God is always the initiator of our worship. In fact, He is the initiator of our very relationship. God seeks us and when we are moved into the heartfelt recognition of the Divine, we worship.
This truth is expressed throughout the Bible. People who came to worship God were not so much the “seekers” as they were the “sought.” God came to Moses in a burning bush while he was busy tending sheep (Exodus 3). Abraham was living outside of God’s will and was 99 years old when God came to him (Genesis 16 & 17). The Virgin Mary was a young girl when an angel of God came to her (Luke 1: 26 – 38). The Apostle Paul was on his way to persecute Christians in Damascus when God came to him (Acts 9: 1 – 18).
Why is it important to say this before we launch into techniques? I believe it's important because if we don’t have a solid foundation of where worship begins it colors everything we do in our worship life.
When we steep our worship ministry in the reality of the "God who seeks" then it affects how we choose our songs, how we order our worship sets, what we say when we transition to a new song, how we treat our team members, how we lead our churches, and how we view ourselves.
When we experience “success” in ministry it is God who gets the glory because we are more the sought than the seeker. When we “fail” we still live under the reality of the grace of God. Some days the sense of God’s presence in the worship service will be as tangible as the very air we breathe. At other times we will feel as though our congregation is more concerned with making it out in time to hit the buffet line than lining up to the spiritual buffet that sits in front of them in the service. At those times we can extend grace to ourselves and to those we are called to lead in worship.
Remember that, “We love because he first loved us.” – 1 John 4:19 NIV
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