Glory Hallelujah

The strum of the guitar filled this crowded little room. We had squeezed the chairs into this makeshift office that was under construction to listen to this young guy play and sing and see if he would be a good fit as a worship leader for this new church we were starting. I don’t remember what he sang, I only remember a little about the conversation, but what I do remember was an overwhelming sense that this Mark guy was the one God had chosen for this new congregation.

In the middle of the night in a dark community building in Sneedville, Tennessee, I held my head in my hands softly weeping as music poured through my earphones. “I’m coming back to the heart of worship / It’s all about You, it’s all about You, Jesus.” This mission trip to this rural area provided an opportunity for me to pause and reflect on the ways God had been moving me over the last year or so. Our little church was growing, people’s lives were changed and I could see my own relationship with God transforming. And here, humbled before God in this quiet, private space, I realized for the first time that worship isn’t an adjective that describes a church service.

“I just have to tell you that I really feel like I have been learning how to worship,” I told Mark one Sunday after I returned home. “Really,” he said. “When did you feel like you started learning that?”

“Oh, several months ago; around the beginning of the year, I guess.”

“Well, that’s interesting. That’s about the time I felt like I was really learning how to lead in worship.”

That’s the beauty of the Body of Christ. As we use the gifts He has given, we build up one another in such a way that we all fix our eyes more firmly on our God. And when we see Him more clearly, we can’t help but worship.

See, worship is not somewhere we go. It is something we do. And we will worship whatever object grabs our attention. We humans are so fickle in our worship. Webster’s defines it as “extravagant respect or admiration for or devotion to an object of esteem.” And incidentally, “worship” is currently in the top 20% of lookups on Merriam-Webster.com. We want to know what worship really is and what deserves our “extravagant respect.” I think in those early days of beginning to worship, I followed Mark’s gaze. I wanted to see what he saw. And when I focused my heart’s eyes on God I sang those words with a new conviction and reverence that I hadn’t grasped before.

Richard Foster says “singing is meant to move us into praise….If singing can occur in a concentrated manner it serves to focus us. We become centered. Our fragmented minds and spirits flow into a unified whole. We become poised toward God.” Music is powerful. It is meant to move us. I want to be moved toward the “Object of esteem” that is worthy of my full devotion. It takes intentionality to mean what I sing, though, right? Worship is not at 11:15 a.m. on a Sunday. An opportunity to worship is at 11:15. I want to take advantage of every opportunity. Certainly the more I pay attention to the words and their meaning, the deeper I am drawn into the Throne Room and I am moved. 

So it’s no surprise that it is Mark’s new music that is pointing me again to this God that I love. Words that become prayers. Somehow others’ words can be used to set my heart straight and can even express what my soul so desires to say to God. And sometimes the words are beyond what I feel or experience and so as I sing my prayer becomes “God, help me to believe this! Give me the desire to love You like this!” It has long been practiced to recite the prayers of others as a means of solidifying your own faith. And that’s how this new music moves me. My prayer with all of our brothers and sisters through time /[who sang] of the blood of the same sacrifice is that we worship in spirit and truth. That the songs we sing don’t rest in our enjoyment, but are offered to God as worship. This is our song / we lift it to You / singing Glory Hallelujah!