Worship Essentials Green – Spring ’09 -

Week 1 – Intimacy & Integrity

For The institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Red Online Worship History Course with Dan Wilt.

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This week’s readings and videos were about 2 values in god pleasing worship:  intimacy and integrity.

God has chosen to be vulnerable and reveal himself to us, risking our rejection and all the pain from it.  He is taking the first step of love towards us, and he wants us to do the same.  Lord, teach us how to be honest and vulnerable with you in our worship.  We don’t want to fake it.  We don’t want to pretend that everything is ok, when it isn’t.  You give us permission to relate to you as our heavenly Abba, Daddy, Father.  Lord, help us to not just sing songs and sit through a sermon, but to truly engage with you.  And Lord, help us as church leaders to model it ourselves and make space and time available for your people to do just that.  Lord, we want to be real with you and have our lives reflect the prayers and priorities that we sing about in church, that we read about in the scriptures and that we say on Sunday morning that we hold dear.  Lord, cause our lives to be in line with our prayers, and lead our prayers to reflect your heart more and more.

Question to anyone reading this from Cedarhome: How can we encourage intimacy and integrity at Cedarhome in our worship?

I would love to hear your ideas.

-jason