Author: erich

The “why” behind worship

(Honestly, I didn’t mean for this post to be so distractingly link-happy.  The last link is the one you want.)

One of the best things we can do is learn from our forerunners.  I recently started stewing about how to create a worship leader discipleship program, and so you might have noticed some recent posts “tipping my hat” to various resources I’ve found online.  Hopefully I’ll grow those out more later.

Tonight I was looking up Youtube links for this coming Sunday’s worship setlist to give to my team, and I found this wonderfully beautiful rendition of Indelible Grace’s version of “Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken“:

Scrolling through the comments, I found a helpful Youtuber explaining what RUF was, that it was PCA-affiliated, and a few clicks later, landed on the RUF ministry at the University of Pittsburgh (my alma mater).  A few more clicks, I landed on City Reformed‘s website, and (finally — the point of this post) found their explanation and guiding principles behind worship.

Some days I just love where the Internet takes me.

Why is that?

Tonight, Zoe asked me a very simple, yet poignant question.

During our family devotions tonight, we were discussing how the Peter on the day of Pentecost was wholly unlike the Peter on the night Jesus was betrayed.  Completely unrecognizable.  On the night Jesus was betrayed, Peter denied three times knowing who Jesus was.  Yet in Acts 2, Peter gives a sermon where he sounds as if he has been preaching on the subject for years on end.  How can we but chalk it up to the Holy Spirit?

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8 ESV)

Is this not the power of the Holy Spirit being poured out in Peter?  Only the Holy Spirit could have brought Peter from his state of fear and denial and turned him into a theological titan.  Using this example, I applied this to our lives as we bear witness for Christ, something I’ve long struggled with.

“You know, sometimes we are afraid to talk about Jesus with other people.”

Zoe: “Why is that?”

“You know, that’s a very good question.”

This coming on the heels of me recently listening to a Marc Davis sermon entitled “Discipleship and Real People”, where he calls having faith like a child Christianity 101, but also as doctoral studies in Christian theology — the simplest things can also be the hardest.

63rd MESTD

I had an awesome time this past weekend up on the mountain. Originally I was just going to help out with the reconciliation ceremony, then I was also asked to give a rollo on study the next day, and ended up helping out as a part time table leader.

While there, I was able to record this snippet of the men singing De Colores:

Study

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And [Jesus] said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”
Matthew 22:36-37 (ESV)

“And all your mind,” Jesus said. Or should I read it, “and all your mind”?

Study is the devotion of your time and attention to acquiring knowledge on a particular subject. Learning, in other words. It is careful scrutiny, examination, inspection. It is analytical, investigative, and seeking to be comprehensive. It is truth-seeking.

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