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This video focuses on what is the definition of worship and what it means to worship God without singing songs. He defines worship as exalting something above oneself with the thought that it will ultimately satisfy yourself. You can worship anything because it is focused on satisfying yourself. Bob Kauflin emphasizes the idea that worship should be trinitarian or else even a Muslim can say it and we need to be able to make these distinctions. Worship without music looks like Hebrew 13:15-16. It is the living out of life in everyday circumstances which shows our response to God giving us all of these lavish things, such as doing joyful service. It is doing the right things in response to grace. The biggest point is how to respond to the mercy God has given to us. I can apply this knowledge to my personal life by learning how to enjoy the mercy that God has given us to the fullest to show my appreciation for him. I need to change my mindset of worship. Before I used to think that wor...

This is going to be covering the most material but at the same time being quite straightforward and simple. These chapters cover the idea of relationships and the different people and societies that you might be in a relationship with. The first chapter is about how to take stock of your current relationships and making sure that they are in the best place they could be at the moment. And it also address what to do when faced without a problem in said relationships. The second chapter talks about your relationship with the congregation and church. It mainly focuses on compliments and critiques and the best ways to receive them without looking too deep into what they might be meaning by saying these things. We need to keep an open heart and understand that there is a reason why they are saying these things and be grateful for them taking the time to tell us these things. The third chapter confronts the relationship we might have with our team. It talks about how we need to have a team w...

Wow the last chapter of Part three of Worship Matters. This last part is addressing the idea of worship events and the idea that we should worship everyday. We need to understand that gathering together on Sunday for church is a physical representation of our love for God and a representation of our unity under God. But we also need to just have that time for ourselves set aside and worship God solely for ourselves. I can apply this to my life by remembering that I need to find time everyday to worship God, but I also need to take the fact that there is church on Friday into account and cannot just brush off that fact since it is very important.

This chapter I found really interesting to me. First off was the skilled and authentic part. We need to find the perfect balance in order to truly please God. If we force ourselves to the point where we are only focusing on the technical aspect. We need to also not be so driven by the passion that we forget to practice and that we believe God is pleased with the attitude more than skill. We need to find a perfect mixture so that we can excite people to worship God by our attitude and our technical capabilities. Next is chapter 26 and what I really enjoyed was how he compared the church and visitors to his home/family and visitors. We truly care for our family in a different way than we care for our guests, but we need to have the same energy for our guests that we use for our family. I feel like these two chapters go hand in hand. We need to definitely find a balance in both of these things in order to excite our family in church and the guests that may end up joining our family. If ...

These two chapters continue the ideas concerning healthy tensions. Chapter 23 concerns the ideas of Planned and Spontaneous, we need to be prepared for situations that we cannot necessarily plan for. If someone stops singing or a person misses a cue we all need to adapt to that change and continue to play. The end of the chapter states that we need to practice with spontaneity in the practice sessions. By doing this we will be able to react relatively well to each other in the performances. We will also gain a better understanding of our fellow band mates and understand how they react in certain situations and help them. In Chapter 24 the main ideas are rooted and relevant. These are pretty big because the idea of worship is constantly changing from person to person. It may seem bad to be rooted in the past ways of worship but you can benefit from them, because you have a standard which you can always refer to in case you stray off the path too much. But it also pays to be relevant tha...

Wow the grind is real and exhausting. We have reached chapter 22 and I would like to thank everyone who has stuck with me till this point. This chapter is only about two things, the vertical and horizontal aspects of worship. Concerning the vertical aspect of worship we need to understand God’s glory is the end of our worship, and not simply a means to something else. In the midst of a culture that glorifies our pitiful accomplishments in countless ways, we gather each week to proclaim God’s wondrous deeds and to glory in his supreme value. And concerning the horizontal aspect it can be seen as a more direct aspect. We might take time to pray for those battling life-threatening illnesses. Someone may share a prophetic impression for older saints. We might honor an individual or specific group in the church for their faithful service or godly example. I can apply this to my life by trying to focus on one of these aspects and really concentrate on how I can practice my worship using on...

Continuing the grind we are going to be putting out another part this week. This time it is chapter 21 concerning the Internal and External ways of worshipping God. The chapter starts out by saying that we will never know someone's true intentions concerning singing just by looking at their external appearance while worship. They might just be trying to draw attention to themselves, they may just be a bunch of extroverts who normally worship that way, or actually be worshipping God biblically. The next Part is named leading your church to God- honoring expressiveness. In this part it is split into smaller categories the main ones being how to direct people to God and the gospel and teaching about appropriateness and limitations of physical expression. In a way we need to naturally react to God in a way that expresses our honor and awe towards him.  I need to apply this to my life and make sure that I need try to worship for the right reasons and not to show off to the others aro...

Wow what a treat huh. We are also going to be covering chapter 20 this week as well. This chapter is going to be a continuation of the last part and what is connecting them is the idea of how to maintain healthy tensions in these things. It is a relatively short chapter split into three parts. Using your head, using your heart, and keeping emotions in check. The first part concerns God wanting our worship to be intelligent and informed. God wants us to go beyond the surface level interpretation of the songs and verses used and try to find the hidden meaning for us. We can also expand our surface level interpretations into something that everyone ranging from non believers, children and adults can comprehend by defining words and connecting them. Next is using your heart, this part is about how we can stir up our emotions from the heart to be something more than just shallowly celebrating God. He is addressing the major problem of churches to be the shallow and non passionate worship an...

In the next couple chapters we will be reviewing the nine different kinds of healthy tensions as stated in the previous chapter. This chapter focuses on the two which are transcendent and immanent. Transcendent means that God is independent from and superior to his creation. As we worship God, we must recognize that he is not us. We have to know the appropriate response to God being transcendent which is to honor and respect him. Worship that approaches God casually loses sight of this truth. In our sincere desire to help others view God as approachable, we must not forget that God is wholly unlike us. Next up the book states that God’s immanence takes on radical new meaning for Christians: God is not only with us—he actually dwells in us. Finally the chapter talks about how to maintain healthy tensions in God's immanence and transcendence. One option is to recognize that different services can reflect different themes. I need to apply these to my life so I can slowly understand ...

Now entering a new exciting chapter starting off with this amazing chapter about our Guiding Principles. What I believe is the most important part of this chapter even though they are all important are the three basic principles. The three principles are Do what God clearly commands, Don’t do what God clearly forbids, and Use scriptural wisdom for everything else. We have to learn how to incorporate these three principles into our lives and we will eventually branch out and continue to learn more as we get more familiar to these three principles. Next in the chapter it talks about how we can learn from others and this stems from other people agreeing on the same BASIC PRINCIPLES and how they can bring different ideas but they all come from the same beginning. Finally the chapter talks about healthy tension where our goal is to evaluate everything and see where we can do some-thing better. In the next couple chapters we will be addressing the concept of healthy tensions and go more into...

This chapter was quite interesting and opened a new door into Christianity for me. This blog is split into multiple sections that talk about what worshiping will make us. I'm going to be talking about the first three sections, which are worshiping God should make us humble, secure and grateful. First is that worshiping God should make us humble. We have to understand that we are worshipers of God because Jesus died and rose to make us one, not because we earned the right to be one. Next is that worshiping God should make us secure. Our security ultimately rests in the unchanging love of God, most gloriously displayed at Calvary. Finally, worshiping God must make us grateful. The truth is, we’re all doing much better than we deserve. Because of our sin, we all deserve hell. We need to understand that we should be grateful to even be given an opportunity to worship him. I really need to follow these guidelines and worship God and feel all these things. I need to continue to shape ...

This chapter was really interesting and touched me very personally. At the beginning of the chapter he talks about how we can truly enjoy God's presence and in the end will inevitably end up enjoying, anticipating, and pursuing God's presence. First, we need to enjoy his presence and in order to do that we need to understand that God wants to be in the presence of his people and we are the link between him and the people with the music and the talents he has given us. Next is that we need to pursue God and in order to pursue God properly we need others to help us and we need to help others as well. Finally we need to anticipate where God is going to be and we know that God will be in heaven waiting for us and knowing this gives us the comfort to support him the best way that we can here on earth. This chapter really touched me because I needed to find and cherish God when I was younger but because I didn't I ended up drifting further away from him and I feel like we all n...

Last chapter was focused on how we as worship leaders can end up motivating the congregation while not seeming like we are trying to force our ideals on them. This chapter is continuing on that idea but focusing more on how to proclaim the gospel in different ways. First, we need to understand what exactly the word proclaim means. Luckily, it is defined in the first line and is said that proclamation means displaying the truth about God. We might wonder why we have to proclaim but it says that we were saved for that very reason. We want to proclaim to others the wonders of a God and have them saying that the gospel of Jesus Christ Matters. There is a huge section in the middle explaining how we can connect the Gospel of God with our life. However, I wish to focus on the part that talks about how we can proclaim the Gospel together and to yourself. As we help people understand the relationship between God’s love for us in Christ and our daily struggles and challenges, their love and app...

It has been a while since the last post but moving on to chapter 14 is much easier than I thought. As it is stated in the title you can clearly see this chapters focus is the motivation of the church's society. The chapter jumps into an example that many worship leaders can relate with and that is motivating the band to follow them. It immediately follows that example by telling us that there are many different ways that we can be incorrect in trying to motivate others. A few would be that we don't want to force everyone to worship God and try to motivate the people through manipulation. We have to understand that sometimes we will not be able to motivate the worshippers and that only God can illuminate a worshiper’s heart. But he often uses means to do that. And three important means are my example, my exhortations, and my encouragement. My example means that we need to check our facial expressions and other things while worshipping so we can set an example for the worshippers...

I believe that the main point of the chapter is explicitly stated for us in the title of this chapter. We need to plan out our songs that will be used for worship when we plan on worshiping. The biggest problem when we try to select songs for upcoming worship is that we try to find the songs that will benefit or highlight us or the music and will excite the audience when we should be trying to find songs for a God. We can follow ten principles stated in the book to guide our judgement when choosing songs. First we need to plan selectively, we must categorize the song choices and choose from the songs that communicate the truth about God in a clear and compelling manner. Second, we need to plan peacefully. We shouldn't panic if we haven't heard of a new song and should trust in a God to help us choose the right songs even if they aren't the one we were thinking of. Third, we need to plan prayerfully. We need to understand that God is there to help us through our prayers just...

I focused on the aspect of how being emotionally affected by music and actually worshiping God aren’t the same thing, and no one should know this better than worship leaders. Music can move people to tears but we need to show that it is not only the music but the word of God and just that God has the power and music is just a tool to convey that to people who think differently. The chapter continues to go into more details about how music helps and how to choose and integrate the many different parts of music into a worship worthy song. I can apply this personally because I never really took into account the different aspects of the songs such as solos or the lyrics, but now I am intrigued and want to try to examine the music more closely and see what changes I can make to help the worship and see what changes may hurt the overall experience and try to avoid such thing since in the future.

This chapter seems to focus on how we can apply God's word not only in our worship but also through our daily lives. The book says that we can sing, read, show, and pray God's word. See may seem similar but they are quite different. Songs teach us who God is, what he’s like, and how to relate to him. Too often we can be tempted to choose songs because of the music rather than the theological content. We need to realize that when words are combined with music we can be deceived. Reading a Scripture passage can help people understand why we’re singing the next song. The same can be seen through showing and praying God's word. I can see this around me and in myself. I see myself forgetting sometimes that we have to integrate all parts of God including his word when I worship and in how I act. Seeing this chapter helped me change my view of how I worship again. Slowly throughout this book I have been learning more and more about the way to truly worship. I hope that I will be...

This chapter primarily focuses on how Worship has failed to magnify the greatness of God in Christ because we attempt to worship God apart from the Holy Spirit. We have to still understand that the Holy Spirit is part of the triune of God and key in worship. If we acknowledge our dependence on God’s Spirit and eagerly expect him to be working in power, then we should be humbly responsive to what he is doing. We need to shape our worship around the triune and hope that if Spirit is working through us as we convey the message to others that we will know when the Holy Spirit is no longer empowering us and change our approach towards worship to be more efficient. I can apply this to my life by changing my view on worship some more. I need to now add the Holy Spirit into my idea of what worship is and acknowledge that worship without the Spirit is powerless. I need to find a way to change my worshiping so that the spirit can work through my life and that others can see this happen.

There are several parts to this chapter the first being about Jesus now being our temple. It talks about how the Israelites used to worship and show their adoration towards God in the temple. It continues to talk about how Jesus said that they should destroy this temple and he will raise it up in three days. We have to acknowledge that Jesus was the "temple" that he was talking about and that our worship isn't not defined by the location but by our attitude. The next major part is knowing where Jesus takes place in our worship and he takes the role of the mediator between us and God. We can see Jesus acting as a mediator when he died for us on the cross in order to bring us closer to God. The last part that I would like to bring forward out of this chapter is at the end. How to glory in the cross of Christ. We first have to identify what exactly does the cross signify. The book states that the cross not only shows the magnitude of God's love for us but also the magnit...

The main focus of chapter eight would be the idea that we eventually, no matter how great your faith, will end up making God's greatness smaller than what it should be just because we end up being stressed with all the little things in our lives. Since we are human we often lose our perspectives on things very easily and this can inevitably lead to problems in our regular and spiritual lives. The author states that in order to truly appreciate God's greatness we have to be clear and specific. We need to remind everyone that joins us for worship of the greatness of God through our music. If our songs aren’t specific about God’s nature, character, and acts, we’ll tend to associate worship with a style of music, a heightened emotional state, a type of architecture, a day of the week, a meeting, a reverent mood, a time of singing, or a sound. We’ll think of all the things that accompany worship rather than the One we’re worshiping. Worse, we’ll create our own views of God, portrayi...