5 Practices of Fruitful Congregations - Passionate Worship

I am going to blog on something that I am passionate about - passionate worship! Bishop Schnase wrote a book on the 5 practices of fruitful congregations, I will be blogging on it the next few weeks, starting with worship. The five practices are radical hospitality, passionate worship, intentional discipleship, risk-taking mission, and extravagant generosity. When we discuss these five practices, the adjective is as important as the word itself!
To be a radical, world changing church, we must have radical worship. So what is worship? A lot of people think that its about a feeling or emotion that we receive when we sing the songs we like, or hear a sermon that we enjoy. Others say it is where they connect with others on Sundays (or other days of the week). DA Carson says “Worship is the proper response of all moral, sentient beings to God, ascribing all honor and worth to their Creator-God precisely because he is worthy, delightfully so.” So we will feel powerful emotion, and we will enjoy seeing people, and we will feel filled up - however it about giving God the honor that God deserves.  Then, out of God graciousness, God gives us awesome gifts in return!
So how do we have passionate corporate worship, and how do we have passionate individual worship. Schnase says, "God uses worship to transform lives, heal wounded souls, renew hope, shape decisions, provoke change, inspire compassion, and bind people to one another. The word passionate expresses an intense desire, an ardent spirit, strong feelings, and the sense of heightened importance.  Congregations who practice Passionate Worship offer their utmost and highest; they expect worship to be the most important hour of the week."
Is worship the most important hour of the week for you? Maybe you need to change your priorities. 
Do you prepare your heart and mind for worship? The best way to passionately worship our Creator is by asking the Holy Spirit to ready our lives for this most important hour of the week. I want to invite you to come to worship full of excitement, joy, love, AND expecting to encounter the Divine, the Holy and for your life to be changed!
We also need to be passionate about our daily worship! Schnase says, "Through the personal practice of Passionate Worship, we learn to love God in return. Followers of Christ develop patterns of listening to God, allowing God to shape our hearts and minds through prayer, personal devotion, and community worship. We love God."
It amazes me that we have an all-powerful God who wants to spend time with us, and yet we are too 'busy' to do so. This needs to change for the church to be a movement again! It is only through our relationship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit that we will be empowered to change the world. 
Notice that I did not talk about style of worship? That is because any worship that we give ourselves completely to God can be passionate. It can be 'traditional,' it can be 'contemporary,' it can have incense, it can have a rock concert feel. As long as the scriptures are read, the people have gathered, the sacraments administered and praises are sung - we can worship our God.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Time to Grow Up

This morning I lost my wallet. Well lost is probably not the correct word, I temporarily misplaced it. Whenever I lose something, especially something important, I get anxious, even frantic. Most people have outgrown the problem of losing their keys or their wallet by having specific places to put it. I struggle with this (I often give the excuse that it's because it is how my brain works, while true it's an excuse) because I have not taken the time and effort to develop a pattern of where to put my important stuff. I am a very forgetful person, my dad used to say I would forget my head if it was not attached, but with the proper effort and training, I could learn to change my ways. Friends, the same is true with our faith. We must choose to put effort and energy into growing in mature followers of Jesus. Check out Hebrews 6:1-9: So let’s press on to maturity, by moving on from the basics about Christ’s word. Let’s not lay a foundation of turning away from dead works, of f
Read more

This world IS our home and it DOES matter when we lose the battle...

You might be wondering what this blog is about today, or you might have already connected the title with two popular Christian songs on the radio: Home by Chris Tomlin and Greater by Mercy Me. Both songs represent a theology that is an epidemic among popular Christianity today. Many Christians believe that this world is not really our home, that it is just a temporary place that we are passing through and (hopefully if we found Christ!) we go TO heaven and not experience eternal conscious torment in hell. That allows us to say (as it says in the song Greater by Mercy Me) that if we lose the battle with doubt or sin, it doesn't matter because we have the grace of God and so we still get to go to heaven (side note: this isn't exactly what the song means, but it is what it says. The song seems to be saying that because we are redeemed we don't have to earn grace. That is true but it overstates the point). The Christian world has focused on eternal salvation, however follow
Read more

Thoughts from the first five chapters of Luke

Last week I challenged people to read the book of Luke over the next month, and I am very excited about that! I am now realizing the challenge, however, of blogging over 5 chapters of the Bible! I am going to hit some highlights, feel free to comment below if you have thoughts or questions. First of all, Luke is actually book 1 of a saga that also includes Acts! Many people call it Luke-Acts because it was probably meant to be read as one continuous story (hmm maybe we should read acts together next...).  Chapter 1 "I have also decided to write a carefully ordered account for you, most honorable Theophilus." Theophilus is probably an honorific and it means friend of God or beloved of God. It is debated whether the book is written to an actual person or to all believers whom Luke is calling friends of God. The story of the birth of John the Baptist recalls stories in the Hebrew text that are similar such as Sarah and Abraham with the birth of Isaac (Genesis 18)
Read more