Worship At LCC

 Well friends, if you were not at The Summit at Lancaster Community Church last Sunday evening, you truly missed out. I can't even begin to explain or describe the powerful wave of God that swept through our church that night. The view from behind the keyboard, watching the room just exploding with worship was incredible-hands raised, hearts engaged, voices belting out God's praises. It was a powerful bonding experience too- the sight of many men of our church worshiping together with arms linked in the front of the church will forever be in my mind. All the chatter on Facebook and watching our friendships begin and develop is such a blessing. It was a really special time. I still smile when I think about it. Sunday was a special day for me for a couple reasons- first of all, it was the Sunday that Matt Johnson was announced as Lead Pastor of LCC. We've had the privilege of working with Matt as worship leaders for four years. He's a very gifted, dynamic teacher and leader. I can't wait to see where God is going to lead our church under his direction. Secondly, it was my first Sunday as Worship Director. I have always hoped and prayed for an opportunity like this, but the timing has just never been right until now. I am so blessed to be able to jump in at this particular time at LCC. The Lord is certainly stirring in the hearts of His people at LCC and I see it as an honor and huge responsibility to help facilitate the proper, biblical atmosphere at our church for Him to reveal His glory to us, and to craft our proper, biblical responses to His revelation. 


 As I've started working on shaping and directing worship at LCC, I have come up with 2 main goals or priorities. The first goal deals with individual worship practices while the second goal revolves around corporate worship. 


1. The Importance of the Prepared Heart and Mind
I want LCC to be a church where worship is an individual way of life, not isolated to 20 minutes of singing songs on Sunday. In order to accomplish this, we need to emphasize the importance of the Prepared Heart and Mind. We can't waltz in on Sunday after living a week in which we rarely considered the Kingdom of God and our place in it, yet expect God to show Himself to us. We can't expect God to just suddenly be conjured up and make us feel happy and good while we sing a few worship songs on Sunday. This mentality has got to go. I believe that Sunday evening at the Summit, God laid the foundation for a Worshiping Community.  In his book, Worship Matters, by Bob Kauflin, he writes "A worshiping community is made up of individuals whose lives are centered around the Savior  they worship together each week. A worshiping community expects to encounter God 's presence not only on Sunday morning but every day. A worshiping community recognizes that passionate times of singing God's praise flow from and lead to passionate lives lived for the glory of Jesus Christ. " That's what we're aiming for, but how do we get there? We've got to get our minds and hearts centered on Christ. We've got to all, as Katie Harden shared Sunday evening at the Summit, "get our noses in the word." We've got to make the commitment to know the scriptures- to become students, scholars, and theologians. Yes, we have a gifted teacher at LCC, but he can't give us all the knowledge that our lives require in a forty minute message on Sunday. It's time to be immersed in the word of God. If I'm being honest, until very recently, I read the Bible and enjoyed it, but I sometimes found myself reading out of a sense of duty rather than out of a feeling of desire. Just lately, I have experienced an awakening- I want to know the Word, and more importantly, the Giver of the word. I want to know who God is, how He works, and how He wants us to worship Him. 


But knowledge is not enough- we've got to access and open our hearts as well. Throughout the week, we need to find ways to kindle our relationship with the Lord, so that by the time Sunday arrives, the corporate worship time we have is not much different than what we've experienced on a daily basis. It's a lot like marriage really- if my husband never spoke to me affectionately, never took the time to be with me for 6 whole days because he was too busy, too tired, too distracted, too...whatever,  and then all of a sudden wanted to whisk me off on a hurried date and expect me to be responsive and accepting of the fact that we had little to no contact all week long up to that point, I would be a little beyond upset. I think this is, sadly, the approach that we use with God sometimes. We've got to come against this with great diligence and discipline. It's time to ignite a deep relationship with the Lord. It's time to get serious about our part in the relationship with the Savior. It's time to develop meaningful prayer habits and take time out of the day to be still before the Lord and hear from Him. It's time to transfer those songs that we sing on Sunday into everyday- when you're driving to work- sing loud to God! He doesn't care if you have a beautiful voice or not. He looks at the heart, and a beautiful heart is one that makes the worship of God a priority above all else. Cultivating a relationship with God takes time and commitment and in our culture of instant everything, we may feel frustrated by the pace. But it's going to be worth it- our God is so immense in love, wisdom, and character that it takes more than a lifetime to begin to understand His ways- so how can we think for a minute that the process of getting to know Him will be quick, easy, and painless? It's a lifelong journey of the heart and mind to experience the greatness of God and I'm excited to partner with the people of LCC on the journey.


2. Lost in Wonder, Love, and Praise
The second priority for worship at LCC is that we need an atmosphere where corporate worship can happen. I love the final verse from the hymn "Love Divine, All Love Excelling" by Charles Wesley, 


Finish then thy new creation
Pure and spotless let us be;
Let us see thy great salvation,
Perfectly restored in thee,
Changed from glory into glory,
Till in heaven we take our place,
Till we cast our crowns before thee,
Lost in wonder, love, and praise!


To be "lost in wonder, love, and praise" is a lofty goal. It requires excellence and diligence on the part of the worship teams at LCC and it requires open and expectant hearts on the part of the congregation. It requires us all to put aside distractions and focus our attention and affections on God. As we worship here, on earth, corporately, we're getting a glimpse of what eternity will be like. We've got to start practicing now! We all caught a glimpse at The Summit Sunday evening I think- the beautiful feeling of surrender and connection to a Holy God- His presence raining down, displacing all of our brokenness and sin. It was an amazing experience that I pray is just the beginning of what is to come at our church and in our daily lives. I've tried to figure out what exactly triggered such an outpouring of the Spirit on Sunday evening and I truly believe it boils down to the fact that people  came ready and willing to surrender and worship. I also believe that a lot of prayer prepared the way. I don't believe that it had to do with skill or excellent music- I would bet that if someone got up and led worship with a banjo, we might have seen the same effects :) Ok, maybe not a banjo, but you get my point. God was poised to move and was just waiting on us to open our hearts to Him and surrender. It was a beautiful night that I will never forget. Speaking of excellent music, we're blessed beyond imagination to have the number of talented musicians that we have in our church, Proportionately, it just doesn't make statistical sense that we would have such a concentration of talented, gifted, God-seeking musicians. The most important element of a worship team is making sure that the team members are worshipers, onstage and off. The state of our hearts and minds is of supreme importance to us. We're going to be very purposed about preparing our hearts and minds so that we can lead others to the throne of God with great confidence. We're working hard to ensure that all that we do is excellent. We're creating events, like The Summit, where passion for God can be fueled and ignited in unique ways. I'm also encouraged to see many talented artists emerging in our church. I love the idea of varied responses to God- some of them not even including music. We serve a very creative God and I believe, being created in His image, that He desires for us to respond to Him creatively. I love the thought of a community of artists emerging within our church, commissioned to create art that reflects our Creator and displays His attributes for the world to see.  In all that we do at LCC, our main desire is that God would receive the glory and praise.  We never want to substitute talent, skill, ability, or gifting for what God is truly after- our hearts fully and authentically surrendered to Him in worship. 


God has certainly started something amazing in our church and in our hearts. My prayer is that we continue to hunger and thirst for Him, that our hearts are open to His love, our minds immersed in His word, and our feet and hands ready to serve the waiting world. 


Grace and Peace,
Carrie