Brian's Blog

I really do intend to update this blog… really!

bmour — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 17:52:55 +0000

And you all know what they say about good intentions? something about they pave a road to h…

But, there is a lot of thoughts that have been percolating inside my head and I need a space to get them out. I need to create some content rather than just consume it… and besides, the whole Angry Birds is starting to get boring.

So I promise, this time for real, I’ll be back soon and often.

-B

What does worship say? What says worship?

bmour — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:25:07 +0000

How can we reconcile the reality that all of life is worship and the often verbal nature of worship demonstrated throughout the Bible?

The Bible is often exhorting us towards using our mouths to worship God. Throughout the scripture we are encouraged to speak, sing and shout in worship and praise. There is something about declaring God’s reality aside from our felt reality is a critical aspect of adjusting our attitudes to the truth of God. David wrights of this in Psalms 103

¹ Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.

² Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits!

He then goes on to recount many of the promises, attributes, and character of God. David as a young man was anointed to be king and then spent years as a fugitive living in caves and running for his life. He had real legitimate reasons for bitterness towards God. Yet he maintained focus on God rather than on his surroundings. He assigned all of his value to God’s promise and not to present comforts, wealth, family, friends, career, nation, possessions. This wasn’t his natural response, but something we see took work and effort to consistently remind his soul that God was worthy.

We too need to remind ourselves to worship, engaging our mouth to declare God’s reality is one way we do that. Speaking the truth of God is like holding up a straight edge to help us recognize his presence with us and adjust our attitudes and actions to God’s reality rather than our present circumstances.

So we come to ask what kinds of words do we say? Below are some thoughts and examples of words that worship.

SPEAK! SING! AND SHOUT! What? :

Praise: Speaking about what/how God IS and DOES

“Great and mighty is He. Clothed in glory, arrayed in splendor, great and mighty is He!”

“You are, you are the author of salvation, we are the children of your heart”

Adoration: Expressing LOVE, DESIRE, and AFFECTION for God

“I love You, I love You, I love You, and my heart will follow only after You.”

“I love You Lord, and I lift my voice to worship you oh my soul rejoice”

“I want to stand before the King… I want to hold the hand that holds the world”

Honor: Giving RESPECT, ESTEEM, GLORY, and RECOGNITION

“Worthy oh worthy are You Lord, worthy to be thanked and praised and worshiped and adored”

“We cry Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lamb”

What I am mulling over in my mind…

bmour — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 20:27:48 +0000

Can worship be defined as: “Giving value to God by becoming aware of his presence and aligning our attitudes and actions to reflect his values“ ?

How does the arrangement of our gathering space effect the effect our ability to join into worship as defined above?

How does a created thing bring glory to its creator?

How is forgiving others actually an act of worship?

Examples of Psalmic Worship

Worship with our Voices:

Speak! Sing! Shout!

Worship with our Hands:

Lift! Play! Clap!

Worship with our Bodies:

Stand! Bow! Dance!

More to come soon…

Coffee Thoughts on Worship

bmour — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:43:47 +0000

“Worship” is literally to give ‘worth’ to something, a weighting or ranking of something as having value, or greater value than something else. People do this all the time, with every single action. As I sit here in a Forza coffee shop(which is worthy of the travel from my home) sipping a vanilla latte (very much worth the $4.70) typing out these thoughts (worth more than surfing facebook for the latest social news) I have made several judgments of what is a valuable way to spend my time, money, and attention.

All of life is an exercise in worship, and yet there is something mysterious that happens when we join with the others singing songs of and to our God. There is an intimacy and a closeness, at times physically apparent of the presence of God almighty. You will often hear people speaking of their encounters with the presence of God during these communal gatherings. To understand it I believe we must begin to look at these encounters with fresh eyes, asking “what is happening and How can we join in?”

For thousands of years the people of God have been gathering together singing. The bible records many songs from authors as diverse as Moses, King David, and Mary the mother of Jesus. When significant things happened, whether in celebration or lament, the people of God were moved to sing. The Book of Psalms records many of the songs King David and others wrote to be sung in the temple courts. These songs weren’t merely to entertain but through praise, adoration, and honor, guide us in and encounter with the living God.

People are self-centric beings. We think in terms of how things relate to us, so it is no surprise that we often describe our encounters with God as HIM coming to US. The Apostle Paul in his second letter to the Corinthian church writes of how God has “put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit.” The Bible is filled with God’s promises to never leave nor forsake us. The bottom line is that God was never absent that his presence needed to”come.” As Jacob said after an encounter with God in the middle of nowhere “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” It wasn’t an issue of enticing God to come to be with him, it was about His awareness of the presence of God and how that shapes our life.

This is important because it frames what happens in our corporate gatherings. We are not in an exchange relationship where we give God praise so that we get something back. Songs of praise are more than just sucking up to a God who is bigger than you are so that you can get what you want. Our goal in our worship gatherings must be to bring an awareness of the presence of God in our midst, and to align our attitudes and actions to reflect God’s great worth.