All throughout my Christian life, praise and worship have played a central role in my spiritual journey.
I remember the times when God spoke to me in various ways through the times of lifting up praises to Him. There were times of tears as I reflected on songs that talked about God’s love and forgiveness. There were times of commitment as I embrace a chorus that talked about surrender. Every single song and every single worship experience brought me close to God’s heart.
For reason, this week I was thinking about our times of worship in our churches in Ann Arbor and in Chicago. It is so easy to go through the motions and even having things so structured that we miss the Holy Spirit all together.
In the AMI churches, we want to be more prophetic in our worship. I know that is a loaded term, but if we can be more connected to what the Spirit is saying, I am confident that we will be able to experience God in a fresh way – and we definitely need the breath of God blow through our churches.
What would happen if we went beyond the song selections and the time constraints and just listened to the voice of God? What song would He want us to sing to Him? What things would He want to speak to us about? What kind of sacrifices of praise would we be able to give to Him? What direction would He want us to go in?
Worship is not just a sing-a-long or some time to kill before the message. But it is a transformative space that we create in order to allow the King of Kings to come and make his dwelling amongst us (Ps 22:3). Whenever God touches down in a place, crazy things happen. Maybe we have gotten too comfortable and “used” to things that we are no longer expecting anything from God.
Are we expecting? Are we listening? Are we responding?
“All nations will come and worship before you” (Rev 15:4)
Sometimes it just takes one worshipper to be the catalyst for inviting God’s Presence in a place