Worship Service – Recognize What is Real
About a year ago we had a lady in a wheelchair come into the foyer during worship. She told one of our elders that she had cancer and wasn’t expected to live much longer. She asked if we would pray for her. That elder went right up front between songs, explained the situation and prayed […]
Does our Worship Model Breed Disconnection in the Body?
It is certainly easy to idealize the worship of the early church, especially when developing community has been a big push in the last few decades. We certainly wouldn’t want to have to put up with half the things they had troubling them in their day. So I don’t want to idealize them but I […]
Verses on Heaven: What We Will and Won’t Do There as Well as What Heaven is Like
What is heaven? Heaven is God’s dwelling place (Deut 26:15) Home of angels (Gen 28:12, Rev 4 & 5) Home of the deceased righteous (2 Kings 2:1, Rev 6:9-11) Ultimately the place of all the redeemed – 1 Thess 5:10, John 14:1-4 What will we do in heaven? Recognize people – Luke 9:30 (recognizing the […]
Worship Service and Mexican Food
A thought occurred to me as I was preparing Bible class last week that worship services are a lot like Mexican food, there are only 5 ingredients…the only different is in how they are arranged.
Sermons on Worship and the Water of Life
Just posted two sermons from December. Living Water – A sermon based on Ezekiel 47 where Ezekiel witnesses water flowing out of the temple, down to the Dead Sea. Life grows out of the low places around the Dead Sea as the water nourishes places that had long been dead. Application – we also have […]
Worship as Visceral, Whole Body Experience – Psalm 63
A psalm of David. When he was in the Desert of Judah. 1 O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. 2 I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your […]
Living in God’s Temple
We don’t live in a place filled with temples but imagine we did. What sorts of things would you do in a temple? What sorts of things would you never dream of doing there? I grew up tip toeing in God’s house. It was a holy place, at least the auditorium was. Get in the […]
Keeping God the Center of Worship
In theory God is the center of our worship but on an individual level it is not always the case. We realize we are singing songs to God but sometimes we push God aside and place ourselves in the center of it all. That sounds harsh but it happens. It happens when we get more […]
The Intersection of Worship and Real Life
I have been reflecting on the connection between worship and real life and I was thinking about two passages in particular. In both of these passages of scripture there is a real event that God works through that results in people singing God’s praises. The first is in Exodus 15, the Song of the Sea. […]
Tim Smith on Understanding Copyright in Worship
Just wanted to make anyone who needed this information aware of it. It is important that we know the laws and abide by them in our worship service – Thank God Jesus Didn’t Copyright the Gospel. This post lays out some of the laws and explains what CCLI is all about. If any of you […]