I am so proud of our Worship Committee at Woodburn Baptist Church! At our last meeting I invited them to finish the sentence, "Worship has happened when..."
This wasn't a teaching moment, but a learning one. Below are their answers with a bit of the context from our conversation. I hope you'll notice what is missing, and I'm also eager to read your comments about things you thing could/should have been included!
These are in the order they gave them, not necessarily ranked by importance or value.
1) Lives are changed. Transformation is the primary indicator of worship.
2) There is discernible engagement with the Spirit; there's life in it.
I asked, "how can we discern engagement?" They responded with:
- people spontaneously stand
- some will raise hands
- others will shed tears
- there is freedom to express in those ways OR not to, without judgement
- their countenance changes
- people testify that the experience has been Christ-focused, not self-focused
- people linger after the service, not wanting to leave the sacred place
3) We are humbled; we are reminded that God is massive and Sovereign. We are neither.
4) Individuals can tell stories of worship happening; they have epiphanies from the singing, the scripture readings, the praying, the preaching, etc.
5) People sing... from their souls.
This seems to me a fantastic list. I confess, our context may color our answers. The things they listed--the list you just read--is a decent summary of observations we make weekly in our services.
So... what would you add? Delete? Modify?
No comments:
Post a Comment