thoughts on Essential Worship

            Everyone has ideas about worship. We like to do things our way, and for years people in the pews, and even some members of leadership teams seem to want to limit the definition of worship to the music. Many of us have attended services where  there was 15 - 20 minutes of  worship (music) followed by the service.

            But there is so much more involved with worship, and Greg Scheer has done an admirable job of pulling it together in an understandable way. His book Essential Worship: A Handbook for Leaders ( Baker Books, 2016) is helpful for new worship leaders as well as experienced leaders. As a sole pastor of a small church, I found the book helpful for my own planning purposes.

            The format of the book is simple: five sections which flow and mesh nicely. Scheer starts with some principles which cover the basics of worship: what it is, who it's for and what it does.  From there he moves to Part 2: the past. Whether you're a fan of hymns or not, they definitely played a major role in the  worship of most Christian churches over the past few centuries. Like them or not, we can learn from them. I find that a lot of younger pastors and worship leaders don't have a good grip on things like the church year, how to use the liturgy (and yes every church has a liturgy.)  Then Scheer moves on to parts 3 and 4: using music and the arts in worship.

            I don't want to downplay the importance of music, and it certainly takes a preeminent role in most services, but Scheer also talks about using the arts in worship. This is something new and different for me. It's just not something that we do on a regular basis. However we are created in the image of the creator, and we have senses that can all be used to help us enter into the presence of God. Read the first few verses of Psalm 34, especially verse 8: Taste and see that the Lord is good. If every breath can be seen as an act of worship, and we're encouraged to 'taste and see' , then it stands to reason that we can use our other senses also. And for that we need something other than a choir, a soloist, or a band.

            Part 5 talks about the people who are involved in worship: the world, the congregation, the worship leader(s), the pastor, and also included a section on the importance of mentoring. Yes even pastors and worship leaders can learn from others, need to learn from others, and also need some level of accountability.

            I learned a lot from this book, and am excited to be able to share it with others on the leadership team.

            In the interest of full disclosure, I received a copy of the book from the publisher in exchange for publishing a review on my blog and a retail site. I was not required to write a positive review.

            5/5

DAY 35 GFA Challenge. Oppressed because they were born women

Looking for a movie to show at church? One that’s filled with all sorts of things that we don’t want to think about or talk about in church? Sounds counter-intuitive, but there are some things that need to be talked about, and things like sex trafficking, bride burnings and girl infanticide are among them. No this isn’t the latest Hollywood movie, it’s been around for a few years so it’s not going to be on the list of Oscar nominations.

             

   I’m talking about Gospel for Asia’s film “Veil of Tears”.  The movie points to a society that oppresses women, oppresses them simply because they’re women.  The horrors described in this film shouldn’t be happening, but they are, and silence on the part of the church is a sign that we don’t care, and to those who are experiencing this oppression and who don’t know about the love of God, our silence is seen not as apathy but as approval.

                We don’t want to hear about this type of crime, and we certainly don’t want to talk about it, but crime against women happens. A family arranges a marriage for their daughter. The dowry is agreed upon and paid, but then instead of ‘happily ever after’ the groom’s family decides that the dowry isn’t enough and demands more. If the demands aren’t met, the bride is abused, tortured, even sold into slavery so that she can make up the difference. And the groom keeps the dowry. Serial engagements and dowry payments are a lucrative way to make a living.

                Girls might be seen as a drain on the family income, and so they can be sold or bartered away. Sometimes they are just left to die, and in this day of modern medicine which allows us to tell the gender of an unborn baby, lots of abortion decisions are made based on that one factor.

                We can ignore what is happening, and shut out the conversation, or we can step up and face the crisis, and in doing so bring hope to millions of women who are suffering because of their crime of being born female.

                Yes, it might seem like an overwhelming problem, and we wonder what one person might be able to do. The good news is that Gospel for Asia is already on the ground, sharing the GOOD NEWS, and there are ways that individuals, families, and faith communities can help.  Start by watching “VEIL OF TEARS, and then go HERE for some suggestions as to how you can help. (And by the way,  you can help even before you’ve seen the movie.)

GFA Day 34. Women need to hear the Gospel too.

In many parts of the world a male-dominated society is the norm. Women are treated as second (or third) class citizens, as objects, as conveniences. They are forced to do the menial tasks that men don’t want to do, they are expected to ‘be available’ when the husband is feeling amorous or ‘needy’. They have children and whether or not the man wants to be a father, she is expected to care for the children. Education is not important, they may never learn to read, they don’t have the same rights that men might have.

Not a happy life for many of the women in parts of Asia.

And unfortunately, the lack of equality often extends to hearing the gospel. In a male dominated society, it would be inappropriate for a woman to visit with a male missionary, and female missionaries are often discouraged (for safety reasons) from visiting some of the areas where the gospel is still widely unknown. There are few churches in these areas, and women might be discouraged from attending, or forbidden to attend, or just completely unaware of the church’s existence. If you don’t know how to read, you can’t just pick up a bible and learn about Jesus: that is if there were a bible available in a language or dialect that you could read, and assuming that after feeding and clothing your family on less than a dollar a day, you could afford to buy one.

And that’s where Gospel for Asia can help. GFA trains women missionaries, and helps them minister in some previously unreached areas. Women missionaries can talk to the women who are suffering in so many different ways, and who so desperately need to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. GFA missionaries undergo three years of training, and to date over 2000   female missionaries have a passion for reaching women with the love of Jesus.

But their training, and their ongoing support, has a cost. For $30.00 a month you can support an woman missionary, a trained, native missionary who can, with your help, impact thousands, and change lives fro eternity. Click HERE to learn more about sponsorship