing Center, Stephen Altrogge has a post entitled “Why Words Matter in a Worship Song.”
Truth matters. Sound doctrine matters. Our songs should be saturated with truth. It doesn’t please God when we sing false things about Him. It pleases Him when our songs are packed with Biblical truth.
Thanks, Stephen, for reminding us of the importance of this concept.
Impacting the Kingdom Through Worship,
As You Begin Your Week
Thanks to a sermon series by our pastor, I have a post or two coming that will focus on fear and its affect on worship. But for today, I wanted to give you an encouragement for the upcoming week.
When we gather with other believers for corporate worship, it isn’t a time where we come to get “refueled,” as if we’ve let our tanks run down to empty and we’re having to coast into the gas station, hoping we make it to the pump in time. In order for corporate worship to achieve its singular purpose, that is to glorify God and declare His worth, it must be a time when believers gather to express to God and to one another the joy and, if necessary, the heartbreak we’ve offered to Him in our times of private worship throughout the week before. In other words, if corporate worship is to be what God intends it to be, it is predicated on our private worship before hand. Without private worship, corporate worship is just another meeting that is no more meaningful than a weekly project status meeting.
In his book, Exploring the Worship Spectrum, Harold Best has an appropriate thought on this idea:
We do not as much go to church to worship as journey there to continue our worship in company with brothers and sisters as a local manifestation of the gathered body of Christ himself. (Emphasis added.)
As you begin your week, commit to a time of private worship. Then watch and marvel as the glory of God shines bright when you gather with your brothers and sisters-in-Christ for the next corporate worship gathering.
Impacting the Kingdom Through Worship,
