Worship as a Lifestyle

Dear Worshipers,

As we start another year of ministry let us take a couple of weeks to remind ourselves what it is that we are trying to accomplish through this ministry of worship that we share. Allow me to do that by unpacking the vision statement for our Music and Worship Ministries a section at a time. This is what you are committing to in becoming a member of this team. Here is the statement:

Our Worship Ministries exist to nurture worship as a lifestyle
characterized by sincere responses to God’s self-revelations.

I will divide it into three workable sections that will allow us to finish this examination before the end of the month.

Worship in its’ simplest form means to ascribe worth to something. In our context, we understand that we are to ascribe worth to Jesus Christ. Our worship ministries exist to nurture or cultivate that. Not to make music. Not to produce musicals. Certainly not to entertain. We want to do whatever we can to help facilitate the growth of true worship in the lives of the people of our church. We want to foster worship as a lifestyle.

While there are any number of passages that teach this principle, allow me to take you to one that I pray will help you see it. In Ecclesiastes 12:13 a very wise man boiled down his years of research and striving for contentment into this short but powerful phrase, “Fear God and keep his commandments.”

ChristianAnswers.com defines the first part of this summation as follows:

The fear of the Lord is, in the Old Testament, used as a designation of true piety (Prov. 1:7; Job 28:28; Ps. 19:9). It is a fear conjoined with love and hope, and is therefore not a slavish dread, but rather filial reverence. (Compare Deut. 32:6; Hos. 11:1; Isa. 1:2; 63:16; 64:8.)

At the end of the definition we see a word that is more commonly used as we consider our approach to God, that is reverence. But more so than our approach, we should remember that we have been called to live “IN CHRIST”. We must abide in Him (John 15). So clearly, mingled with love and hope we are to live with a fear of the Lord that informs every word, thought and deed.

Out of that fear [love and hope] we keep His commandments. This is a little more obvious to us. We should do everything God has commanded us to do, and nothing He has commanded us not to do. This instructs the way we live, our lifestyle, and if we obey will allow us to worship God with our entire lives. We live to make much of God, our Worship Ministries should aid that process.

I want to ask you to memorize our Vision Statement. Do it in little bite-sized sections so that over the next three weeks you will have it. Then as God brings it to mind, pray for the worship life of our church that it will transcend Sunday morning and truly become a through-the-week event.

Assignment for the week: Memorize: “Our Worship Ministries exist to nurture worship as a lifestyle …”

In Christ,

Pastor Scott