“I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire.
He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along.
He has given me a

- Psalm 40:1-3

This is the miracle of salvation! I don’t deserve it…but He reached in and picked me up!  He rescued me!

That’s the reason for the new song!

I can hear the music because of my experience with Him.

Everyone can’t hear the music because they have no experience with Him.

But many will…and they will put their trust in the Lord!

Then they can hear the music too!

But not until then.

It’s a unique form of worship known as the lament.

The most common examples of this particular mode of worship is found in the Psalms.  Psalm 13 is a great example of David worshiping in lament before the Lord.

In the first 4 verses of this Psalm, David cried out to God and basically asked “Where are you God? And why are you letting all this nonsense go on in my life?“

Have you ever done that?  Do you ever feel like crying out to God in anguish because you don’t see Him in your present circumstance?

David knew that God didn’t need His pretense.  The Father already knew the pains of the son.  David knew God required his honesty not some cheap suck up…or even worse – hiding from what surrounded him.  David got real when he questioned what was going on around him.

We can relate.  In the midst of a particularly difficult situation, we can identify with what David was feeling here.  We can even manage to scrape together the occasional whimper toward God.

The difference is in what happens next.  David turns it from whining to worship in verses 5-6.  For 4 verses he bares his soul and questions the whereabouts of God, but then David turns on a dime and demonstrates the beauty of the lament.

“But I trust in your unfailing love. I will rejoice because you have rescued me.
I will sing to the Lord because he is good to me.”

David trusts God because he’s been there before!  He has seen  what God can do.  Sure, maybe he doesn’t understand what’s going on right now, but he knows what his Daddy’s capable of!  He watched while the God of the Universe showed off before and he offers Him the only conceivable offering worthy of the character of God…WORSHIP!

Why not give that a try?  The next time your circumstances cause your heart to ache before the Lord, try this:

1. Bare your soul.
2. Be honest.
3. Worship the Lord for who He is!

I hope you will find the lament to be a vital addition to your private worship!

Michael Guglielmucci singing Healer

I just read this new article (includes video) early this morning and I immediately had a couple of thoughts. In summary, let me give you the basic details:

Hillsong released the song Healer on their latest album. At a Hillsong service, Michael Guglielmucci performed the song while wearing an oxygen tank. He said the song was inspired after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. As it turns out, he was never diagnosed with cancer. It may be that his own family was not aware of the deception.

This song has been used to draw many people to Jesus in spite of the circumstances or motives that led to its writing. In fact, a couple of months ago, I sent an email to our entire staff at WAC after I saw the live performance. It is incredibly moving.

I was reminded as I learned the news of this story that God can be glorified through less than glorious circumstances. Truth can be communicated even through people who are untruthful.

Phil 1:18 says “But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.”

TAKEAWAY: The motives of an individual do not take away from the Truth about a Sovereign God! He really is THE HEALER – the healer of sickness, disease, brokenness, hatred, unforgiveness, jealousy, debt, past failures, and ultimately death itself!

** Pray for Michael Guglielmucci and his family during this difficult time. It is my understanding he is undergoing counseling for this situation and he could certainly use the support of The Church as he seeks ”Healing” in this situation.

Last night, Christy Nockels and her husband Nathan (Watermark) led worship. That chick has some pipes! Steven Furtick delivered the Word last night and God challenged me in one of those in your face kind of ways.  I have only felt God stir my heart like that one other time…that was the night He called me to preach.

It was unreal!  They are talking in the conference now and looking at me funny because I am blogging.  I better go before they confiscate my laptop…

Aubrey Spears spoke for the first session.  This is one of the smartest guys I have ever heard in person!  Seriously, his vocabulary is Brobdingnagian and prodigious I had to come back and look some things up!

He spoke about art & imagination.  He highlighted the creative power of God and the need for the church, and specifically the worship pastors, to return to the craft of producing high quality art that reflects a Christian worldview.

Incredible stuff.  More later.  Here’s a couple of shots from worship tonight:

I am actually going to be using Twitter to post live updates while we are here.  You should be able to see the last few entries on the right side of the blog.  I just started messing with Twitter so be sure when you click on the link that you then “follow” me.

Looking forward to a great time!

We had 544 566 (edit) people at Washington Avenue’s services yesterday and were hoping to see 400! We saw people accept Christ and experienced worship in a tangible way. Here is Chuck’s post about the services. I am convinced of one thing for certain from yesterday – sometimes my view of God is simply too small! Below are a few of the things I am celebrating from the weekend:

• A portable church in Canton, GA (Revolution Church) had 1400 in attendance and saw 20 salvations! That was on top of a ridiculous egg drop on Saturday that around 17,000 people showed up for! Here’s Gary’s post.
• Our friends at NewSpring in Anderson, SC saw more than 12,000 people come through and over 120 people meet Jesus! Perry blogged about it here.
• Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC (who are only two years old by the way) had more than 4800 at their services and…are you ready for this…500 people met Jesus!!! That is INSANE! Steven’s post about it is here.

Like I said, sometimes my expectations of the God of this universe are just too wimpy. God is at work all around and I am so pumped up to hear and read the stories of all the great things God is doing!

Yesterday, our team did and incredibly powerful creative movement during worship. Seriously, it was one of the most moving things I have ever experienced in a worship service. We saw this done by the team at Hillvue Church in Bowling Green, KY. My good friend Keith Scarborough is the Worship Pastor there. One of these days he is going to come around and start blogging – until then…he has a really cool staff page!

Here is the video:

1. Worship requires the best we have – we can’t even get 1/4 through Genesis before we see this in action. Abel brought the first and best he had – Cain didn’t. God was pleased with one and not with the other. Worship is not about what we get…it’s about what we give. Read that again: worship is not about what we get from God, but what we GIVE Him! So many people enter a worship setting expecting to get, get, get. To experience worship, we need to engage the encounter with the attitude of offering our best sacrifice of praise to a Holy God who desires hearts that seek after Him – not a style or personal preference.

2. Worship proclaims the name of Jesus – I firmly believe that God steers, corrects, encourages, lifts up, and saves people through the preaching of His word through anointed servants. But who said that preaching is limited to 3 points and a poem?  How many times have you heard a song that spoke directly to a situation in your life.  When you are down and need a pick me up, do you listen to a song on your iPod or play your favorite sermon?  I’m just saying that we can’t underestimate God’s power in using music to impact people’s lives…including unbelievers!  Worship is limited to believers, but spectators can be affected by our worship.  I wonder if those watching Paul and Silas here were impacted by the worship they saw?

3. Worship is a lifestyle – Paul clearly tells us here that our entire lives are our purest form of worship. If our lives lack the alignment God requires, our attempts at worship are empty and vain gestures that are quite simply transparent to a God who knows our every thought. This is a bigger issue than we want to face up to.  There are guys who hit the bar on Friday nights and show up at church Sunday morning…but at least they are convicted in their spirits by their actions.   Then there are those that abstain from all the “obvious” sins…but have sick gossipy mouths or are harboring unforgiveness toward someone…and they think their lives are living sacrifices?  Worship (which comes literally from WORTH-SHIP) means we realize the He is it…and we’re not!

Ok…my little rant is over.  There are hundreds of different angles we could take on the topic of worship (and from time to time we will)…but these are some basic thoughts.  I hope this helps someone…and that ultimately the Church is stronger because more believers seek to worship Him in spirit and in truth.

• It is NOT a style of music – there are no musical notes in the Bible…there is a ton of variety though!  David used things like a harp, a tambourine, and a lyre in his worship.   If worship were really stylistic, then I guess we should all get out our ram’s horns!  Over here people use trumpets, and strings, and flutes, clashing and resounding cymbals, and even dancing!  People used all sorts of things in expressing their praise and adoration toward God.
• It is NOT a specific outer display – There is no right way to worship outwardly.  The real question a person should ask is whether or  not I am worshiping internally.  Worship is an issue of the heart.  Jesus said here that his worshipers would worship him in spirit and in truth.  I DO believe we should be enthusiastic in our worship. I believe it grieves God deeply to watch his people get more excited at a football game or a shopping trip to the mall than the opportunity to experience His presence in a worship experience!
• It is NOT ritualistic – The Pharisees were masters at looking the part.  Jesus consistently dropped the spiritual smack down on them for doing things for show.  Israel received a strong word through Isaiah for seeming to be something they weren’t.  God does not want our sincere rituals – He sincerely wants our hearts!  Anything we do repeatedly can lose meaning and diminish our ability to internalize the meaning.  Variety is essential to worship…one of the most murderous statements toward worship (or the Church’s mission for that matter) is the phrase – “We’ve never done it that way before”!

So that’s a good start to what worship is not…but what IS it?  Check back later this week for Part 2.

This is a great group from Clearview and this is the second year I have been with them. I wanted to include a quick video of some of the group singing a song on Saturday that we did all week back when we were in Romania in November.