Worship is…Spirit-Empowered

Dear Worshippers,

We continue our journey through the core values of our worship this week with the third value. As I keep saying, you may be surprised that none of the things the Elders are considering as core values of our worship are necessarily music-oriented. Actually none of them deal with elements at all, but rather with the essentials of worship. They are more the why than the what of worship, if you will.

Last week I mentioned that one of the early cries of The Christian and Missionary Alliance was, “Jesus Only!” While we continue to be true to that, our new brand “Living the Call Together” communicates that commitment to this generation. It is fleshed out in four concise phrases: Ordinary people. Empowered by an extraordinary God. Multiplying communities of Christ. Around the World. It starts with the call of the Father, delivered by the Son and empowered by the Spirit. Let there be no mistaking, as much as we desire our worship to be Word centered and Christ exalting, we also desire for it to be Spirit-empowered. There are any number of Scriptures that speak to this value, here are the ones we are recommending for inclusive in the philosophical document:

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Acts 1:8

My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on man’s wisdom, but on God’s power. I Corinthians 2:4-5

God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth. John 4:24

As individual believers we have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit that we might be witnesses of the glory of Jesus Christ. Far too often, we do not yield to the Spirit’s work in our lives, and so we do not enjoy the benefits He offers. How often even on our witness do we try to use “wise and persuasive words” in the absence of the Spirit’s power.

If our lives are made up of one expression of worship after another, forming a sequence of events that when combined make one great act of worship, then we must trust the Spirit’s power to enable these expressions. Our witness and our worship are intrinsically connected as we see in these verses, so let us surrender to the Spirit everyday, and certainly on the day when we come together.

If you have ever heard me pray before corporate worship, you likely have heard me ask the Spirit to have his way in us, even if that means a radical change in our plans. Even if we have to set our agendas aside entirely to experience the power of the Spirit, would that not be preferable to the alternative, our agenda without Him? I believe so.

May our individual lives of worship be Spirit-empowered, so that when we join together in our corporate worship it will be Spirit-empowered as well.

In Christ,

Pastor Scott