Worshiping Our Creator

On Sunday I was blessed to go to 3 churches.

As I woke this morning I was thinking about the Worship experience which I had at one church in particular and was also pondering on ‘other’ thoughts about worship that I had been having recently.

My thoughts recently were, unless it is due to my age, that I have questioned my getting in touch with God during a worship time when there is so many ‘things happening’.  I don't want it to be an emotional response to what is being used to help provide an atmosphere, I want it to be because I am in touch with God.

I appreciate wonderful singing, great musicians, wonderful lyrics and being able to express my heart to God with my brothers and sisters in Christ.  I want to worship with my whole spirit, soul, and body!

SO

The surprise visit was to a Christian fellowship that was in a big hall.

My friend and I were standing at the back

in full light (no lighting effects)
able to hear our own voices
band not too polished, not too loud
we were singing songs: some from hymns or older songs, amazing words from scripture, of Christ, our heavenly calling etc etc.

So, during the worship time my friend said, I have so much joy!  I said “yes, me to!” then I leant over and said, I have thoughts about that which I will tell you later.

In the car chatting about the service, I commented that part of the reason why I felt that I could sense such an inward witness of joy during the worship was because all my physical senses were not being evoked by outside sources.   I said, sometimes during worship there is so much going on. A dark room, special lighting effects, sometimes loud loud music etc which can easily drown out my spiritual sense

Sometimes I really have to block things out and concentrate on what I am singing, being in touch with my heart and spirit toward God, what do these words mean that I am singing.

I said that I feel that these wonderful blessings of the modern era, can possibly be a distraction ‘at times’ and we possibly need to be aware of whether these other things are evoking the emotional response.

Today there was little special effects going on, but I heard my own voice and the person next to me singing such amazing lyrics, with a band and singer leading us.  There was such joy! I then highlighted, because of little outside stimuli, I was easily able to sense this wonderful flow of joy 'within me’, ‘within my spirit’.

At times I feel so blessed when I can see and hear my brothers and sisters in Christ worshiping our God. How lovely it is when we have those times where the music stops, or the simplicity of the music is brought forward and we all sing together highlighting more the voices and what we are singing.

I also have wonderful worship times with a band, lights, loud music and do not discount that.

As I do, I did a search on ‘do we need lights and effects during worship’ and there were some interesting articles.

I guess that I just want to highlight that 'simple is also good'.