Teleos Blog that we may present everyone complete in Christ

The Noise We Make: Making an ImpactPosted by Phil on October 28th, 2008

how many times have you walked out of a worship service or religious gathering feeling refreshed, reenergized, and refocused on God and His ministry? and how many times does that feeling fade by the next day? in concluding our short series on worship we looked at the next step, what happens when we come ready to experience God, God shows up, and we actually are able to redirect our focus and attention where it belongs? not to down play the actual experience of God in a corporate worship setting or the transforming power of a moment of spiritual redirection but is it possible that refocusing our attention on God is really only the first step in truly worshiping our Savior? does our task of continually worshiping God reach it’s culmination at a worship service or is really a spring board to so much more?

we first took another look at what God has to say about experiencing Himself. in genesis 33 moses writes about a particular encounter he had with God. God had called moses to lead his people and moses had come to realize that God would be with him and would follow through on His promises to deliver the israelites but moses still was not satisfied and asked for more, moses’ request was simple:

“show me you glory”

God responds by giving moses a location in which HE will allow moses to experience an aspect of Himself. God tells moses that He will allow his glory to pass by and He will cover moses with His hand (his hand?) in order to protect him, and then God says:

“I will remove my hand (from your face) and You will see my back, but my face must not be seen”

scholars have debated this interpretation of God’s back for sometime and one popular interpretation of this concept of “God’s back” is not a physical aspect of God but more so “where God just was.” if God is so big and so powerful and the best we can do is experience where God’s glory “just was” how can we possibly limit our experience and ultimately our worship of our God to simply focusing on God himself? the problem now becomes this: if we desire to grow closer to God (something God also desires) and we do so by focusing on God himself, how do we grow closer to something we cannot grasp or ever fully understand?

1 John 4:7-9 talks about what it means to be close to God, what it means to know God.

“whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love”

to know God is to love. is it possible that we sometimes focus to much on God the ideological person (which we can never fully understand anyways) and not enough on what God is, what He stands for, and what He desires?

if worship is loosely defined as experiencing God, if the purpose of experiencing God is to know God more, and if to know God is to love, is not the ultimate purpose of worship to love others with the love that God has for people? and if this is the case, then is not the corporate worship we participate in merely the pep rally for the big game of loving others?

so many times we walk out of a worship service or come home from a spiritual retreat refocused on God we miss the point that now that God has our attention He is again calling all of us to so much more and we miss this call everyday. we can’t stop the process of worship at refocusing our attention on the creator, we must take the glorification of our God to the next level by spreading the love that is missing from so many parts of our world.

special thank to jason for his time and insight. sounds like a great night.

The Noise We Make: Expect an EncounterPosted by Phil on October 20th, 2008

what do you look forward to when you come to church? community? music? learning about God? couldn’t we experience all of those more deeply outside of our weekly services? really….i can have deeper conversations and experience community better over coffee than sitting in a service. i can get better music at a concert or possibly learn more in my own personal study or an in depth Bible study.

the most important aspect in a worship service is experiencing God…having a personal encounter with our Savior. now, we can have this encounter on our own, but it is more fully realized in the community of people. in the same way a movie can be funnier with a group of friends than alone, or a vacation takes on more memories with family or friends than it does alone. so sunday mornings are designed for an encounter with God that goes far beyond a knowledge of God.

come near to God and he will come near to you. -James 4:8

imagine 2 chairs on opposite sides of the room both facing the same wall. not much of an encounter will happen that way. there’s a huge gap in the way. but if we pick up our chair and move it closer and facing the other chair, it invites the other party to move theirs closer. we get this picture here that if we move toward God, he’ll pick up his chair and set it right in front of ours…knee to knee….face to face. and this is written all in the context of a corporate worship setting. listen to the verbs here…submit, resist, come near, wash, purify, change, and humble. hey church….come meet with me.

how many times do we leave a service and say, “oh, the music was good, the message was nice, but there was something missing….there was no moment”? how many times? if you look back at those times, can you really say that you wanted and tried to come near to God? or were you expecting it to just magically happen?

God wants us to have those moments of awe…a personal encounter with Him every week. that’s why we prepare. we prepare, we practice, and we expect that we can encounter God when we come to worship.

special thanks to aaron for taking the time and sharing with us.

The Noise We Make: Get ReadyPosted by Phil on October 13th, 2008

God has called us to gather together to worship. which seems a little unusual since during worship we are to focus on God and not the people around us. so God has brought us together in a crowd to be alone with Him.  there’s something in the gathering of His people praising together that brings Him joy…i can live with that.

but as i’ve been preparing for this series, i’ve come over this concept of noise over and over. it seems that every new song i hear talks about singing, shouting, sound….something. if you want one of the songs that’s been floating around my mind, you can watch the video for the sound of melodies by leeland here.

i don’t think many of us would question or doubt that God wants us to worship together. but our focus was on how do we get ready to worship? maybe that’s making an assumption….i guess i should start with the question….do you prepare for worship?

in school, if you want to succeed on a test, you prepare for it. you spend time studying the material, you get a good nights rest, start the morning with a good breakfast. studies even show that the way you dress can improve your performance in school…that wearing pajamas to a test can leave your mind in a still lazy and tired state. well, why wouldn’t the same be true when it comes to gathering together to worship God. couldn’t i be more “successful” and get more out of a worship experience if i prepare myself for it.

read Psalm 24. it basically tells us that if you want to rightfully stand before God to worship, you should make sure you have clean hands, a pure heart, and no other idols distracting you from who you’re there to worship.
1 Corinthians 11 talks about communion and coming to communion without examining your heart. communion is just one of many forms of worship. paul basically tells the people, “you showed up to worship, but you’re just having dinner. no worship was done here.”
the Jews in preparing for the sabbath got everything ready the night before so they didn’t have to worry about anything on their day of rest or their day of worship.
last year on Sunday morning, we went through a series on the Psalms of Ascent. a series of songs and poems the people recited in order to get their minds and hearts prepared for worship as they made their journey to Jerusalem.

so how can you prepare for worship?

• get ready to worship the night before. confess sin and make sure you are right with God before so it’s not a distraction when you come to worship. go to bed early so you can focus better during the worship time.
• be like a boyscout and always be prepared. have a checklist of the things you need to have that will help you worship best. be sure to have your Bible, a pen, notebook, maybe water, cough drops, gum. who knows what it might be that will help you get the most out of your time of worship.
• show up on time….or be there early. it seems like a small stupid thing, but get there a few minutes early so you can sit down and focus your heart to worship. ask God to bless your time together and ask that you could be a blessing to him.

i found a blog from a children’s pastor while getting ready for this lesson. it had an incredible prayer on preparing one’s heart for worship. it’s a prayer i should say each week as i ready my heart to come before the God i love.

I choose to prepare for worship today so that I may gather with fellow believers to bring honor to God. My motive focuses on obedience so that I may come before him in the public assembly with the community of believers to honor him in sacrament, praise, Scripture reading and prayer.
So it is with thanksgiving that I choose to worship today. It is with determination that I choose to prepare my heart and mind to bring glory to God. It is with holy fear, coupled with the bold wonder of a child, that I enter into his throneroom of grace. With such a posture, my heart can be prepared, purified and focused on what really matters.
Selfishness has no place. All that matters is bringing honor to God and encouraging others in their faith. It is a good day to worship in the fellowship of the saints. So come, let’s worship the Lord God together.

it’s possible that you can come to church and still miss worship. prepare yourself so you can worship God in the manner He deserves and you can be ready to be blessed by Him.

Retreat…and ConnectPosted by Phil on October 6th, 2008

i hope everyone remembered that we were not meeting sunday night due to the fall retreat.  but we had a great time at kalahari and will hopefully have pictures up on the website as soon as we can.

the focus of the trip was to retreat, recharge, and reconnect.  read through the gospels and count how many times you read about Jesus taking time to get away and pray or just to retreat to a solitary place.  so often we get caught up with school, work, tensions at home, being stuck in a routine, and we can’t ever seem to get recharged.  sometimes it’s important just to get away.  it gives you a chance to take a deep breath you wouldn’t have taken at home.

so the goal became figuring out how to help you recharge.  it was a pretty slow weekend so take an hour to sit and read, take time for a nap, spend time with people, or maybe it was important just to have some fun.  all of those can provide a great opportunity to connect with God and with the people around you.

sorry for those of you who missed out this weekend.  but remember that from time to time….you need to break away so you have a chance to recharge.