Five Practices Meeting 2 Notes

This week we discussed passionate worship. Steve Lee was our leader and gave us a working definition of passionate and then we discussed what worship was and wasn't. He showed a video (see below) that helped us understand what worship was.

We came away realizing that passionate worship was "an extraordinary eagerness to honor God in worship." Worship, after all, isn't about us. It isn't about whether the guitar was too loud or the organist hit wrong notes. Worship is more than that. It is a giving of ourselves.

Each person then talked about what they found most meaningful in the worship service. What we discovered is we resonate with different parts of the worship service. Every part of worship was mentioned except for the announcements and, oddly enough, offering.

People expressed gratitude to the dancers and the children. Both add variety to worship and touch our hearts. It is amazing that God can use children to lead us in worship.

We discussed out our attitudes effect whether we enter into passionate worship. Do we enter the service in expectation? Do we spend any time during the week in private worship? These things affect us individually, but also affect us as we gather with others in worship. It was said that we tend to get out of something that which we put into it. So, if we come and just go through the motions, then it is no wonder we don't experience passionate worship. However, if we come ready to engage and connect with God….hang on!

We talked about how we connect to God through worship both intellectually and emotionally. Both aspects are important and work together .

We also discussed elements we could add to worship to help us connect such as drama. This church has had a history of doing dramas, so it wouldn't be out of the question to do some in the future.