Worship

Our gift to an always worthy God.

The air is thick and sweat rolls down the center of my back, it is morning and I am already hoping to catch any breeze through the open windows of the one room church. It is the dead of summer and I am sitting with a mission team from somewhere in a small Island church, the walls dance with the bass and tremble with the Pastor’s voice. The service is ending, an altar call is given,

“ DO YOU WANT JESUS?”

The booming voice through an echoing, crackling sound system asks. A woman runs from behind me to the front. She falls down crying loudly at the altar. She wants Jesus.

It is a week later and I find myself with a different team in the same church, this is unusual to go to the same church so close together but we are working in this sweet community two weeks in a row. The service makes me smile as Bahamian church does. The clapping is doubly as fast as any in my Minnesota Baptist church back home, the music is so loud I can’t hear myself sing, and I like it. My feet move to the Bahamian shuffle, I am learning. The end of the service comes again and the altar call,

“Do you want JESUS?”

Nothing is done without emotion in Bahamian churches and this resonates with me. Then I hear someone from behind me, running to the front wailing. It’s the same woman from the week before, crying uncontrollably on the floor in front of the altar. Suddenly sadness washes over me. I hear the Holy Spirit clearly in my ear,

This woman thinks she needs to come here to get me. To feel this to receive more of me.

Yesterday I was at a Vespers service. The sun was shining, but there was a chill in the air. I am and have been in Minnesota now, for almost 20 years. I walk into an old church building and it holds joy and pain, like any organization where people have walked for generations. It is quiet, people are sitting, to stand almost feels like an act of rebellion. This place couldn’t be farther from my Bahamian church experiences. The Pastor gets up to open the night,

“We don’t come here to receive a worship experience, we bring worship with us. Out of the overflow of everything we have learned and all God has done this week we worship.“

The truth of it strikes me. Our lives are ones of worship, we bring ourselves, our words, our commitment, our attention, our effort, our time, our intention to God in worship.

I spent multiple sweltering summers on the Island. I learned much about serving Jesus in seemingly small ways. The Pastors at the Island churches loved their congregations and there was no notoriety or outward signs of worldly favor. They were faithful with what they had in their hand, and by human standards it wasn’t very much. I learned about freedom in worship and honesty in need. I learned about dancing in church, an expression of worship, and the joy of the Lord on display.

I also learned emotion does not equal God’s presence and not emoting doesn’t necessarily mean a lack of surrender or connection to God. God is worthy of our worship, our expression whether we feel it or not and he sees our hearts. He knows where we are when we come into a space of intentional worship.

If you had been a fly on the wall last night at Vespers, you would have seen I emoted. My default in worship is feeling so overwhelmingly grateful in the presence of my Triune God I can’t help but emote, most of the time.

Yet, it is crucial we know worship isn’t what we receive when we enter a space, it is what we give out of what we have received. Emotions are not a litmus for worship, surrender is. Sometimes surrender is loud and outward, and sometimes it is quiet and inward. God knows what authentic surrender in a heart looks like.

We have access to all we want of Jesus at anytime. The altar is in my basement ramshackle office, on the edge of a mighty body of water, in a small rural church with an organ, in my car driving, or in a crowded room with voices lifted. The Holy Spirit of the Living God lives in believers and is working among us. He is always worthy of praise.

Jesus,

I pray today whether we feel you or not we choose to surrender in our hearts and worship you with our lives. Remind us of what you have done for us on the cross and what you continue to do for us every day. The gift of peace in your presence. Help us not to get caught up in human expectations, but instead to be authentic in your throne room.

Amen.

I could sit and weep this morning thinking about the faithfulness of God to inhabit my mundane places and imperfect self. What a gift that he sees my heart and is generous with me and no matter where I find myself I can come boldly to his throne of grace.

His peace is ours, and this is a reminder of his presence. However you worship him today, the question is not whether he is worthy, the question is will we surrender to him?