Posts Tagged "worship"

Sometimes Jesus can be such a downer. In Mark 13:1-2, the disciples comment on the glory and beauty of the temple, and rather than join them in admiring the structure and stones, He replies, "Do you see these great buildings?  There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down." Indeed, the word of Jesus was fulfilled in 70 A.D. when the temple was destroyed by the Roman empire, whose soldiers actually did tear apart one stone from the other in order to extract for Rome's treasuries as much as possible of the building's ornamental gold.

Think with me for a moment… Love songs tell of the glory of the loved and the response of the lover. They highlight the value of the person being loved and the commitment and actions of the one who’s offering their love in return. In a way, then, “worship songs” are like love songs to Jesus, and “love songs”… Are like “worship songs” to people.

A.W. Tozer from his book THE PURSUIT OF GOD Within the fold of conservative Christianity there are increasing numbers of persons whose religious lives are marked by a growing hunger after God Himself.  Yet I wonder if there was ever a time when true spiritual worship was at lower ebb. But this hunger must be recognized by our religious leaders.  Current evangelicalism has laid the altar and divided the sacrifice into parts, but now seems satisfied to count the stones and rearrange the pieces with never a care that there is not a sign of fire upon the top of Carmel (The mountain of Elijah, 1 Kings 18:38). In the midst of this great chill there are some who will not be content with shallow logic.  They will turn away with tears and pray, “O God, show me Thy...

I’m reading the story of Joseph this week and it strikes me how his life was a continuous cycle of ups and downs, ups and downs, ups and downs. One minute he’s the favored son, the next an exiled slave in a faraway land. He’s up with Potiphar, then down in jail, favored in prison, then forgotten. Sure, God works it all out in the end but it was quite a rocky road to get there. Sound familiar? Every week, those of us who serve in worship gatherings have the privilege of ministering to people in all sorts of circumstances. Some are on top of the world, others feel crushed underneath. Some feel loved and accepted, others feel worthless and ignored.  The truth is, all of us come through the doors with distractions and wounds, clutter in our...

NOTE: This post is from an e-mail I sent out to our Praise Team, to help them get used to additional features of Planning Center Online. For those of you interested, here is a little “quick-start guide” to the features of Planning Center Online that our team is using more frequently, so that you can find your way around more easily. LOG-IN SCREEN At http://planningcenteronline.com, you can log in with your e-mail address and password. As referenced in the previous post, once you’re logged in you can click your name in the far upper-right of the screen to go to your personal settings screen. There you can change your password to whatever you want, if you’d like.  I highly recommend activating text messaging for your mobile phone if you...