Debbielee76’s Blog

For: The Institute Of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt

**I just updated the recording with the new lyrics.  Oh, and there’s a title now too!  You can find the lyrics down below…

All to the King

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Little sloppy, but okay for now! Had fun with the new version of Garageband… =0)

I don’t have a title…If you have a suggestion, I’d love to hear it…

Here are the lyrics:

With my face turned toward the King
I sing, “Your kingdom come”
With eternity in my heart
I pray, “Your will be done”

I lay down my shame for a beautiful crown
All of my hopes in heaven come down

All to the King
All to the Lord
All to the Savior
All my life poured

All to the Father
All to the Son
All to the Spirit
My heart is won

my-song-1-22

For: The Institute Of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt

here is our final assignment…i don’t have much else to say…my brain needs a break!

Worship is a lifestyle response to the loving call of our Creator, King, Trinity, and Savior.  It’s how we make decisions, how we treat our neighbors, how we sing songs, how we see the world.  We give our entire lives, thoughts, actions as a living sacrifice – an offering (Romans 12:1) – because He first loved us (1 John 4:19).  Worship is loving God back and telling Him that He is worthy of praise by the way we live.

Music and creativity give voice to the heart.  Contemporary music provides a vehicle in which people can meet God in a relevant way.  Worship songs are “doors, windows, gateways and encountering grounds where our prayers can take flight on the wings of words and melodies, and an interaction can be had with God” (Wilt, 42).  Music reaches and comes from the depths of our soul.  When we sing lyrics that express the echoes of our hearts, we ignite the very essence of who we are as God’s children.  This, then, encourages us to live the lives we were meant to live, as ones that are truly human, reflecting the image of God (Wright 2006, 140).

When we worship in songs, we are articulating the rescue stories of our lives and expressing them in a communal way.  When we worship, we are inviting heaven into earth.  The worship in heaven is “the glad shout of praise that arises to God the creator and God the rescuer from the creation that recognized its maker, the creation that acknowledges the triumph of Jesus the Lamb” (Wright 2006, 146-147).  When we worship we are celebrating the new creation and our salvation in Jesus; we are celebrating heaven that has come to earth.
As worship leaders, we have the privilege of creating a place where people can meet God and inviting heaven to overlap with earth.  We get to choose songs that will ignite a lifestyle response to God’s love.  We get to lead the community of believers in songs that all testify of our rescue stories.  We get to give a voice to the echoes of people’s hearts – justice, beauty, relationships, and spirituality.

For: The Institute Of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt

Ok.  This week’s discussion assignment was to write a Christian worldview summary.

I have to confess.  My brain hurts.  I don’t think this summary is anywhere near what I would like it to be.  There is just so much.  My brain is barely able to process all of this information.  It’s like my mind is holding on to these ideas for dear life.

Well, here it is:

God poured out his love into his creation. God is Creator. God is sovereign over all. God is King. God relates within himself and to his creation. God is Trinity. God pursues and saves the ones he loves. God is Savior.

We are his creation, his servants, his children, and the ones he has saved. We are creative beings, relational beings, just beings, and spiritual beings because we have been created in his image. We try to fight for justice, to seek spirituality, to live in community, and to create beauty. We are called to “become more truly human, to reflect the image of God into the world” (Wright 2006, 140). Being human means becoming “agents of God’s new world” (Wright 2006, 189). We long for the restoration of perfect fellowship with our Creator. And we remain in him because he remains close, active, and intimate with us.

Humanity became corrupt. We settled for lives that that were second-rate (even worse!) We were created for perfect spirituality, justice, relationship, and beauty, but we settled for our own attempts to satisfy these needs. God sent Jesus to rescue and renew us from death. Jesus came to make all things new and right. Jesus’ resurrection was the beginning of the new creation, where we can live out God’s future in the present. Jesus made it possible for us to wake up and be the people we were created to be.

The Kingdom of God is where heaven and earth overlap and where God’s future comes into the present through the Holy Spirit, who was given to start this work. The Kingdom is where echoes of justice, beauty, spirituality and relationship become a voice, where these echoes become complete. The Kingdom is where families, both parents and children, are sons and daughters of God and partake in heaven breaking in on earth. The Kingdom is where the Church lives and loves in community and brings the story of salvation to the world around us.

The new creation began with Jesus’ resurrection. We are called to leave the old creation behind at the cross. We are called to walk as ones who are fully human (and filled humans), follow Jesus, and bring others into the new world. We are “agents, heralds, and stewards of the new day that is dawning” (Wright 2006, 237). We are called to bring God’s future to the dark world around us, to answer the voice of God, and bring God’s saving plan to the world. Our final destiny is renewed creation, a world made to rights, and eternity with our loving God.

For: The Institute Of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt

Actually, I’ve been thinking about last week’s post.  Specifically, the last quote:

“And it is all because of Jesus that we find ourselves called to live the way we do.  More particularly, it is through Jesus that we are summoned to become more truly human, to reflect the image of God into the world.” (Wright 2006, 140).

This whole time I was thinking that I should try NOT to be so human.  Everything’s going to be different now.  =0)

For: The Institute Of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt

Anyone who attends a Vineyard church for any length of time has heard a lot of talk about the Kingdom of God.  Phrases like “the already” and “the not-yet” are close to our hearts.  Having attended Vineyards for the last 14 years, Kingdom Theology has become a part of my DNA.  I love talking about, reading about, singing about, living out the Kingdom of God.  It is my opinion that you should too.  =0)

I just finished reading part two of Simply Christian by N.T. Wright.  I thought I would use this entry to share my favorite quotes about the Kingdom.  Brace yourselves…this is good stuff.

“…the creation of the world was the free outpouring of God’s powerful love.  The one true God made a world that was other than himself, because that is what love delights to do.  And, having made such a world, he has remained in a close, dynamic, and intimate relationship with it, without in any way being contained within it or having it contained within himself.  To speak of God’s action in the world, of heaven’s action (if you like) on earth – and Christians speak of this every time they say the Lord’s Prayer – is to speak not of an awkward metaphysical blunder, nor of a “miracle” in the sense of a random invasion of earth by alien (“supernatural”?) forces, but to speak of the loving Creator acting within the creation which has never lacked the signs of his presence.” (Wright 2006, 65-66).

“…we are all invited – summoned, actually – to discover, through following Jesus, that this new world is indeed a place of justice, spirituality, relationship, and beauty, and that we are not only to enjoy it as such but to work at bringing it to birth on earth as in heaven.  In listening to Jesus, we discover whose voice it is that has echoed around the hearts and minds of the human race all along.” (Wright 2006, 92).

“When Jesus emerged from the tomb, justice, spirituality, relationship, and beauty rose with him.  Something has happened in and through Jesus as a result of which the world is a different place, a place where heaven and earth have been joined forever.  God’s future has arrived in the present.  Instead of mere echoes, we hear the voice itself: a voice which speaks of rescue from evil and death, and hence of new creation.” (Wright 2006, 116).

“The Spirit is given to begin the work of making God’s future real in the present.  That is the first, and perhaps the most important, point to grasp about the work of this strange personal power for which so many images are used.  Just as the resurrection of Jesus opened up the unexpected world of God’s new creation, so the Spirit comes to us from that new world, the world waiting to be born, the world in which, according to the old prophets, peace and justice will flourish and the wolf and the lamb will lie down side by side.” (Wright 2006, 124).

“God offers us, through the Spirit, the gift of being at last what we know in our bones we were meant to be: creatures that live in both dimensions of this created order.” (Wright 2006, 136).

“And it is all because of Jesus that we find ourselves called to live the way we do.  More particularly, it is through Jesus that we are summoned to become more truly human, to reflect the image of God into the world.” (Wright 2006, 140).

I know…that’s hot.

For: The Institute Of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt

“A Worship Artisan is not limited in his or her creative expression to corporate worship expressions. A worship artisan is both comfortable with, and able to engage with, varying contexts in which the goal is to encounter God corporately through the vehicle of music and accessible creative expression. However, a worship artisan is also comfortable expressing very unique and possibly obscure forms of art that find their place in bars, pubs, galleries, the street, stages and many other places.” (The Rise Of The Worship Artisan, n/d).

Is it terrible that I hate being in front of people even though I’m the worship director at my church and lead worship every 2 weeks?  Is that weird? Let me qualify that by saying that I love leading worship.  I love to lead in small groups and in large groups.  I don’t like, however, the moment everyone stops singing and just looks at the band.  We usually have announcements after the opening song, and I’m usually thinking, “Hurry up and get up here!”

People often tell me that they think I’m crazy because it’s the same thing to perform in front of people as it is to lead worship for people.  I say, “IT IS NOT THE SAME!!!!”  People aren’t suppose to be watching the worship team during worship.  And even if they are, it doesn’t matter…they’re not suppose to be watching us.  That makes the world of difference to me.

The article says that the “worship artisan is both comfortable with, and able to engage with, varying contexts in which the goal is to encounter God corporately through the vehicle of music and accessible creative expression” (The Rise Of The Worship Artisan, n/d).  AND that he/she “is also comfortable expressing very unique and possibly obscure forms of art that find their place in bars, pubs, galleries, the street, stages and many other places.” (The Rise Of The Worship Artisan, n/d).  What does that mean for me?  I’m comfortable with the first part, but do I have to comfortable with the second part?

Someone once told me that he thought that my extreme aversion to being on stage made me a better worship leader.  I suppose when you hate being on stage, you tend to try to direct attention away from yourself.  And in the case of leading worship, you try to direct the attention to God.

I know, I know…I have issues.  I definitely have fear issues.  I definitely have insecurities.  God and I are working on it.  But I feel like what Satan tries to use to hurt me, God is using for good.  Does that disqualify me from being a worship artisan?  I hope not.