General Session #5:
After racing upstairs from Tony Campolo's seminar, I walked in on the puppet show...
Taylor Mason: It's fun to watch puppets... but I actually think it's funnier to watch people who think it's fun to watch puppets. Taylor had some great interaction with the people and even brought up a few volunteers (including some stooge that I'd bet was a set-up - because everyone knows youth workers aren't weird like that).
Jeff Johnson: I don't know if the goal of Jeff's neo-classical/Celtic music is to relax you to sleep, but for the second year in a row I found myself on the verge of snoozing after listening to him. And I mean this in a good way - it's like the peace of God invades the noise of your life and you just find yourself undistracted in a way that makes sense. It wasn't until one of his last songs that I felt engaged in any particular direction. In this case, it was a song based on a prayer of Francis of Assisi, followed by the Doxology.- Ted & Lee: Another round of teaching via drama... great stuff. This sketch focused on the promise given to Abram that God would bless him and his offspring to be as numerous as the stars in the sky.
Louie Giglio: If you haven't hear Louie speak before, well... you're missing out. This was one talk that I was ready for... even though my body had fallen asleep. Thankfully, Louie had us stand up and sit down right at the start just to get the blood flowing. Hmm... a nice tip there for any speakers who tend to follow Celtic worship. Louie's message focused on WORSHIP (what else?) with a cool spin on it by following the evolution of the different worship styles of the past century. - Leadership can be taken away from us through others. But what can't be taken away is a decision to live... to really LIVE through God. The question isn't if you're going to lead... the question is if you're going to live.
- "For I am already being poured out like a drink offering..." Paul had the privilege of recognizing the end and found joy nonetheless.
- The evolution of twenty-century worship:
- Hymn worship became Chorus worship: This was considered a wild concept when it first came on the scene.
- Chorus worship became Blended worship: A blended service is one where no one is happy.
- Blended worship became Contemporary worship: People starting looking for a new song to sing to God.
- Contemporary worship became Cutting-edge worship: Delirious came on the scene.
- Cutting-edge worship became Modern worship: The modern worship movement probably "knocked God off the throne," eh? We probably gave God a big "wow" with out creativity, huh? Where do we think we got the songs? Perhaps the reality is that they just got tired of singing Forever in heaven and gave it to us.
- Modern worship became Post-modern worship: Whatever that means.
- Post-modern worship became Ancient-future worship: We rediscovered our hymns again.
- Ancient-future worship became Neo-classical worship
- Neo-classical worship became Emerging worship: "Which I guess means that if we wait just a little bit longer... we're going to have WORSHIP! I hope I live long enough for that... because I hear worship is 'emerging'."
- Is it possible that we have outsmarted ourselves and somewhere in the conversation we have lost the simplicity of what worship is all about?
- Worship is "me in His hands and my life in His plans." It's not something we consume... it's something that consumes us.
- People who sit around and muse about their likes and dislikes of church services are spending/wasting their time on beautifying an insider's club instead of fighting the war for lost people outside the building.
- Consumer worship vs. Consume-Me Worship:
- Consumer: What you get - Comsume-me: What you give
- Consumer: What you buy - Consume-me: You have been bought
- Consumer: Downloading - Consume-me: Bowing down
- Consumer: Style - Consume-me: Surrender
- Consumer: Enjoyable - Consume-me: Costly
- Consumer: My preferences - Consume-me: Concern about what God requires
- Consumer: Feel good - Consume-me: Hurts good
- Consumer: We use up the songs - Consume-me: God uses up the singer
- Consumer: My choice - Consume-me: His will
- Consumer: Can't get enough - Consume-me: Always want to give more
- Consumer: About trends - Consume-me: About eternity
- Consumer: Our happiness - Consume-me: Desire to bring happiness to God
- Consumer: About me - Consume-me: Me about God
- We must never forget that it's an amazingly terrifying thing to be in the hands of God. And what we sign up for is a scary thing, too, to say "Whatever you want, Lord."
- If you want to make God laugh tell Him your plans.
- (Then Louie told the "Movie" story... I won't spoil it - but it was amazing)
- "And we will see our joys and sorrows working for Him in massive, massive chorus of glory. And that's the moment where you want to have been consumed and not have lived your whole life as a consumer. Because the One standing in our midst - Lamb slain, from before the foundation of the world, life poured out to death... for you."
- Closing Prayer: "Jesus, thank You. Simplify... in our hearts today. We do want to be relevant people, but more than anything I think every one of us in this building wants to live. And I'm just asking You, Holy Spirit, please... would you settle on our hearts this morning... to the end that we know that no one - no circumstance - can keep us from putting our lives in Your hands. Nobody can stop us from that. And NOTHING can keep You from using our lives in Your plans. Thank You, Jesus."
Chris Tomlin: Chris is another one of my favorite lead worshippers and he literally piggy-backed off of Louie's talk to lead us another step into God. Chris started picking away in a quiet version of "The Heart Of Worship," with the full band coming in later with "Here I Am To Worship." Since this was our last session (meaning the guys and I had to leave before the official convention was over) we soaked it up for all it was worth.
10 comments:
Chris is one of my favorites. I love playing his music for worship.
Im sure you have read this but Matt Redman has a book called "The Unquenchable Worshipper" that relates so much to your post. I am a big fan of worship NOT being about music at all... Worship is a connection to the Holy Spirit
Awesome, Caroline! Steve - Matt Redman was actually there for the last session of the conference... he was with Louie and Chris in the back of the stage and just came on during the worship set and started singing back-up to Chris.
At least, that's what I hear... I wasn't there. :)
Somehow you stumbled on to my blog just long enough to drop a "smirking" post. So I decided to check you out and well, I like what I've seen. Let me get your thoughts on something.
I love to hear Tomlin and Redman do their thing, and our church does their tunes on a weekly basis. After reading Pagitt and experiencing a "porch-like" community for myself, I've wondered if increasing attention should be paid to the notion that each body should strive to create their own worship as a reflection of their community. The guys at our church have done a couple tunes in five years and I tell you that the roof blows off nearly every time that our body uses them as praise.
Today at a school function, we had a leader do a song from his community that was unknown to 99% of those in the room, but it was the product of his local church. Our students (generally disinterested in any form of worship) immediately engaged and had perhaps the most intimite time of gathering togehter before God in recent memory.
I wonder what your thoughts might be?
This was probably my favorite of your posts about NYWC! I think I could worship and/or discuss and learn about worship for hours! I am totally fascinated by the whole concept of worship, and the variety of ways God spontaneously touches a group of people as He inhabits their praises--convicting, redeeming, guiding, healing. That's one of the things I most look forward to in heaven--praising and worshiping for all eterenity without any time constraints or physical limitations.
Question for evereyone: What are some good books on praise and worship that people on here would recommend?
Honus - I agree that worship is best for a local body when it is born out of the words of praise and questions of longing that they are dealing with. Whether these are anthems of worship or silly songs for junior high kids, there's something about writing your own stuff for your people. However, I don't think a church should go in that direction so much that they lose touch with other songs that they may hear on the radio. Remember - for most people they will only hear your worship songs once a week (at a service) - how will you help get songs into their soul otherwise? You could always make a CD, but I like the idea of doing Tomlin/Redman/Crowder covers as well.
Marcia - a great book is on my "may i recommend?" post - it's written by Urbana and a great practical book for worship teams of any level. It's called "Worship Team Handbook." On the subject of worship in general, I'd go with Louie Giglio's "Air I Breathe" and "I Am Not But I Know I Am." Also, Matt Redman has a book out based on the song "Blessed Be Your Name" (and I think it's the same title).
"Which I guess means that if we wait just a little bit longer... we're going to have WORSHIP! I hope I live long enough for that... because I hear worship is 'emerging'."
Don't know if this is you speaking or a quote from the speaker, but this is GREAT!!!! We were recently discussing this on a message board I frequent and it seems to me there is a ridiculous amount of confusion as to what "worship" really is. Why do we have to make this so hard?
I like this summary
Yep - that's a quote straight from Louie!
Just getting around to reading this one. Puppets. Sigh. There's got to be something theologically wrong about putting your hand there and then talking.
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