Worship was "Insane"

Those were the words (Worship was INSANE) my daughter, Catherine, used to describe what it was like to be part of the intense experiences at Crossings Camp at J-Creek (Jonathan Creek) just a couple of weeks ago.

 

Her sister, Emily, was equally impressed by the height of the worship experiences at CentriKid camp at Georgetown College.

 

As a worship pastor/dad, you can imagine my intrigue.

 

So I inquired.

 

It seems there were two standards by which my own beautiful daughters measured the “quality” of worship while away at camp: tears and engagement.

 

Not bad, really.

 

But—as with the perspective of sweetly innocent children—incomplete.

 

I  am convinced that if more tears were shed and if people were more engaged in their weekly encounter with God, churches would be being transformed and doing transformation more than we are.

 

But it also give us the chance to remember why we gather for worship in the first place. I think there are no fewer (but many more) than three purposes for our worship:

 

1.       To glorify God. If we have an emotional or intellectual experience with God-stuff, but our only focus is “us” then we have failed in our attempt to worship Biblically.

2.       To transform the Bride of Christ. If we are convinced we have had an emotional or intellectual encounter with God but leave unchanged, we have deceived ourselves. We are to be changed when we experience God… and that transformation can look very different—from building up to tearing down, from binding up to loosing, from gaining hope to gaining faith, from broken to empowered.

3.       To testify to those not yet in the Kindgom. When we glorify God and tell the truth about Him; when we encourage one another and tell the truth about us; then this third element will be present.

I'm so very glad our 3rd-12th graders went away, encountered God in powerful and emotional ways (which were for many of them a catalyst for change), and have returned more like Jesus than when they left. I’m even more excited that 7 who left “far from God” have returned to “walk with God.”

Wow.

 

I wonder, will we learn from them?

 0 Comments posted by: Rod Ellis on July 17th, 2008