Teaching Worship

Worship is not just singing. It is not just going to church. It is not just prayer or living a "holy" life. Worship is giving glory back to God for who He is. Many people think worship is music alone. They think it is the time on Sunday mornings when everyone sings and half-heartedly sings the words from the screen. Where did we get that idea?

At the same time, worship must be taught.

Psalm 100: 1-2

Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. Serve the LORD with gladness: come before His presence with singing.

When we sing we can do one of 2 things: we can truly worship the Lord with gladness, thus making music in His ears, or we can make music before men. In that, we glorify ourselves and not God at all. It is in all of our natures to be prideful, but that is sin before God. As a musician myself, trained in vocal performance, this is something that I have battled with and, I daresay, ANYONE in the field of music has this same battle.

Singing for me is easy. It is a talent I have had since a little child. I knew I was good at singing pretty early on. No one had to teach me to do it because it was in my heart and on my lips. Music has always resonated deeply within me. I do not have many memories of really young ages, but one occurred when I was only 3 years old. I was in my room listening to a Psalty tape (gosh, I miss that guy!) and the song "I Love You, Lord," came on. For an inexplicable reason it resonated in my soul and I began to cry, not understanding why I was crying. I remember trying to tell my mom why I was sad.....it was simply because it touched me.....at age 3.

Worship, though, is something that I had to learn. Worship began truly happening in my life as a process. Worship is letting go of you, and clinging to God......glorifying Him with the gifts and talents that He has given us! I learned a huge lesson in worship when I was in college and was told that I may never sing again as I had large nodules on my vocal cords. I relapsed 3 times and had moments when for weeks I was unable to talk, let alone sing, to try and restore my voice. During that time I learned to worship in my HEART alone as nothing could come from my lips.

I pray that I may be able to teach my children to worship in its truest form.....beyond singing alone.

My daughter is gifted in music as am I. We are steering her in the musical direction because we know that is where some of her talent lies like it did with me as a child. My son is only 3 years old, but I know at this point that my son is......TONE DEAF. No, he really is. It is kinda cute, really, but he is as tone deaf as my husband which is about as bad as it gets (I love you, Greg!!!). My son is also speech delayed so he is really only beginning to talk right now. But he is trying so hard!!!!

But this morning in the car, I know for a fact that the angels in heaven were rejoicing over the sweet music that came from my tone deaf son's dear sweet lips. He was indeed making a joyful sound before the Lord. He was singing along with the "Revelation Song" singing "Ho-wee ho-wee ho-wee.....God aaah-ee" (Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty)......and we were raising our hands together in praise singing "Here I am to worship, here I am to bow down, here I am to say that You're my God."

It doesn't matter what you sound like. It matters what your heart sounds like to God. It matters that you worship outside of church on Sunday and that you serve the Lord with gladness.

Like teaching your kids to walk, talk, ride their biks, obey, eat their veggies, clean up after themselves.....you must also teach them to worship both by modelling it and by actually talking about it and showing them.

May we continue to learn to worship God more fully every day that we live.