Man of Depravity - Tyler Braun's posts on Church Ministry, Worship, Seminary, and Theology.

Worship As a Lifestyle .1

2009 May 20

by Tyler

On Sunday night Jay and I spoke at Sunset’s high school group (Overflow). It was the first time I spoke any sort of message in front of a larger group. And I actually really enjoyed it. We centered our time around leading worship and the spiritual discipline of worship, while making the talking points more conversational by having our high school director (Mike Giering, who rarely blogs) lead the discussion. This post as well as the ones that follow, flow out of some of our discussion on stage and what God put on my heart to share with the students.

We often talk about worship being a lifestyle and yet living that out often becomes quite hit and miss. Somehow there is a disconnect between our emotional worship experiences with our church congregations every weekend and how we connect with God throughout the week.

I want to explore some of the ‘why’ behind this disconnect. As I thought through this (a real problem in my own life) a few distinct things immediately came to mind. Here is one:

If God can show himself in lots of little ways during the week surely he will show up even more on a Sunday morning when the church is gathered specifically to hear from him.

The problem is, very few come to church with this kind of expectation and so few are met in a special way because of this.

We rarely come to our times of congregation/corporate worship with an expectation that God is going to do something special. For all the criticism charismatic churches receive, we certainly can’t discount their expectation for God to be at work in the midst of their corporate gatherings.

What would it look like for a church to anticipate what God was going to do in their midst?

Don’t we put God in a box by not giving him room to operate?

I’d really appreciate your thoughts here because I’m really just in the beginning stages of forming my thoughts on this topic.

Filed under: the rest... Tags: worship

Bryan Dormaier

As a charismatic, I can say that the more I’ve grown I’ve found that we have to be very careful of the formulations we have and the expectations we put on God to follow our formulas. There needs to be a careful balance to make sure that we are not putting excessive expectations on God and what our worship experience is like.

What I wonder many times is – on the weeks that I don’t feel anything, is God any less at work? And perhaps my radar is off in trying to sense how God is at work.

So for me it’s not a problem of whether or not we expect god to do something during our church gathering, but the real issue for me when I don’t sense it is to wonder how God is at work.
Josh

I’ve been thinking about this as well…specifically about our prayers as we begin our time of worship in song. I know that, for me, I tend to go through the motions when praying, never asking God to do great things. I’m not sure if it’s just due to traditions, or just using prayer as a “filler” in our services, but I feel that we’ve gone away from praying with any sort of expectancy. Why wouldn’t we pray for God to do great things when we gather? He’s clearly not capable of doing things less than great….he’s God!

We totally put God in a box. The good news for us is that He cannot be contained.
http://manofdepravity.com Tyler

I totally get what you are saying. Just as there is a danger of not expecting God to do something, the danger of expecting Him to do something is that when he doesn’t match what he has done before we can begin to question whether he was even in our midst. I don’t have a great answer to that problem, but I think it begins with a more holistic understanding of worship. Thanks for your thoughts.
http://ash-nits.blogspot.com ash

more God on Sunday than any other day? MMM- to me, if God is the same yesterday today and forever, I expect that God has a way of reaching each morning I rise ….and it’s no different on a Sunday than any other day during the week. Why should people expect more or less?

Do we put God in a box? Yes. Should we? No. But I also think, while we should con’t to take him out of the box, that is also the exact reason we are amazed an his unending Glory. And the more we find him wild and big in our lives, the wiser we become about who God is to each and every one of us. As a result, we trust him to take care of our needs and we find the wisdom and knowledge to know what choices to make.

Albert Einstein once said, “I want to know God’ s thoughts, the rest are just details.”
He’s God, he’s got it.
Mike

Tyler,

Thank you for pointing out to everyone that I rarely blog. I hate you.

Sincerely,

Mike
http://manofdepravity.com Tyler

Love you too Mike.
http://manofdepravity.com/2009/05/21/worship-as-a-lifestyle-2/ Worship as a Lifestyle .2 « man.of.depravity

[...] I want to explore some of the ‘why’ behind this disconnect. As I thought through this (a real problem in my own life) a few distinct things immediately came to mind. Here is another (the first one is here): [...]
http://www.aworshipfulheart.typepad.com jan owen

great question Tyler. I think one issue we might have is that we do indeed expect to see God’s movement only in terms of our desires. For instance, if we are sick or depressed, our idea of God at work might be healing or a lifting of our spirits – we equate God’s movement with the solving of a problem.

If there is one thing I’ve learned in the past few years, it’s that God moves in ways we are not even aware we need. He might not move as we expect or desire, but that doesn’t mean He is not working.

I think this box is our own personal preference/desire box. But I also think we don’t make room and space in our services for people to hear from God and process what He might be saying. We move from thing to thing, never giving quiet, or slowing down much.

And honestly, I’m not sure most are actually looking for God to move or speak……maybe that’s jaded of me, but I find that many people attend to observe and as long as they have this attitude and view of church they might not even notice God moving at all.