e*g Week 1

Essentials Green - Worship Values

Week 1 Discussion Q&A

In what ways does your faith community currently embody the values of 1) Intimacy and 2) Integrity in your worship expressions? How are these values reflected in your own life as a leader?

ANSWER:

I struggle to communicate how these values are embodied in my church. The worship culture changed dramatically with the hire of a new worship leader a year ago and our main services took on more of an artist driven concert feel. Many people left, many new have come, and many stayed, yet struggle.

Casey Corum points out that intimacy is not about musical style or volume (1). I agree. I do believe, however, that intimacy in worship is deeply impacted by song choice. Unless we incorporate songs that express vulnerability, reverence and relationship with God, whether it be slow and soft or upbeat and impassioned, we will miss what Peter Fitch calls, “The supreme value of worship,” an intimate encounter with God (2).

INTIMACY: In our healing prayer ministry, intimacy is paramount. It is where worship gives language to the heart cries of broken, hurting people, desperately needing an encounter with God. I believe we do intimacy extremely well in this setting.

INTEGRITY: I lived an unintegrated life for a long time. Even as a known and respected worship leader, I had areas in my life that were not surrendered to God. You can pull this off for a while, but eventually it will catch up with you.

Because my inner life did not line up with my outer life, I made some horrible choices and ended up losing everything. As a result, I chose to deal with the ugliness inside and allow God to heal the broken places and bring me to a place of centeredness and integrity before Him and those around me.

I wouldn’t wish the circumstances of my journey on anyone, but I wouldn’t trade what God has done through them for anything (3). Pursue integrity - it is worth it!

1. Casey Corum, Back to Basics, Inside Worship Magazine, Vol. 62 2007, P. 2
2. Dr. Peter Fitch, The Supreme Value of Worship, Inside Worship Magazine, Vol. 45, October 2001, P. 4-5
3. Personal blog entry from the journey: http://safelythrough.blogspot.com/2009/03/run-east.html

e*r Week 3

Growing up in church, I have been around baptisms and Communion my entire life. I remember the ‘baptistry’ in the church building and the silver trays with mini juice cups. These elements took on ritual for me, but as I have grown, these rituals have taken on new life.

1. Baptisms that incorporate the language of space: In nature, at a beach, lake, river or even a pool, out in creation as Jesus was baptized in the Jordan. Seeing the sky and hearing the sounds of nature add so much to the experience.

2. Baptisms held within an atmosphere of worship with voices and instruments filling the air with songs of celebration while each person is “buried with Him in the waters of baptism, raised to walk in newness of life.”

3. Celebrating baptisms on Easter Sunday!

3. Observing Communion as a meal incorporating the themes of Passover.

4. One of the most powerful times of Communion in my experience was at a Sabbath retreat for pastors where I led worship. The one who set up Communion talked of the various feasts that the Jews observe. He then talked of the Wedding Feast of the Lamb that we will all enjoy together when God sets up the New Heaven and New Earth. "But until then," he said, "we would remember by observing this 'meal' together."

After eating the bread, we raised our little juice cups, as if they were glasses, as he offered a toast to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords for what He had done for us! Communion has never been the same. Even as I write, it brings chills. What a powerful moment.

e*r Week 2

Essentials Red Week 2 Discussion Q&A

We are now going to begin to mine the past, very intentionally, for jewels that might enrich our contemporary worship experience.

Reflect on the value of communal public prayer, and the public reading of the Scriptures in worship history. Given the historic importance of these practices and patterns of historic local communities:

"How could we freshly apply the worship languages of public prayer and scripture reading to our contemporary worship expression?"

ANSWER

I am currently teaching a class called, “Simply Worship” which is designed to raise up worship leaders for our cell group ministry. Most of my students are not musicians, but they have a heart to bring a worship expression to their groups.

The final week of the series is specifically designed to stir creative ideas for worship that do not involve music. I am incorporating the historical languages of worship (Time, Space, Prayer, Scripture, Symbolic Actions, Art and Music) as a backdrop to develop this class. As I look at the historical significance of prayer and scripture, I am compelled to place greater focus on these elements.

One of the beautiful blends of prayer and scripture that I will present is “Lectio Divina” or “Divine Reading”. This is a practice of reading of a short passage of Scripture multiple times, weaving directed prayer and listening in response to the passage. (For more information visit: http://www.fisheaters.com/lectiodivina.html)

Another idea I am presenting is using the Christian or liturgical calendar as a guide to choosing passages of scripture to be read aloud or responsively in the group. This will help draw focus to various aspects of the life of Jesus throughout the year and be a powerful step toward our own spirituality as Robert Webber discusses in his book (1).

Although songs are often our default, worship expressions reach far beyond the note sung or the instrument played. The primary goal is to provide a liminal space, a threshold, where people are able to connect and respond to God.

1. Robert E. Webber, Ancient-Future Time, Baker Books, Grand Rapids, 2004)

e*r Week 1

Moving on to Essentials Red 2010… Worship History

Question:

Become present for a moment to the ways that the gifts of time and space in your own worship history have formed you. Do you recall times and places that were meaningful to you in your own worship story, from the time you were a child until now?

For our first discussion post, discuss how these worship languages may have formed you as a Christian, as a worshiper, and as a leader. Feel free to integrate the other languages of worship into your post that are ahead in the course.

Answer:

I grew up in a Christian home and have been immersed in the church since my beginning. My upbringing was in a mainline denominational church as well as the Christian school it operated. I even attended a Christian college.

Sunrise services on Easter mornings, candlelight services on Christmas Eves, the reading of the Christmas Story from Luke 2 before opening gifts, Christmas and Easter choir cantatas, Good Friday services as well as baptisms, baby dedications and Communion, have all served to retell God’s story throughout my life. There was never an opportunity to forget.

Ritual was paramount in my church experience and as a result, I fostered a great relationship with religion, but a very skewed relationship with Father God. I needed some readjusting as I became an adult and am thankful that the way it was does not necessarily determine the way it will be. I am now in a place where I enjoy the richness of what was formerly ritual.

Time and space profoundly impacted me a few years ago when I was in a season of extreme brokenness. Music had fallen silent and I believed I would never lead worship or play guitar again. A specific song found me in a specific time (August 2008) and place (Perdido Key Beach, FL) and they are forever connected. As I revisit that beach or retell the story, the power of what God did that day becomes present yet again.

There is power in the remembering of His might acts.

e*b 2010 Week 4

For Essentials Blue Online Worship Training Course with Dan Wilt.

As Essentials Blue comes to a close, I have been asked to compile a Christian Worldview. What follows is where I landed...

In the beginning, God, in the most amazing creative expression, created. Eden stood in perfected beauty, yet God desired relationship with His creation. He made mankind who bore His image and His likeness and gave him the ability to articulate and reflect back to Himself the worship of all creation.

Man, however, chose to rebel and ultimately severed his relationship with his Creator. Sin and its consequences fell into the created order and God’s heart was deeply saddened.

All of time since has been marked by God’s relentless pursuit of man, to raise him up from his ‘bent’ position and bring him back into vertical communion with Himself (1). He calls to us through our desire for beauty and relationship, and through our longing for justice and spirituality (2).

God revealed Himself as the voice behind the echos through the person of Jesus. His rescue plan was not only enacted, but completed. Heaven met earth and “moved into the neighborhood” (3). No longer is man lost and without hope. No longer is heaven far away and distant. God is Creator, God is King over all, God is Trinity, God is Savior...and He is HERE!

God’s Kingdom has come. Heaven meets earth in every person in whom the Holy Spirit dwells. We are His Temple. It is our mission to be the hands and feet of the Kingdom to come, to be part of God’s new creation, to live as agents of the new creation here and now (4).

“It is time” as NT Wright says, “in the power of the Spirit, to take up our proper role, our fully human role, as agents, heralds and stewards of the new day that is dawning.” (5)

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

1.Leanne Payne, The Healing Presence (Grand Rapids: Hamewith Books, 1989, 1995) p. 59-60

NT Wright, “Simply Christian” Harper One, Grand Rapids, 2006, Part 1

John 1:14 (The Message)

NT Wright, “Simply Christian” Harper One, Grand Rapids, 2006 P. 236

Ibid. 237

e*b 2010 Week 3 Discussion Question and Answer

For: The Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt.

QUESTION:

Fully Human - What Does It Mean To Be A Human Being?

We're a quirky bunch, we human beings. In the whole of the created order (at least on planet earth) we uniquely bear the imago Dei, the image of God, expressing God's benevolent kingship in the world through governing, loving, stewarding, relating and tending to this world and one another.

Begin to define what it means to be human. In a sense, we're exploring who it is that we lead into worship. Use words, phrases and ideas from Simply Christian, and the vids and media in your piece. In other words, present a brief theological + anthropological (meaning "focused on humans) reflection that articulates what human beings are all about. Feel free to integrate ideas about the Garden, the Fall of humankind, etc., but you will spending more time on those ideas in the next weeks.

ANSWER:

We are a bunch of stumbling ragamuffins, prone to making mistakes and sin, however, even the most Godless still carry His image. That is why we can find God everywhere, even in what’s coming out of Hollywood and other “unsuspecting” places (1). We are drawn to the story because the echos speak, even when we don’t understand Who’s voice we are hearing.

We are creative beings, no matter how left-brained, or how stifled we may be. When we create, we bring glory to Father God. As we humans do with our own children’s creativity, He takes pleasure in what we create and hangs it on His refrigerator door. (2)

We carry His image as a reminder of His rule and reign. We are to steward the earth and care for it. We are to be carriers of His Shalom declaring that God is putting things to right. This brings the Kingdom to earth.

We are not meant to journey alone. We are called to live in “right-relatedness,” with each other (3). When we do, we demonstrate the Kingdom.

We are carriers of hope to a lost and dying world. Man is desperate to be part of something bigger than himself. It is our job to draw people toward their destiny. Just before he denied Him, Jesus called Peter “The Rock” on which He would build His church (4). Jesus was speaking to the man Peter would become. We reflect His image when we do the same.

Being fully human is not a bad thing, for it is not about embracing our fallenness, it is about embracing God’s image that lies inherently within.

1. Dan Wilt, Southeast Regional Worship Conference, Summer 2007

2. Manuel Luz, Imagine That: Discovering Your Unique Role as a Christian Artist, Moody Publishers, Chicago, 2009 p.37

3. Ed Gentry and Dan Wilt, Two Brothers on Righteousness, audio.

4. Matthew 16:18

e*b 2010 Week 2 Discussion Question and Answer

For: The Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt.

QUESTION:

Part A: How has your understanding of the theological phrase, the "Kingdom of God" been challenged/shaped by this section of Simply Christian?

Part B: What particular theological idea (within one of the four theological ideas on the Nature of God presented in Dan's material) do you believe has the most importance for the next 10-20 years of worship leadership? Why?

ANSWER:

This section of “Simply Christian” was incredibly stirring. The way NT Wright describes the story of Israel, and then the arrival, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus is powerful.

God’s Kingdom was totally backward to Jesus’ contemporaries. It introduced, “...what the true God was like, ... by loving one’s enemies, turning the other cheek, going the second mile (1). Jesus was God’s exclamation point on His rescue plan. Jesus was His answer to the echos that cry for beauty, justice, spirituality and relationship. Heaven met earth and they are joined forever.

I especially was challenged by the chapter dealing with the gift, ministry and “point” of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is not just heaven on earth, the Spirit is heaven IN us who believe. Wright points out that, “Without God’s Spirit, there is nothing we can do that will count for God’s Kingdom” (2).

I believe that the nature of God as Trinity is the most important idea for us as worship leaders. We live in an age where we have never been more connected technologically, yet never more isolated from each other. This world is filled with broken relationships and lonely people.

We need to communicate God’s heart and desire for relationship with us. We also need to love others unconditionally and give them a place to belong. The church often expects people to believe first, then belong. Kingdom thinking says otherwise: Let God draw man to Himself by loving them through us, the Temple, where heaven meets earth.

1. NT Wright, Simply Christian, Harper One, 2006, P. 101

2. Ibid. P. 122

Making Sense of the Voices

For: The Essentials Blue Online Worship History Course with Dan Wilt

Week 1 has been completed. And oh, what a journey it has been. The material is so rich, so powerful, so transformational.

I woke up this morning with an 'epiphany'. It is starting to click. It is beginning to make sense. There is much I am learning. Some of what I am learning is just for me. Some of it is for me to share with others. All of it is permeating how I am approaching the class I am about to teach.

My synthesis of the "Aa-ha moment" is this:

In her book, "The Healing Presence", author Leanne Payne talks about man being created in the Garden in perfect vertical communion and relationship with God. When man fell, he became "bent". He became focused on himself, on creation and on his desire to be like God. All of time since has been God's pursuit of man to bring Him back into the vertical position, back in perfect relationship with Him. (1)

Man was created for Eden… in perfect beauty. In Eden was ultimate fairness and justice. In Eden, man had unobstructed relationship with God. In Eden was full and complete spirituality. But man chose poorly, seeking to go his own way. Creation's relationship with Creator was broken. Sin entered the world and all of the consequences followed. The space in our spirit that God longed to fill became a gaping, empty hole.

God pursues us through the 4 voices we have been pondering this first week.

God, Who is beauty, calls out to us through creation, "Look at Me. I am beauty that will never fade.

God, Who is justice, calls out to us from the unfair and brokenness around us to say, "Look at Me. I am putting things to rights."

God, Who is Trinity, calls to us through our desire for relationship, "Look at Me. I created you to have relationship with Me. I desire relationship with you."

God, Who is spirituality, calls to us through our longing for something more in this life, "Look at Me. I am Who you seek. I am What you need. I am the only fit for the hole inside that longs for something more. I am the 'something more'. I am everything."

…to be continued.

(1) Leanne Payne, The Healing Presence (Grand Rapids: Hamewith Books, 1989, 1995) p. 59-60

Overwhelmed and Challenged… by Essentials Blue

For: The Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt.

I have been on a journey into Blue. Essentials Blue, that is. I have been "Stumbling into Mystery" as Dan Wilt puts it with the title of his eBook. I am attempting to grasp that which cannot be contained in my finite brain.

My journey begins with the echos of voices that point beyond themselves. The "longing for justice, the quest for spirituality, the hunger for relationships and the delight in beauty". (NT Wright, Simply Christian, Introduction page x). Which of these voices cries loudest to me? How are the worship songs being used today doing in expressing these voices? What about the songs I'm using?

Thoughts surrounding the echos swirl in my head. Every time I think of a song, I now run it through the paces, so to speak, to see if, what and how it handles these voices. But then, that was the point.

Which voice gets the most credit? Which voice seems to be neglected or inadequately expressed? How do I interpret these voices in my own life?

Questions have been raised. Answers are illusive.

I know the pieces will fall into place as the course continues, but the issue for me is that I am only 1 week away from teaching a series of classes designed to identify, train and equip worship leaders for my church's cell group ministry as well as our healing prayer ministry.

How do I capture and communicate the essence of worship Theology, that which I have been swimming in for only a week, in a 90 minute class? It seemed easy enough - until I dove in.

Now, I'm going to go try and stare at the sun. (NT Wright, Simply Christian, Part 2)

The Introduction to Essentially Cathy

OK, so I've been watching this worshiptraining.com thing evolve over the past three years since I met Dan Wilt at a Southeast Vineyard worship leaders conference I helped to plan and execute. In July 2008, I thought I was on my way to St. Stephen to do the official "Masters in Ministry" program. Just days after a conversation with Dan in the green room at a pastor's conference where we had just led worship, my world fell apart. I don't mean that I hit a bump or two. I mean my entire world, everything that I knew, everything I used to identify myself… was completely wiped out.

I spent the next year just trying to survive, regroup and heal.

Out of His sweet mercy, God placed me in a new church family, one that had nothing to gain, lose or protect by taking me in and embracing me. They had no frame of reference for who I was, what I did, or what I could do for them. I was just a broken woman in desperate need of some hope.

I found it.

Here I am a year and a half later standing face to face with my destiny. I'm still not back at 100% after those devastating losses. Nor does my life look anything like it did the summer of 2008. Nor would I trade what God has done through the losses, pain and brokenness for anything. But I know that my heart beats faster and stronger when I talk about developing worship leaders, when I dream of mentoring up the generation behind me to do what I've done for 20 years.

On the eve of 2010, I opened up yet another email from Dan advertising one of the Essentials courses and I felt God say, "It's time". It's time for me to jump into the pool and get equipped for the job that is before me - so here I am! Let's roll.