Preparing Your Kids for Worship

What are you instilling into your son or daughter about worship?
If more is "caught" than "taught", what does your life teach your kids about worshipping the one true and living God and our Lord Jesus Christ?

As a dad and youth pastor these are a couple of questions that have been rolling around my mind this week. So here are some quick thoughts:

1. Make worship a part of your own personal daily life. Not something you just do on Sunday at church. Do your kids know you spend time daily with God?

2. Make space in your day for worship as a family. At our home we read the Bible and pray with our kids before putting them to bed. That's not the only way to do and I'm sure it will take on different forms as our kids grow older.

3. Be excited about going to church for corporate worship with your church family. If you aren't excited about worship why should your kids be?

4. Teach the value of worship by preparing your own heart, being on time, focused on the songs and the scripture during worship. If you were going to meet the President of the US you would spend some time preparing and you certainly wouldn't be late and you would give him your full, undivided attention. Why would we treat meeting with God and his people with less respect?

5. Talk about worship on the way home from church. Tell your kids what you learned and ask them about what they learned. Engage in conversation about worship.

6. Worship is the one thing we do on earth that will continue on with us through eternity.

PS. This list isn't all inclusive and I certainly don't have all the answers. Just more thoughts from the mind of an ADD youth pastor.

Blown Away Today

This weekend our family was up in Lynchburg, VA.  I had a few students to take to College For A Weekend at Liberty U.  

Today we attended Blue Ridge Community Church with my brother and his family.  Originally we were going to go to Thomas Road just to check out a service in their new place.  My brother told me that they would be having their baptism service today and then went on to tell me it is one of his favorite times at BRCC.  I later picked up that he was going to attend both services.  Later I heard my niece say a few times that she didn't want to miss the baptism service.  I'm not a smart man but I knew something must be up at BRCC and the baptism service.

The worship gathering started off with some great music and even a David Crowder (love his music) tune.  Then Pastor Woody Torrence  got up and made a few comments about what was going on at their church.  The baptistry was a modified cattle trough sitting in the center of the stage.  The baptisms started off with a man giving his story of how his life was a wreck and spiraling out of control until he put his faith in Jesus Christ.  A powerful testimony of God's work in his life.  Then something happened that blew me away.  As he stepped into the baptistry out of the congregation came friends and family, people who had invested in his life, his small group, his new brothers in Christ, his family.  They filled the stage, I would guess around 40 people in all stood around the baptistry as he was baptized.  It was incredibly moving moment and powerful to witness God at work in this man's life.

The service went on as one after another were baptized and a second man shared his story which was just as powerful as the first of how God had totally transformed his life, a life on the brink of suicide.  Each person that was baptized was joined by their "family" on the platform.   

I have gone to church my entire life.  I have seen many baptisms.  There are a few church services that I can say were truly powerful moments.  Today is easily in the top.  This was the most powerful worship gathering I have worshipped in for a long time.  BRCC didn't tag on the baptisms to a service.  The theme, the central focus of the service, was the baptisms and the evidence of God's life changing work in normal everyday lives.  I was blown away today.

On the kids side of things.  Blue Ridge Community Church has it together.  A safe, secure check in process.  A children's ministry security guy walked us every step of the way, even waited in line to go back to the children's wing because we were early and he walked us all the way back to the room.  He spent time talking with our son and with us an obviously had a passion to serve in the ministry he is in.  My son's favorite part of the day, "dancing at church", and he told us, as he does each week, exactly what his lesson was about.  BRCC gets it.  Greeters in the parking lot (one of the things the guy who gave his testimony first shared was the friendliness from the moment he stepped out of the car), greeters at the doors, casual, fun and welcoming.  I love visiting Blue Ridge when we are in the Burg because it feels like home when we are there.  

Great Blog Post on Putting Together a Worship Service

One of the blogs I read is More than Dodgeball.  Josh G is the Senior High Pastor at Saddleback in Cali.  I appreciated this blog post:

I want students walking away from the weekend worship service (our entry level program) with the big idea. I want them to “get” the sermon in a sentence - stuck in their heads with creativity, skill and passion. I want visual learners to get it, note takers to get it, freshman and seniors to get it, I want the uninterested to be drawn in and the regulars engaged week after week. . . . . Read More

What do you think?  Is it really all the message?

Her Worship Was Her Song

Last week, when we were at camp, we had an evening worship gathering that was very powerful.  God’s presence was so strong that we stood for several minutes in silence after a song.  That’s huge considering there were 1,125 students and their youth leaders in the room.

There was a girl behind me who sang really loud.  Not that loud bothers me, but she sang really way off key.   Her singing was so bad musically that even I was having a hard time carrying the tune in the bucket.  I even cringed a couple of times.  I thought to myself, “could she maybe sing a little softer, this is killing me.”  You know some people just can’t sing and I think perhaps she may have been severely tone deaf.

As worship continued and as worship deepened in that huge chapel I soon could hear not only her singing off key but I could hear the tears in her voice as she cried out to God in worship.  It didn’t take long before I could realize that she was worshipping God with everything she had.  It was obvious that God was moving in her life.  She still sang loud and with incredible pitch problems but her singing no longer bothered me. 

I don’t know where I got confused and thought she was singing for me or to me?  It was pretty shallow of me to judge her vocal skills or lack of.  She was singing songs in worship to her Creator, to her Lord and Savior.  I know that as she sang to Him He didn’t hear her singing off key, He heard her heart; He heard the created singing to the Creator.  I was soon moved not only by the worship I was giving to God but also by the worship of this tone-deaf girl behind me.  Worshipping with her drew me deeper into worship and also taught me an important lesson.

So to the believers in Christ who say, “Well singing just isn’t my cup of tea”, I say, open up to God in song.  God’s Word is clear that we are to sing to Him.  You can’t find any scripture that says to fold your arms in worship and sit their tight-lipped.  You can find lots of scripture that tells us to sing to God.

Sing to God, you kingdoms of the earth; sing praise to the Lord, Selah  Psalm 68:32

A psalm. A song for the Sabbath day. It is good to praise the LORD, to sing praise to Your name, Most High,  Psalm 92:1 

Sing to the LORD, praise His name; proclaim His salvation from day to day.  Psalm 96:2

Shout to the LORD, all the earth; be jubilant, shout for joy, and sing.  Psalm 98:4

And don't get drunk with wine, which [leads to] reckless actions, but be filled with the Spirit: speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music to the Lord in your heart, giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Ephesians 5:18-20