When the music fades, All is stripped away, And I simply come; Longing just to bring something that´s of worth That will bless Your heart.
I´ll bring You more than a song, For a song in itself Is not what You have required. You search much deeper within Through the way things appear; You´re looking into my heart.
In the chorus I tried to sum up where we were at with worship:
I´m coming back to the heart of worship, And it´s all about You, All about You, Jesus. I´m sorry, Lord, for the thing I´ve made it, When it´s all about You, All about You, Jesus.
(This extract is taken from Chapter 8 of ´The Unquenchable Worshipper´ by Matt Redman, Kingsway Publications)
It is Matt Redman who tells the story and here is how it goes:
A few years back in our church, we realised some of the things we thought were helping us in our worship were actually hindering us. They were throwing us off the scent of what it means to really worship. We had always set aside lots of time in our meetings for worshipping God through music. But it began to dawn on us that we´d lost something. The fire that used to characterise our worship had somehow grown cold. In some ways, everything looked great. We had some wonderful musicians, and a good quality sound system. There were lots of new songs coming through, too. But somehow we´d started to rely on these things a little too much, and they´d become distractions. Where once people would enter in no matter what, we´d now wait to see what the band was like first, how good the sound was, or whether we were ´into´ the songs chosen.
Mike, the pastor, decided on a pretty drastic course of action: we´d strip everything away for a season, just to see where our hearts were. So the very next Sunday when we turned up at church, there was no sound system to be seen, and no band to lead us. The new approach was simple - we weren´t going to lean so hard on those outward things any more. Mike would say, ´When you come through the doors of the church on Sunday, what are you bringing as your offering to God? What are you going to sacrifice today?´
If I´m honest, at first I was pretty offended by the whole thing. The worship was my job! But as God softened my heart, I started to see His wisdom all over these actions. At first the meetings were a bit awkward: there were long periods of silence, and there wasn´t too much singing going on. But we soon began to learn how to bring heart offerings to God without any external trappings we´d grown used to. Stripping everything away, we slowly started to rediscover the heart of worship.
After a while, the worship band and the sound system re-appeared, but now it was different. The songs of our hearts had caught up with the songs of our lips.
Out of this season, I reflected on where we had come to as a church, and wrote this song:
Thank God for our Life Group (it's called Small Group) now.
I see some young people willing to be trained to help in the Kingdom and I also see some new visitors turning from bad decisions to Godly decisions.
These may not be the sign of revival but definitely a sign of God's children turning to God day by day. It's amazing.
We had a good leadership life group session the other night, with Pastor.
Many have been asked what do they enjoyed the most out of the Life Group ministry. Some say visitors converted to believer, some say member really responded to care, and all kind of responds to the question. Most of the answer reflects very little fun, or no fun lah.
However, I noticed something really interesting pattern.... that is everyone seems to have very little "natural enjoyment" over the Life Group leadership life style, but yet the strange things are they continue to do it despite little "fun" in it.
I remember in 1 Chronicle, bible stated "..... But King David said to Ornan, “No; I will buy them for the full price. I will not take for the Lord what is yours, nor offer burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”
Kind David was offered from Ornan many things free to build altar and offer unto God, but David decided to pay for the items in full price,not even in discount. He definitely understood the teaching of paying a price for serving, and offering to God.
I believe our CG leaders understands that as well, most of all, struggle to serve, with 'little" or "no joy" sometimes but continue to serve, and learn to 'enjoy' out of 'no so enjoyable' task.
I believe that itself is a price for building the altar to such offering that God will treasure the most.
It's been great to be able to have a loud baby cries at home once in a while. I remember the time when Cassandra was still 1 month old, both Chii and I were very "gen jiong" about her, many often we tends to overreact.
First time parents mah...
Now that after about 7 years after our first child and 3 years after Jefferson, Grace is borned and we have mixed feeling over the birth of our new baby girl. One is the newborn joy and the dear baby hugging warmth, also the not so bright side would surely be the worries over the night cry and the "hardship" in nurturing the small little baby from zero life skill to a full "functional" adult.
But all in all, I believe God is still go
od. As I looked back, no matter how many times I thought "oh sh**! " or many moments of "How am I going to deal with this?", we still manage to survive the challenges ... Sometime I'm still confused how I managed to overcome them "was it me? my own strength? Saya boleh meh?".
However, bible teaches me that FAITH is when I choose to believe it's Him. So I choose to believe that it was His hand that led me and leads me. Choosing to believe is the first step for Faith in Exercising for me...
It's complicated but so simple, it's easy and yet difficult to comprehend and master. No wonder Jesus wants me to be a like child when it comes to faith.
But sure enough, what happened has caused Chii and I to grow so much, whether in parenting or how to become a better son or daughter for our parents.
I think it's not a bad idea, for me to settle down, it maybe easy to "freeze" body movement, but it's not easy to try fill our thoughts with God's things for 15 minutes for me, esp. without the help of music or worship, just give thanks and thinking of Him.
I admire some brother sisters that could easily do this... Praise God.
but one way I figured can help me do this, is to pray in the spirit (i.e. pray in tongue), that helps me focus on Him.
Thank God the 3rd Saturday of Mar-2010, we have officially moved into our house in Jalan B7. God has been good because it is not easy to lower our renovation cost without His intervention. He blessed me with many.
The house is not perfect, some leakage here and there still, haven't been settled but we still like the house. Not only because it's a bigger place for a bigger family now, but more importantly every inch of our own effort from concept, execution to reality... It's like a dream come true in certain extend :-P
The other day our previous landlord said Bukit Mas has brought us many blessing and we have 3 children since we stay, and I thought it's true. God uses a good place to bless His people, and I believe we are blessed because we invite Him to not only the house, but also to the home.
Therefore, I believe our new place of stay will continue to prosper us and be blessed by God, because the very same wonderful and merciful God is with us, whichever place we stay.
Same goes to Metro, I believe we will be blessed not because we are in the bigger hall or place, but the very same God that dwells with His people wherever we moved.
I may have read it many times, thought about it many times, or taught it to someone, or even experienced it many times, but some how it is still difficult for me to TRUST that our God is a God of many blessings, no God of stingy. I guess I tried hard to understand God, but still does it from a human way.
When I give away something that I have, then I would have less in my pocket. So subconsciously I would think God is also like me, not easy to give away. Or maybe I think, He will always be over careful that if He bless me more than enough, the blessings may "spoilt" me or something. Point is, very hard to believe His abundant blessing is real.
As God spoke to me recently, then I understand (again) that He owns everything, including even things that I own. He can make things out of nothing, and He has all the resources in the world that He can mobilised to make my 'wish come true', that means if He like it, he can make Bill Gates knock on my door and give me a cheque. Well, sometimes He may choose to train up my 'fishing skill' or give me fishing rod rather than feeding me fish all the time.
All this that He has planned for me, has got one purpose. He loves me and has planned a good plan to bless me.
God wants to bless His church, Metro. and what I understand from Him is, He wants to bless His church through His people. I learned that if God wants to bless His church through me, He can choose to bless my 'pocket' so that He can bless the church through me.
But before that happen, I guess I must 'practise' give more than I should to the Kingdom.... then He will look down from heaven and maybe He'll says this ... " Hmmmm... this fellow is picking it up already, he's cool. I think He won't hold the money to himself. Let's give him more, might as well work through one of our kids then other means... "
Good plan huh? Let me practise to give more. Because through the telescope of faith, that's where we see His plan coming to past. If we stop believing, He would hold the horse, waiting for me to connect with Him with faith again.
God will bless Metro as a church, and God will bless us a child of God !