You are sitting in church. The worship leader asks you to stand and sing. You are surrounded by people. Your heart is heavy. Your mind is clouded by your ever-growing to-do-lists. Your heart is burdened by the quick, harsh words lashed out at your kids and husband, as you rushed trying to get to church on time. Now you are asked to sing. To lift up praises to your Father in Heaven. Feel like a hypocrite? I think we’ve all been there.
Do you just start singing out of habit? Out of duty? It almost feels like when you were a kid, in that school production, and you forgot the words.
Should I just mouth “W-A-T-E-R-M-E-L-O-N . . . W-A-T-E-R-M-E-L-O-N . . . ” over and over?
Here are a few tips that help me to personalize my worship time at church, and make it REAL:
1. For a moment, I stand quietly and confess my sin. 1 John 1:9 I ask God to search me… is there any wicked way in me Lord? Psalm 139:23-24
2. Lord, I ask that this time of worship would be honoring to you. Lord, let me glorify your name.
3. While singing a hymn, worship song, whatever. . . personalize it. Replace any “We” with “I”, any”Our” with “My”, etc…. For example:
We I fall downWe I lay our my crown
At the feet of Jesus
The greatness of
Your Mercy and love
At the feet of Jesus
And We I cry holy, holy, holy
And We I cry holy, holy, holy
And We I cry holy, holy, holy
Is the lambWe I fall downWe I lay our my crowns
At the feet of Jesus
The greatness of your
Mercy and love
Do this with ANY song! It is amazing how, when you start to do this (after confessing your sin), you will have an amazing, purposeful, God-honoring, personal time of corporate worship!
Weekend Wisdom and Worship is an opportunity for you to encourage other blogger-believers! Use the weekend to post some great verses, some inspiring quote, lyrics to a song, or a God-honoring music video.
If you want to share a post, feel free to comment with the link to your Weekend Wisdom and Worship post. If now, feel free to just leave a comment about your thoughts.
You are so right. What a great idea. God bless you and keep sharing with us how to look up when we feel pulled down.
Oh I definitely am going to do this next sunday! Thanks so much for sharing this 🙂 Blessings to you 🙂
Katy
I’m a minister and I find what you just posted incredibly encouraging and beneficial. Making sure your worship experience is transformational is incredibly important. Thank you for sharing these ideas with your readers.
great suggestions… sometimes it is hard to find the true focus and not simply sing the words… i find myself doing the “i” thing myself so many times!
oh. my. goodness.
1. i love the snow falling:)
2. for me it becomes so incredibly easy to focus on others around me – when i think “if i don’t sing, people are going to think i’m a *bad* christian”. what beautiful and simple ways to personalize worship. love this.
3. and i love, love, love that through our blogs we are getting to know one another – you are such a blessing already in my life!!!
I agree. Sometimes it’s better to arrive at corporate worship late and peaceful than hurried and resentful. Or even to not go at all. I think that when we are cantankerous before leaving home and can’t be completely free from that, then maybe we should stay home and get our hearts in place instead. ;O) I do like personalizing songs. I do it all the time.
http://www.areyouthere-god.com/2009/12/weekend-wisdom-worship.html
I missed you this weekend…been a bit busy with a new little one.
Hope to catch you again in the coming weeks.
Blessings.