My Worship Set Thoughts-090603

After 21 years of leading worship, I have decided to start blogging my thoughts both pre and post worship here on the blog. Since this is my first posting of this type, and it is a post-worship entry, I am going to add the pre-worship set thoughts to this entry. Seem confusing? It won’t be. I think it is a good Idea to begin to share these thoughts about the worship sets to not only help others rising up in leading, but to spark discussion and feedback in the comments. So come join in and be apart.

So where would I start and what would I say? I will begin by saying that last nights set was all that I expected it to be. POWERFUL, warfare worship. 

Now, let me jump back to a few weeks ago.

Once I knew I was on the schedule to lead, I began to seek Him for the set. What I mean is that I know I have nothing to offer, at the moment. I have no special power or ability. all I have is an anointing, a gift and a calling that totally rely all on God. I am not some super musician or anything like that. I need to be sure that the presence of The Living God shows up in the meetings. I can’t force him, I can’t chant him, I can’t do some religious ritual to get Him to show up. I was seeking him for what he wanted to say and do that particular night. What was HE wanting to do/say that I, the worship leader, needed to be mindful of in leading His people towards.

I am seeking the Lord for not only thoughts, scripture, vision, fire, but also for the song selection, which is THE hardest, most seemingly overwhelming task at hand. I tend to listen to, and was brought up on totally different worship music than our church does. I listen to music that sends me either to my knees or to some other place. This is a topic for another discussion to be sure. Because of listening to different music I have a hard time coming up with songs the church knows well enough to jump in the river (more on the river further down) easily. Some times it is a real challenge. The BIGGER challenge is to pick songs that say exactly what He is wanting to say that night. I want the songs to be a script for the set, from beginning to end, to 1) get people in a boat in the river, and 2) to keep them in the boat and in the deepest part of the river (more on the river further down). I ask Him for songs that will be the cries of the peoples hearts. I ask for songs that will speak his words to us, I ask for songs that be more than songs, but doorways to the heavens in bringing the live, real, physical presence of God in our midst. This can be a real challenge and the songs are constantly changing up to the set as I get more clarity. So, I had a few songs I felt were good ones. But then I started to get a theme. The theme was fire, Gods fire. A fire to rise up within us and change us. I began practicing these songs for half a month. Some songs stayed and some songs left. but by the week before I had a core.

This set was planed to be played at the Alpine campus the previous Sunday morning. As I told one of my friends,”it seems that more and more I tend to do less and less of the chosen songs and more prophetic, spontaneous songs”. There were a few times that morning when it was spontaneous song for a while. His presence was there and there was something deep that happened.

It wasn’t until the night before the set, at Platoon Leaders Training (PLT), that I knew what He was wanting for Wednesday night. I felt as if the teaching that night was to me for the worship set and I had to make sure my notes were clear. The topic was on Nahemiah and titled “A biblical model of a burden for the city”. We looked at Nehemiah chapter 1. Nehemiah was told about the decrepit state of the city. He then began to have a deep burden and began to pray and fast. Nehemiah then asked the king if he could leave to go to the city and see for himself. The gates were gone. The stones from the walls town down and burned. The enemy was pillaging and trying to wipe the city out and most importantly… trying to instill fear, doubt and unbelief. Once he saw the city he had to act. He could not leave it alone and let it stay that way. A fire (there is that fire theme) began to glow within him  into a raging roar and he had to do something. He rallied the people and led a long and dangerous war.

So how does this relate? Well, you see, we were told at the meeting some of the things the current president, Obama, has so far up to this month. Our nation is crumbling, and I am not talking about just the current financial crisis. Our country is turning its back on God at an alarming rate since january 20th. Our gates are burned. The walls are being torn down and the stones burned. The enemy is coming in and bringing fear, doubt and unbelief, among other things. We must open our eyes and SEE. We must get a burden. We must have that fire rage within us to stand for holiness. We, yes we, have the HOPE that so many thought the president would bring. Jesus is the hope. We must bind together in unity as HIS bride. We must lead this country back to righteousness. We must “Cry Out” to God to have mercy, grace and heal this nation, to return it to a nation of refuge, a fortified God fearing country. This is what I felt was God was saying for the service.

I spent most of Wednesday morning in prayer and the word and I came across 2 Chronicles 20.It isn’t the first time I came across this passage, and it is one that fuels a portion of my worship leading. In this passage Judah is about to be attacked by the Moabites and the Ammonites. Jehoshaphat calls all the people together to unity. He then declares a fast in the kingdom and leads the nation in prayer. They proclaimed that they are powerless and weak and that the Lord is all-powerful, all-mighty and they needed Him to step in. The Lord responded saying he knew they couldn’t win so they shouldn’t fight. He would fight for them. This is where we get the saying, “The battle belongs to the lord”. God said, “just stand there a see the great wonders I will do”. 

Jehoshaphat responded to this military threat by seeking the Lord in fasting, prayer and worship. He led them out in battle. He put the worshipers out front of the people. He didn’t put them out there with sword, spear, club and armor, but with the weapon of praise and worship. While they praised God, the Lord set ambushes that caused the Moabites and Ammonites to kill each other. When Judah came to the place all they found were dead bodies that they plundered for days.

Worship Is Warfare

Worship is warfare. Wether we are proclaiming, praising, adoring, asking, repenting or anything else, it is all spiritual war. A war that is escalated every time we join to worship. I knew that Wednesday night was about taking our feet and placing the enemy’s head under it. We were to CRY OUT with a cry of war. We are to cry out in repentance, asking for His mercy and grace. Asking him to set us free and to unite us to stand firm. We were to call for Him to come. just like they did in the Jehoshaphat passage.

I also learned something great on Wednesday night. I would say it was more of an experience that I learned. He showed me what is exactly meant by sensing His flow of the river and staying in it. He showed me that you can be in the shallows, the deeper parts or out in the rapids. It is all up to you. He showed me how recognize it. I had always felt and sensed a presence greater or weaker, but now I understand how to recognize it in a new way and make sure I/we stay in it.

On Wednesday before the meeting, I began to cry out to God to come. I walked all the isles, I walked the stage, I prayed like I never had before in public. I was wading deeper and deeper into what He later showed me was the flow of His river. I was going deep and I could really FEEL His presence. I had the  team gather to pray and I felt the water rising and rising. Prayer was awesome. I feel that it helped unite us, the team, and helped them understand the burden I was feeling.

Worship was awesome! It was everything I thought it would be. There was absolutely something that happened. Something broke, something changed. Something was won in the spiritual battle that was taking place that night. I wish you could hear what happened, but do to the nature of copyrights (yes, even with worship songs for the church), I can not post that. I will, however, post the free praise and prophetic stuff on the music page… so stay tuned. There WAS war that happened. Everything I thought I heard the Lord say He had for the evening was 100% right on. Sure, we didn’t do even half the songs I had picked, but we never do. Sometimes the words of the songs are not enough to say what we, as a unified body want to say. We have got to sing our own heart song in unity. It is beautiful to hear all those different songs to the same music at the same time. You can almost see the incense rising, from each person engaged, to the nostrils of our God. A sweet, pleasing incense. In that war is happening. War is waging and escalating in the spiritual as well as within our own bodies and minds. Something shifted that night.

I will say that there were the usual attacks… yes these are attacks. My guitar would not stay in tune. My Macbook Pro I use for my guitar mysteriously went to sleep do to it being unplugged. things like this are attacks to distract, get your eyes off of Him and get you out of the river. For the most part… it never works.

We stayed in the river and deep in it.

I love how the Lord has so made the guitar a prophetic, unified extension of my spirit within worship. Other than having to tune a LOT last night, I never really thought about my guitar or chords. It was also the first time I fully used all chord charts using the nashville number system. Later I noticed I really only used the charts for the words.

Looking back, as always, I am amazed and overwhelmed at the faithfulness of God and his presence in worship. When we unite and call on him from our heart, He comes. When we lead with a deep, deep, passion from within, not in self and showy little peppy rally talks, but when we lead under the fire and anointing of God, He comes. When we prepare the way and our heart and cry out in our own closet as leaders in the house of God for him to come, like Jehoshaphat did, God sends his presence and his power shakes the atmosphere.

Find the river, stay in it and learn how to go deeper and deeper longer and longer… and then… lead others in.