The Worshiping Church

This is week three of a series that we have entitled The Worshiping Church. The worship and why don’t you turn to your neighbor and say that? The worshiping church. The worshiping church. And I want to say for the record that my wife, Pastor Jordan last week did an unbelievable job. My goodness gracious. If I would have preached that message, it wouldn’t have been nearly as good. So I was just so proud.

I want to say this. I’m so glad to pastor a church that celebrates the giftings of women. I think there’s a lot a lot of daughters in the body of Christ that feel pressed down by the church. And I think there’s a lot of young female leaders that maybe even now are like sensing a call to ministry, but they’re hesitating because they’re feeling like they’re always going to be treated as a second-tier leader. I just want you to know that’s never gonna happen here. We are a church that celebrates the giftings of women and we champion women, not in an inappropriate way, but in an appropriate way. And so we just wanted to say we’re so grateful for the the women who trailblazed the trail to make what we do possible. Pastor Cindy has taken more arrows than any of y’all realize over 45 years of ministry, doing what she was so clearly called to do. And so may we celebrate you, Pastor Cindy. We celebrate you, Pastor Jordan. Amen. Amen. Love you.

Okay, well, I’m excited for this morning. We’re gonna be doing something a little bit different. We’re gonna be doing a panel discussion with some of our worship leaders here. Do you guys love our worship team? Unbelievable. What they’re gonna do is they’re gonna share their hearts and experiences about worship. But before we do that, I just had a couple a couple quick thoughts for you.

Imposter syndrome

I wonder any of you have you’ve ever heard the phrase imposter syndrome. You ever heard that phrase? Imposter syndrome. What is imposter syndrome? Well, imposter syndrome, it’s something that’s shared across many disciplines. So you find imposter syndrome in pastors, in athletes, in writers, in business owners, in parents. You think, okay, what is imposter syndrome? Well, it’s basically this this is the definition imposter syndrome. The feeling of being a fake or a fraud, despite clear evidence of your skills, experience, or achievements. Basically, what it is, it’s the it’s the feeling that no matter how successful you are in anything, I’m just pretending. It’s like, yeah, yeah, you’re you’re a pastor, but you’re not like you’re not like a real pastor. You’re just like a pastor like it doesn’t matter how many books you’ve sold. It’s like, yeah, but you’re not like a real writer. And that’s imposter syndrome, and that’s that’s something that is shared across disciplines.

And as silly as it sounds, I think it’s a significant issue when it comes to worship. I don’t know if you grew up in the church like I did. I was I was dedicated as an infant. Marsha, my parents started attending this church when my mom was pregnant with me. So this has been my whole life has been this church. I’ve never had another pastor besides Pastor Marshall and Cindy. It’s my whole life. But I grew up in this church, and of course, my experience getting introduced to worship was how it was for a lot of kids, which is I was just sitting there and like I looked around and I saw my parents and I saw the other people and they’re raising their hands and they’re praising God and they’re celebrating. And so, like I’m and it’s like that’s what that’s what my daughter Grace does. Right? We had a night of worship this past Tuesday. My daughter Grace sat in that seat for a whole hour and watched me and Jordan scream our guts out and she’s just like, what is happening? Well, eventually what happens is that kids learn by mimicking. Some people might say, Oh, y’all are indoctrinating. I just call it like leading by example. I don’t know. But maybe we lead by example, and then before you know it, these kids they’re raising their hands and they’re singing and they’re closing their eyes, and they’re not sure exactly what they’re doing yet at that point. That they’re just mimicking mom and dad.

But that’s how it started for me. And then when I went into like my teenage years, I understood what we were doing. I was part of the worship team, I loved God. But I still felt, even as a teenager, I still felt like I was pretending to worship. I was trying my best to worship, and I was singing, and I loved God. I was doing my best, but and I just didn’t feel anything. And so I felt like I felt like other people were having some sort of experience that I was just pretending to have. And yeah, I was I I guess I was you say it like this. I was assuming that other people were like in this emotional trance, you know, when they’re there, like they’re they’re in like the seventh heaven, and I’m just like thinking about the song or whatever.

Worship is primarily about an expression

Well, it wasn’t until I realized what we’ve been talking about in this series is that worship is not primarily about a feeling, worship is primarily about an expression. What’s that say? It it means that worship is not first and foremost about you and what you’re feeling. Worship is about expressing worth to God. And when I realized that as a teenager, I realized that I was a worshiper just like everybody else. That I wasn’t a worship imposter just because I wasn’t on some emotional high. Like sometimes the feelings come, sometimes they don’t. Like I had I had goosebumps like crazy this morning in worship, and I was thankful for it, and I loved it, and I my emotions were high, and I loved that time. But then other times I sing and it’s just nothing. I’m just singing and I’m expressing worth to God. And so sometimes I feel it, sometimes I don’t feel it, but the expression to God can be genuine either way.

In fact, a couple weeks ago, when we started the series, a guy came up to me and said, Pastor David, here’s my problem. He says, he says, I’m like trying to worship. This is what he said, but it just doesn’t work. I just like it’s just like not happening. I’m trying and it’s not, I’m not feeling anything. He says, So what am I supposed to do? And I said, just keep worshiping. You’re doing exactly what you’re supposed to do. And what we’re gonna see here in just a minute is that oftentimes the emotions, the feelings, the goosebumps, the tingles, the caught up, that comes as a response to your worship. That’s not the thing that solicits the worship, it’s a response. It’s God responding to our worship with his presence.

When the worship went up, God’s presence came down

And so what’s amazing though is that worship is not about a feeling, but what’s incredible is that while worship is not dependent on feelings, worship can hear me, can lead to some really incredible moments where God’s presence is just like undeniably real. We just feel it. And in 2 Chronicles chapter 5, we see one of those moments, context, Solomon, King Solomon. This is a man in scripture who’s known for his wisdom. Of course, y’all probably know that, but I would say Solomon’s greatest accomplishment was actually completing the building project of that that his father had in his heart, King David, to build a temple for God. And so they’ve just built this temple and they’re they’re dedicating it to God. And look at what happened. Second Chronicles chapter 5, verse 13.

The trumpeters and musicians joined.

I don’t know why the trumpeters didn’t get included in the musicians. No respect.

The trumpeters and the music and the real musicians, the trumpeters and musicians joined in unison to give praise and thanks to the Lord. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals, and other instruments. The singers raised their voices in praise to the Lord and sang, He is good, his love endures forever.

So it sounds like an awesome worship service, right? So it’s like, okay, there’s symbols happening, there’s trumpets, other instruments, and then it says everyone is singing in unison, and it even gave us some some lyrics. He is good, his love endures forever. And so for me, when I’m listening, looking at that verse, I’m reminded, it kind of reminds me of something, and it’s what we do as we launch service here every week, right? That we’ve got we’ve got symbols, we’ve got other instruments, we’ve got worship leaders, and these worship leaders are singing, and we even put the lyrics on the screens so that we can all sing in unison. To exactly what we see very early on in scripture. So, like, we’re not copying Beyoncé, right? Beyonce is copying us, right? This is something that we’ve been doing for thousands and thousands and thousands of years, is we get instruments and we play, and when then we sing in unison together, so we all sing the same lyrics, and we’re talking, we’re praising God for who he is, just like Jordan talked about, and in praising God for what he’s done. And those, of course, are always linked together because what he does is linked to who he is.

But then look at what happens next. So they’re having a worship service. Second Chronicles chapter 5, 13, second half says this.

Then the temple of the Lord was filled with the cloud.

Will you say that phrase with me? The cloud was filled with the cloud.

And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud. For the glory of the Lord filled the temple of God.

So it’s like it’s like this incredible moment that people are worshiping God, and then something supernatural happens. And the Bible uses this imagery of a cloud. And we don’t know if that’s like a physical, actual cloud, or if that’s you know, like smoke of some kind, or if that’s just something that’s happening in the spiritual realm where it’s just like the presence of God was so thick, and so they didn’t know how to describe it, and so they described it like a cloud. But we do know that what happened is it’s like this powerful manus manifestation of God’s presence, and it’s so thick and it’s so powerful that the priests can’t continue to do what they’re doing. And so when the worship went up, God’s presence came down.

Here’s what I’m wanting you to pay attention to here is this. Notice the order of events. That what happened first? The first thing that happened was this worship. Praise went up, and then the cloud came down. It wasn’t God’s presence filled the room, and they responded to their tingles and their gooseys by worshiping. Right? No, they worshiped first, and God’s response to the worship was God’s presence came down. And that’s what we talked about in the first week is that worship has a reward, and that reward is the presence of God. And that’s what I want in my life. Just want you to know, God’s presence. That’s what I want. I’m not talking about like tingles, I’m not talking about goosebumps, I’m not talking about beautiful music, I’m not talking about feeling sentimental. But the presence of God. Because there’s things in the presence of God that you can’t get anywhere else. But there are some situations that a sermon can’t fix. And that hurts me because I’m a preacher. There are some things that require more than a teaching, they require a touch. And where do you get that touch? In the presence of God.

A panel of worship leaders

And so what we’re gonna do this morning, we’ll stop talking and I’m gonna get to the to the main point here is that we’re gonna have a panel of some of our worship leaders, and they’re gonna come up just to let you know who it is that we’re bringing up. We’re bringing up, and then we can clap for them here in just a second. We’re gonna bring up our amazing worship pastor, David Quayar. We’re gonna we’re gonna bring up two worship leaders, Melinda Cawthon and Alyssa Trajillo, two absolute legends on our worship team. And so they have graciously and courageously agreed to be here and talk with us. So can you guys just give a huge round of applause? Oh, look. Okay. Thank y’all.

Okay, well, thanks for being here, you guys. I thought maybe I’d have you introduce yourself, but instead of that, I had a better idea. I’m just gonna say what my relationship has been to you. So, Pastor Dov, I’m trying to think. Do you have any idea how many years you’ve been attending this church? 16 okay. So Dobb and I, we’ve been doing ministry together for 16 years, if you can believe it. He started on the worship team in the youth. I started as the youth pastor, and so we’ve gone through a million transitions. We both transitioned in from youth ministry to adult ministry together. And I really don’t know myself as a minister without Dov, because this is just how it’s always been this relationship.

And then Melinda, she’s been leading worship. She’s been ministering at this church, I should say, longer than I have. How long have you been singing on this worship team, Melinda? 31 years. 31 years? Take that, Gail. I was kidding. Absolutely incredible. And then Alyssa, she’s the newest entry on this panel, but she’s been coming to the church for like a couple years. A couple years, yeah. She’s an unbelievable gift. Every time we hear Alyssa, every time we see her, hear from her, get ministered. My wife always marvels at what a class act and amazing young woman you are. And so we’re so grateful that you would give your giftings to this church. You’re so talented and so wonderful.

And I want to say this as we get started is that I’m here to learn too. Because I’m kind of like the moderator here, but I want you to know that I I think when it comes to the worship aspect of the Christian faith, I know that I still have a lot to learn. Because I have spent the last 30 years, and not these last, but I spent 20 years of being in church not caring that much about worship. I wanted to hear the sermon. I was in here for this. I’m intellectual, I like the I like the thinking part, and I neglected the worship. And it’s not only until probably like the last five years or so that I’ve really discovered what a life-changing and irreplaceable part of the Christian faith worship is. And so I just want you to know this that I’m here to help you guys talk to these people, but I’m learning as well. And so we’re gonna jump into some of these questions if you guys are ready. Here we go.

When worship became more than just singing songs

So let me say this. I think that some people in the room have experienced what I’m about to say, and other people have not experienced what I’m about to say. But we’re something happens when you’re in worship, and I’m talking about like a worship service. So music is happening, and you’re singing and you’re worshiping God, and it’s just like something shifts. And and I don’t know if that’s something that happens in the person or if that’s something that happens in the room, but it’s almost like a light switch flips, and it’s almost like you get taken away from just being super aware of where you’re at in that moment. You’re not thinking about your clothes anymore, you’re not thinking about what song is this, what we’re gonna eat, but it’s like you transformed into something, and so it’s not just singing anymore, it’s like transformed into this real meaningful encounter with God. And so the question that I have is for Melinda, and it’s this question: can you share, Melinda, about a time when worship became more than just singing songs for you when you truly felt God’s presence?

Yeah, so it’s actually 30 years. This is my 31st year. It was 30 years ago. I had attended this church forever, and it was the day that I found out I was pregnant, unwed, and was at church in a church service on a Tuesday night. And worship was going on and my mind is elsewhere, and all of a sudden, I felt the tangible presence of the Lord in a way I could not explain, and it it was it was I cannot explain it. It was real, it was the most real it had ever been in my life. And what I loved about that is as soon as the worship ended, Pastor Marshall got up and started his message and stopped and came down off the pulpit and he said, I don’t know who this is for, but you need to know that there’s nothing that you can do that could ever separate you from the love of God. And I knew it was confirmation of what God was already doing in my spirit during worship, and I needed that confirmation because I hadn’t tuned my ear, my spiritual ear to know God’s voice that well. And so Pastor Marshall coming up and saying that confirmed what had happened in my spirit during worship, and he asked if anyone needed prayer, and I went running up there. I couldn’t, I couldn’t stop.

And from that moment on the best story I can give is in Luke, I believe seven, Jesus is telling the parable of the two debtors, one owed 500 and one owed 50. And both debts were completely erased. But he asked, Who loves more? The one who was forgiven little or the one who was forgiven much, and it was one of the first times I knew that I knew that I knew the restoration power of Jesus, the salvation that he brought to me, the reconciliation to him, the removal of labels, the forgiveness of sins, and it has forever changed how I worship him.

Yeah. And you know, something that I think is is so incredible about the Christian faith is I think me and Dobb, if you don’t know this, we’re like the brainiacs, wannabe brainiacs, sort of theological nerds of the staff. And so we spend a lot of time in there. But one thing that that we sow and and we recognize is this is that sometimes I don’t think a lot of people come to the Christian faith through just like arguments and theological concepts. I think it has to do more often than not with the heart. And something that’s amazing about something like having an experience, be it in worship, be it in church, be it with is that it’s something that no one can ever take away from you. You know, because if like you your faith is based on like theological concepts, well then they can always be argued. But man, when you have an experience with God, like you’ve experienced a life-changing moment with God where he spoke directly to you, where he saved you, he redeemed you, he freed you from something that that’s something that nothing can ever, no, nothing and no one can ever take away. And that’s why it’s so powerful, beautiful.

We all worship differently

Okay, well, we’ll continue on. So this question, I’ve got a question for both Dov and Alyssa on this one, and I’ll say this is that I think something that is really important and valuable in the church is diversity. And I think you know, it’s like a word, oh, diversity, oh, it says a DEI, blah, blah, blah. I’m not talking about any of that. All I’m wanting to say is this is that God has made us all super unique. And that’s something that doesn’t make us weaker, it’s something that makes us stronger. Like if you, you know, like I’ve got I’ve got most of my body covered right now, you know, so there’s not a lot of tattoos showing, but man, if you’re see me in a swimsuit next to Pastor Marshall, it’s like these people are a little bit different. Yeah. Different upbringings, you know, different backgrounds, different ways of processing the world, you know, and and I think it’s so important for us as Christians to celebrate the differences that God has put on the inside of us. And so when it comes to worship, I think there are some universal principles, of course. But then there’s also things that are like uniqueness in how we worship. It’s similar to relationships, like me and Jordan. Like there’s some there’s some absolute principles that will apply to every healthy marriage. But then there’s some other things that are unique to how Jordan and I relate to each other, and that’s one thing that makes us so special. Is because we understand the general principles, but also the uniqueness. And so the question is for these these two is this we all worship differently. How have you discovered your authentic way of expressing worship to God? Either one.

Okay, I’ll go. Yeah, it’s funny. So I’ve as I was thinking about this question, I’ve been leading worship since I was in middle school, so that’s forever ago. And I’ve I’ve started as a musician and kind of was always the band guy, and I’ve had the opportunity to lead or to play with some incredible worship leaders. And people started to encourage me to like sing and lead, and I was kind of like, no, I’m not really that guy. Like, you need to be this big loud personality, you know. And kind of like exactly what you were saying, that like I’m I’m very more cerebral and I kind of think through things. I’m not very emotional. I’m like almost the antithesis of what you would think a worship leader should be. But it was it was just kind of the encouragement of others and even the example of people who were similar to to me, where I saw like, oh, I can have this gifting. Like it I was almost like denying it in myself. But just my eyes opening to this idea that like I don’t have to look a certain way. The Bible calls us to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, strength, right? And that’s gonna look different for every single person. But as long as I’m giving him my all, that’s what he wants, you know. And so that was that was kind of the moment for me. I don’t know if you know if it was one moment, but just the realization of like I can do this and I can do it uniquely because God created me uniquely.

It’s amazing. I think I think by and large, like if we’re not smart about it, I think that girl, yeah. Can you say, can you make distinctions about girls and boys anymore? I don’t know, it’s a tricky world. I think that I think that girls tend to connect with worship right away more than the men, right? Because the men they want to look tough, you know, they won’t they don’t wanna like look like they’re being all sentimental or whatever, you know. But I think it’s powerful to have someone who’s overcoming some of that, not because, oh, I just felt I just love the goosies. It’s like, no, he saw the value in worship in being a worshiper, and so you push back, push out of your comfort zone. And then when like when we look and you guys are leading worship and scanning the crowd, I mean seeing like Michelle and Jordan, these guys raising a hand. I mean, that’s one thing, but you see some burly dude, you see art over here, you know, he’s raising there’s something uniquely powerful about people who might not have that personality of I’m not a big personality, but man, when it comes to worship God, I’m pushing all through all of that stuff to do something that we believe is powerful for us, but even more importantly is expressing worth to God. Beautiful. Okay.

Yeah, I think that I’ve been doing worship since I was really young, and it’s changed as I’ve gotten older. Just my understanding of it has become a lot more strong. And so I think that worship changed for me when I stopped seeing it as something that I do for God, but seeing it as my response to his worthiness. And I think that I heard this in a message two years ago, and it’s been like an anchor in my life ever since. But worship, worship, the worthiness of God. And I think that our lives are to be worship.

Romans 12 1 says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.

And so I think that worship in its simplest form is essentially the response of our hearts to the truth of who God is and what he’s done for us. And I mean, I don’t know about you, but I’ve witnessed my heavenly father bring literal life to dead things in my life. And I know that he is so deserving of praise. I know that I have history with the Father, and that history is good. And I also know that I don’t want to just grow in longevity with my faith and with my worship. I want to grow in depth. And so I think that prayer and worship remind us of who we are in Him. I’m a daughter before I stand on that platform. It assures us that the blessing of heaven is ours, and I think that worship refirms us that God has brought us this far and He’s not giving us, He’s not giving up on us now. And so as I’ve gotten older, like I I really realize like that is why I worship. And anytime I step on a platform or I lead worship, or even just in my day-to-day life, any time I’ve ever felt insecure or insufficient is when I don’t remind myself of that truth. Is when I am not careful to spend time with my father and dwell in his word, I I lack. And so just reminding my heart of his worthiness, and that’s why it’s not what I can give to him, but it’s because he is so righteous. So good. So good. Don’t you appreciate these people? They do so much for us.

The biggest obstacle in worship

Okay, here’s my next question. We’re flying through, which is exactly what we need to do. So you guys are doing great. Let’s see. So here’s what I want to say. Worship in this series, we’ve talked about how worship is central. We’ve talked about how it’s important, we’ve talked about how it’s powerful. What we have not talked about in this series is that worship is easy because you know it’s not. Worship is not easy. Like worship can be really hard. I would say for some time, if I’m just attending a service, deciding to enter into worship, not just with my voice, but with my arms and my heart engaging, that’s the hardest work I do all service. Sitting there listening to a sermon and scrolling Facebook, that’s easy. But there is something that’s challenging about really like getting in to worship.

And there’s a million reasons for that, right? One could be like our minds just wander. I don’t know. It nobody, is there anybody else that like when you’re singing, you’re like singing the song because you know it, but you’re actually thinking about the cowboys or the cardinals or lunch, or you know it like any millions of things, or maybe you’re just concerned with other stuff, you know, you just had a big fight with your spouse. I think all the pastors know this experience of you, you you come in and you guys are super ticked with each other, but then you walk in, oh glory, oh, it’s fantastic to see everybody. And then I’m trying to worship, but I’m actually thinking, I can’t believe she would say that. Oh, I can’t believe blah blah blah blah. And like I have to shut that part off in me if I actually want to worship, or like maybe I’m feeling self-conscious, or I think something that happens a lot in people’s worship is like that’s when their preferences rise up and take them out of the out of those moments. You know, it’s like I just feel like the sub sub the kick drum is too loud. I feel like the snare drum should be more. I don’t like when she I don’t know this song, all of that kind of stuff where the preferences come. And so the question is for all of you is this what’s the biggest obstacle you’ve faced in worship, and how did you work through it? The biggest obstacle you faced, how did you work through it? What if male stars?

Well, you gave the answer. That’s exactly what I was gonna say. Me, I’m the biggest obstacle. My mind, my thought processes, and I think we can get ahead of ourselves in certain seasons of life when you’re expecting something from God or you’re disappointed by him, or he has let you down, and we are to worship him for as Pastor Jordan said, who he is and what he has done. But you’re mad at him at the moment, and so you just don’t think you can, or you just don’t want to, or whatever, but that all comes back to me. It’s about me, and that’s not anything about worship. Worship is about him, and the scripture says to think on what is good, what is lovely, what is all those things. That’s and so changing the thought process, the loop that’s going in my head, changing my expectations to I will only worship because of what you’ve done, or I will only worship because you have answered these prayers. Getting ahead of myself, asking the whys and the where’s and the hows. Sometimes God’s not gonna answer us the way we want or when we want or how we want, and we still worship because it changes then what goes on around you, and it changes.

I shared this analogy years ago. You know, put on the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. If it’s raining outside and you go outside and you put a coat on, it doesn’t stop the rain. It just stops how the rain affects you. And as you put on the garment of praise, it will change how you think, how you see things, the filter in which you are going to do it. That’s the benefit that as you praise, it’s the going up, and the benefit is him coming and helping you through all of those things. But we don’t do it, it’s not conditional. Our worship is not conditional. And if you can get that out of your head and worship him for the sole reason he created you and he saved you. There is nothing else he needs to do to need and earn our worship. He has done it all. And if we can change that, usually we are the problem. We are the hindrance, we are the blockage in worship. Absolutely. Fabulous.

Yeah, I am. Alyssa likes to save the best for last. Right, yeah. Let these chumps go first. I was gonna say exactly the same thing. It’s me. It’s like we have all these distractions, so many things, but we are called to worship with all our hearts. And I I just kind of had this thought as I was prepping, but we see throughout scripture where God demands wholehearted worship. We see it with Cain, we see with King Saul, the Israelites over and over in Malachi, he’s like, You’re gonna you’re bringing me these lame blind offerings. I reject those. And thankful, we’re thankful for Jesus, right? We’re accepted on on the basis of him. But we still should have a heart that reflects God’s desire for wholehearted worship. Yeah. And so when I come in and I’m worried about does it feel right? Is the temperature right? Is the volume right? It’s all these things, that’s showing my heart’s not in the right place, right? And I have to focus. And sometimes you have to do it multiple times in a service. You don’t make that decision once, right? But we’re constantly, constantly making this decision that that this is this is for you, God. And even that that chronicles verse that you shared, it’s it’s amazing. And there is this, some people call it the manifest presence, right? But there’s this amazing response from God. But that’s not even why we do it, right? We come to glorify him. If he never did that again, if if we come and we worship, it’s a successful worship service. Because that’s what it’s about. And we try to make it about all these other things, but at the end of the day, we’re here to bring honor and glory to God. And and if I’m doing that and I’m getting over the distractions and getting over myself, then it’s a successful worship service, and and I’m doing it too. That’s so good.

Um, I think that’s when we’re talking about like barriers and things that like it is us. And I think that when I had placed my foundation and trust on things that were shakable, friendships, relationships, jobs, school, whatever, ministry, even things that are breakable. When I felt like my whole world is kind of turning around, and you get to this like just like a low place. And I didn’t really know like where to go, where to run, where to turn, but I knew that I needed Jesus, and so in Matthew 7 24 it says,

Therefore, whoever hears these things of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain descended, the floods came, the winds blew, beat up the house, and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these things of mine and does not do them will be foolish.

Foolish is kind of scary. A man who built his house on the stand will stay standing. I think that Jesus is the only name that you should ever place your foundation on and anchor your entire life on. He’s the foundation that will never waver, right? We know this to be true, and so when I’m hiding away with God in worship, I see God as a father, I see him as a friend, I see him as my savior. He’s been, and he like will always be my protector. So he’s never changing, but I am my my trust in what I believe, like I I’m very breakable, but the Lord isn’t, and he he’s my healer. When I was going through trials in my family, and I wasn’t sure what was gonna happen, he’s the source of all of my confidence, and when I don’t take time to remind my heart and spirit of Jesus’ worthiness, that’s the only time that I’ve ever questioned him because of my own doing. And so I think when I’m walking through like obstacles or things that are really hard, I just like like Mel said, knowing that he is always true and he is always right. And just if I’m walking with the Lord, then I I can’t, as long as I’m doing what the Lord is want calling me to do, and walking in his way, then how far can I really go? Beautiful.

Worship in everyday life

Okay, so here’s something something that we all know is that for a relationship to be healthy, it requires more than one hour a week. Right. So like my wife and I, let’s imagine that we only saw each other and only talked to each other during this one particular hour every week. We might still be married, but we don’t have a marriage. It’s not it’s not a healthy relationship, and the same is true with God, right? That if like we want to have a good, healthy, thriving relationship with God, that’s not something that just happens the one check, and now we’re like super ch it takes time, right? Just like any relationship. It takes time, takes time, not just one hour on Sunday. So the question is what I have for you, Dov, is this what does worship look like in your everyday life outside of our church gatherings?

Yeah, that’s a big question, right? And so the I I think of Romans 12 1, where we’re we’re supposed to be living sacrifices. Our faith, our relationship with relationship with God is not something that we turn on and off. It’s not something that it’s like, oh I’m gonna go to church, and then I, you know, maybe I’m not living bad, but I’m just gonna kind of turn off that pipe of my heart. I got other things to worry about. But we are to be living sacrifices. One of my favorite theologians, David Campbell, he says that when when something is on an altar, it ceases, it belongs to God. It doesn’t belong to anyone else. If it if it belonged to the person bringing it, once it’s on the altar, it’s God’s and it loses its right to itself. And that’s a huge thing, right? That’s how we’re supposed to live our lives. But that’s that’s again it’s a constant decision. We don’t make that decision once that we’re gonna offer ourselves as a sacrifice to this God who gave it all to us.

And so that’s that’s kind of the what what it looks like I guess in in practicality is you know the the basic spending time in the word praying worshiping even with music or however you like to if you’re if other art forms or however you like to do it, worship doesn’t have to look look a certain way. But I I think of I think it’s 1 Timothy 4 maybe where Paul’s writing to Timothy and it’s the famous verse of don’t let people look down on you because you’re young right but he says be an example in what is it it’s I’m drawing a blank here speech conduct love faith and purity right and I think just asking ourselves is my speech is my conduct I someone once said would someone be surprised to find out you’re a Christian right hopefully not but you know speech conduct love ask those or if those around you were to be honest and say yeah this is this this guy loves me as a the way God would love me as a reflection of the love he has for God right in faith when life happens how am I responding to these circumstances in purity, we’re to be holy as God is holy. I mean, again, thank you for the blood of Jesus that that makes us holy but we we we can’t just decide it’s in a moment, it’s in the music, it’s in a part of service, it’s a church, but we have to live these lives we’re called to. And so that’s gonna look different for everyone. But at the end of the day, we’re not shutting God out or just kind of turning him off or in any way, but it’s it’s this, yeah, he’s a part of me every day in everything I’m doing. It’s a big challenge and a big standard. But I think it’s kind of what we’re calling the DNS.

Preparing your heart for worship

Okay, Alyssa, I’ve got this question, and then I’ve got a surprise question for Mel that just came to me. So Alyssa, so I think probably people might assume when you’re a worship leader that you just like basically soak in God’s presence all day. That we’ve got the trials and the challenges when it comes to enter into worship, but y’all, it’s just you’re just in a constant state, singing, dancing, going through the grocery store. But you know, you have a regular job. You’ve got a regular jobby job that’s just normal. And so I imagine that like the rest of us, one thing that you have to do is you have to prepare your heart before you hop on stage. But this is not just like something you hop on and do, but it’s a process that you’re involved with so that when you lead us in worship, you’ve done the heart work. So the question for you is this do you have any personal practices that help you prepare for worship and create space for God to move?

Yeah, so if you don’t know, I actually live in Santa Fe, so the drive here is like an hour. It’s really not bad. But a lot of people like once they find that out, the next question is, Oh my gosh, do you dread the drive? And I’m like, actually, no, because I feel like it’s it’s time that is set, and I’ve kind of used that time, making it more and more. But I’ll say this, I don’t want to be a better version of me, be just to be a better version of me, but I want to be a better vessel for him. And so the more that I do it, the more like I need to rely on preparation and preparing well, otherwise, like I can truly tell when I don’t, and so I think filling my heart with expectation of just like God, well, like what truly do you want from this service or from not even like not even for church, but just for like receiving from God just to receive from my father because I need it, not to give something or not to like I want to have a fresh outpouring, and to have an outpouring, I need to be filled, and so I think that the Holy Spirit should never get old because he’s always new and he should always be new to me. And so when I’m preparing, I think like a really really practical thing to do is to like set a challenge. And so I had like a worship leader who was I was just asking for advice, and they said, I I talked about this recently, but they said, What is one thing you can get excellent at? And I I gave them like, well, I don’t really know, and she was like, Well, aren’t you like doing this thing over here? And I was like, Yes, and she’s like, Is it excellent? And I was like, kind of a shame to say no, but it truly wasn’t. It wasn’t excellent, I would say. I don’t think that I was really pouring my heart into it, but I think like making a tangible goal of like something that I can do to like make excellence a priority in your life. And yeah, I would just say preparation is majority of it. Right. It’s not like this is just a small part of it. Preparation is like 95% of it, honestly. And I think that if you don’t prepare, like you can truly tell, like you we need the Holy Spirit, and he should be new to us at all times. And so I think like really living with that for me has changed my heart for worship. Beautiful.

Yeah, and I I think preparing your heart is such a key if you’re gonna talk about worship, especially if you’re gonna talk about like having that experience with God where you’re feeling his tangible presence, which again is not the goal, it’s a byproduct. But I know that like something that happens with conferences. So we’ll throw out we’ll throw out these conferences, right? And so it’s gonna be okay, we’re gonna do like we’re gonna do a big conference in in September. But so we’ll bring in these speakers, and so we’ve got our worship team, and so we’ve got the special lights, right? Special light show. Maybe we rent more speakers, rent more lights, and then we play the same songs that we always play, and then someone comes and preaches a message that Marshall preached better, you know, three weeks prior. But then people were like, My life was changed forever at the conference, and it’s like, okay, what what happened? I think one of the things that happened is this they prepared their heart for it. They went to conference believing that they were gonna have an encounter with God, right? And so it’s like one of the things that makes a big difference. I was just talking to my friend, and he went to a night of worship and he flew to California for it, and it’s like, well, I can already tell, man, that that’s gonna be a life-changing experience. Why? Because he has prepared his heart, he’s believing God is gonna speak to him in that moment. You just show up and you’re just like, oh, busy, and you know, you’re on the phone and you’re working, blah, blah, and then it’s like, okay, fine, or worship for two seconds, and your heart’s not even in that. Well, the experience for you is not gonna be the same as someone who has that’s why I talked about Javi. Javi, whenever he leads worship, he wakes up at 4:30. Because he doesn’t want to just hop up and I say it’s not because it just takes him three hours to do his hair, right? That’s only two hours. It’s only two of them. No, no, he’s got he’s got great hair. But it’s like why why? Why? And he says, Well, because I want to come when I show up, I’m not just gonna wake up, hop, and hop up on stage. I’ve got to prepare myself. And you prepare yourself externally, you prepare yourself, you know your chords, you know your songs, but also you prepare your heart. And so that’s something that we need you as worship leaders to do, of course, but it’s something that we can also be doing too, right?

So maybe like when we come, I wonder if any of you could speak briefly. How does that work in practice? Let’s say there’s a guy and he’s like, I just listened to talk radio. What might someone do if they want to prepare their heart going into worship? Maybe is it like they’d put on some music? What would it look like to possibly prepare your heart coming in? That’s a surprise question. That’s not that’s not the surprise question. Okay.

Yeah, I think it’s being very intentional, whatever it looks like for me. I’d love actually there’s William Agosto. I was free free William Augusto. It’s just he does these like ambient like worship vibe things. Free plug for him, but I like to have that on and just spend time in the word and it it kind of fills me up. I know some people will want to sing, some people, you know, a lot of praying. My prayers tend to be a little simpler, but I spend time listening a lot, I think. But yeah, I don’t know. I think it’s it’s just whatever is intentional to get you to place to remind you that why we’re coming together and and what we’re doing, why we’re gathering, right? And it’s to focus on God. And so I don’t know that there’s like a magic formula or anything. There is something powerful about changing the atmosphere through music, though.

Yeah, that’s just a helpful tip for people. If you’re like, I never feel anything. It’s like you can put on ambient worship. There’s something powerful about music. God’s presence travels on lots of things. One thing it travels on is certainly music. Yeah.

And I would say gratitude. As you come to church, just start thanking God for the things that he has done in your life for the blessings that you have. Again, it takes your eyes off of you and puts them on him, and that’s the first thing that needs to happen. And it doesn’t take a lot of energy, even if it’s just from parking your car, because probably getting here on tramway is gonna make you cuss and yell. But park your car, and as you’re walking into the building, as you’re walking on campus, and you guys need to know too that this campus is prayed over every Sunday morning too, and worship has already been going out. So it’s already flowing. The spirit is already free here. And so we are hoping, and part of our desire is that you feel something different, the peace of God, as you walk onto the campus. And it would make it easier. But gratitude is always one of the best things to change your mindset.

And I think to add on to that, like focusing on one characteristic of God and really meditating on that is kind of yesterday. I work at Starbucks too. And I didn’t want to rat you out, but now it’s okay, it’s okay. I work at Starbucks, and everyone was like out on the floor doing their thing, and I was in the back of house by myself. So I was like, okay, I’m by myself, like do my own thing. And I was just really like had it on my heart to dwell on like the face of God. And so I’m in the back of house, just like doing super like mundane things, and I just like the song, show me your face, show me your face. And so I’m just like singing that over myself. I think I’m being quiet, like I think I’m being so quiet. And there’s like a fridge door on this side of me, and I’m like doing my thing over here, and one of the baristas comes to the back, he’s like, What are you doing back here? I was like, Oh, sorry, completely caught off guard, but so like genuinely so lost in his presence just at work. And so I think moments like that where you can really take advantage, just focus on one attribute of God and dwell on it is a super practical one. So good, fabulous.

Accept his forgiveness

Okay, here’s my bonus question, Mel, watch out. So I just want to touch something you touched on where you were talking about the parable where people who are forgiven little versus forgiven much. So you categorize yourself in that moment as someone who had been forgiven of much. And so I want wanted to know if maybe you would be willing to speak to people in the room or maybe the people online that maybe they feel like because of the life that they’ve lived up to this point, that worship would be maybe hypocritical, or that God wouldn’t want it, or that something that ends up being a barrier for them is the own is the shame that they feel from maybe their own decisions in their own lives.

Accept his forgiveness. Fully accept his forgiveness. If you don’t, you’re going to be held back. You’re going to allow something to taint you forever, to separate you in ways he never intended. And it was like the parable that Jordan shared when Mary, I love that’s one of my favorites. You don’t know the cost of the oil in my box. And even this morning, any song that sings about no shame, forgiveness of sin, no labels. I carry none of that anymore. I am victorious, restored. I am chosen daughter of the king, and my mistakes do not define me. Your mistakes do not define you. You are freed. You have been purchased, you have been paid for. It has all been covered. There is nothing you can do to separate you from the love of God. He loves you so much. And when you accept it and you receive it, you will be changed. It may not feel boom like it happened for me in that moment. I’m thankful for that moment. I pray for that moment for every person. But he will show it to you over and over and over again. If you allow, you have to receive it. It’s not hard to do. It’s just not sitting there, putting yourself down, letting other things define you. Your heavenly father defines you. And he says you are chosen. He says you are righteous. He says you are in good standing with him. And he wants nothing more than to live life with you. So don’t separate yourself.

Hey, can you thank these amazing people? Thank y’all. Gosh. Thank you for speaking into our lives. We love you. Honored to have you.