I'd like to share with you a quote from
Louie Giglio, founder of the Passion Movement:
"When God is not greatly praised,
it's only because we don't think he's that great of a God. When our
worship is small, it is because our concept of God is small. When we
offer God little-bitty sacrifices, it's because we have somehow reduced
him in our hearts to a little-bitty God. Our vision has become clouded,
our hearts distracted. As a result, our lives shrivel into
insignificance and meaninglessness. We just bump along in this mass of
humanity, having no real clue what life is all about. We fret. We get
depressed. We worry and get bent out of shape. We go down all kinds of
dead end paths as we try to accomplish everything by ourselves."
I think it's important that we remember
to focus our worship on praising God greatly - everything flows from
that. If worship is engaging our hearts then our enthusiasm for worship
will spill over and out of us to others. We will be so transformed by
what God is doing that we will share it with our friends, our family,
our co-workers, our neighbors, anyone who will listen (remember our FRAN
Plan)!! We will become a church that invites others to worship, we won't
be able to help ourselves.
Worship is the beginning of a
life-changing adventure, but just the beginning. Worship leads to a
series of relationships that lead to growth, service, and mission. Our
worship time is a time I look forward to each week, but my discipleship
goes far beyond that hour. God wants our worship, but He also craves our
devotion.
In our rightful attentiveness to worship,
let's not neglect our small group connections - what is God doing in
your life between Sundays? I believe that God is up to something great!
Godspeed,
Pastor John