Fully Human (Essentials Blue Fall 08)

For: The Institute Of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephens University, Essentials Blue Online Theology Course with DAN WILT”

The more I do this week by week I realized how much more I need to learn about worship, I think I said this same thing as a replied to Matt’s post, wow, we have not even scratch the top of this. Worship is so much more than what I think, hahaha!.

This week has been great and exiting, one question came up was, in what way do I see us as we worship God?, I think it is very easy to take for granted the great responsibility we have as worship leaders, the job we have is great, we are call to encourage ( AND WHAT I MEAN WITH ENCOURAGE IS: ” NOT JUST SAY GOOD JOB TO PEOPLE, BUT, TO ENCOURAGE IS TO HAVE THAT COMMITMENT TO SEE SOMEONE GROW, TO INVEST IN THEM AND PUT THEM FIRST THAN US“).

Chapter 11 of “Simple Christian” by N.T Wright starts talking about What does his kingdom means to us? do we give  worth to it?  What is worship? ” is to acknowledge of something or someone“. Also Steve Robbins mentions a quote from C.S. Lewis, who said that giving ourselves to praise results in a “glorious release of the inner being”. There is great consequences as we worship together, as a body. As I read the book and  see the creation as Dan describes it, I am encouraged to worship the Lord because of what He has done. In p.151, N.T Wright gave the example of drinking wine from a real glass of wine, what I understood from it ( and I hope I understood right!) is that we need to take full advantage of knowing God, like tasting wine in a plastic cup is not as good as tasting it in a real glass, that  is the same way worshiping, we need to go all out in the presence with “THE BEST” ( I hope this made sense!).

Page 157 has a great quote about the habits of Worshiping together, it says: “What matters is not so much HOW we go about it as THAT we go about it“. Wow, this is awesome, what I get from this is that I need to do it with all my heart, but not just by myself, but in a corporate way,in community. Again, this is stuff we hear all the time but is great to hear it again.

Also, I was  listening to Dan talking in the video (Dan Wilt, Week 3: Essentials Worship Theology – The Nature Of Human Beings, Audio), we hear again about God as Creator, and I can not get tired of hearing about this quality of God. All new things comes from Him, as I think about my job as Worship leader and School Worship leader in YWAM Costa Rica, we have a class about songwriting, I get so encourage when I heard Dan talking about God as creator, and one of the first things come to my mind is the fact that the Lord will still give us amazing songs, there has been amazing songs through the times, but the amazing things is that we have a Creative God, therefore we have the ability to create still amazing songs so we can worship together, I think that is so cool!.

We have to understand the responsibility of sharing those histories of God through the songs we write, through the poems, etc, Dan mentioned in the audio teaching that as people is discouraged we need to help them to stand up and seek the Lord. Also, God wants to born new songs in us! so we can lead the congregation to worship God. WE ARE REDEEMING TOOLS ON EARTH!.

This week was fun!

1. Steve Robbins, The Doctrine of Man and The Worship of God (IW Master All, p.77)

2. NT Wright, Simply Christian, Part 3, Reflecting the Image

3. Dan Wilt, Essentials Worship Theology, The Nature of Human Beings Section 3.

4. iTunes U e*b Video, Essentials Worship Theology: Humans as subcreators, Image Bearers, Community and Salvific Storytellers.