Hallelujah- n. a shout of joy, praise, or gratitude.
Praise- n. the offering of grateful homage in words or song, as an act of worship
Worship- n. adoring reverence or regard
Extol- v. to praise highly
Exalt- v. to lift up the voice; to sing praise
As you can tell, this time I am completely shifting gears, from silence to overpowering worship and song. This may be due to the fact for the last week I have been at a youth camp called Student Life Camp. While there we were taught about The Way and how God is the only 'right way'. However, that is for another post, the big thing that caught my attention this past week was the Worship, led by Aaron Keyes. Unlike most worship leaders, Aaron refrained from using the old, well-known songs (i.e Amazing Grace, Awesome God, etc.). Though there is nothing wrong with these songs it was a nice change of pace, it made it nearly impossible to just 'mimic' worship, you had to actually think about what you were saying. If you can ever get a copy of Aaron Keyes' cds I would without a doubt recommend them.
However, the songs are not what totally blew me off my guard. It was how Aaron conducted worship. From his energy to what he said. He would, without warning, throw out Bible verses about God and worship whilst (sp?) he played his songs that would just make you want to jump up and down and shout for the God of the universe without ceasing.
I guess what i'm trying to say with this post is that the people of God have settled into a mundane and as much as I hate saying it; Boring way of Celebration. Praise and worship is meant to be a jubilation, not a reading of words in a melodic way. That has become the worship of most churchs these days and I believe it is time to change.
Psalms 32:11 "Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous; sing, all you who are upright in the Heart!"
2 Samuel 22:47 "The Lord lives! Praise be to my Rock! Exalted be God, the Rock, my Savior!"
Isaiah 6:3 "And they were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory."
Isaiah 60 "Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you."
In the book of Nehemiah the Israelites even worshipped and jumped around at the mere opening of the Bible, and we have people who won't even jump during a song.
Nehemiah 8:5-6 "Ezra opened the book. All the people could see him because he was standing above them; and as he opened it, the people all stood up. Ezra praised the Lord, the great God; and all the people lifted their hands and responded "Amen! Amen!" then they bowed down and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground."
So if they can jump up and down to the word of God, we can jump up and down to a catchy, heart-racing song of praise to the one who died for us.
In conclusion, I do realize that there are some slower songs meant more for adoration then an enthusiastic display of thanks, but for the ones there are...I believe we should be more happy for our new life.
"There are only two times in your life when you should worship God, one is when you feel like it, the other is when you don't. Why? Quite simply, Because." --Aaron Keyes
God Bless
--Jared
Friday, June 20, 2008
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Greetings and a first thought.
Well hello there world! Jared here, just thought i'd give this a try for a while.
I've been reading a few of my dad's posts (http://sarchsblog.blogspot.com/) and even managed to take a little while from my life to gaze over Anna C's photography and decided that I would like to have a blog of my own.
However, my blog won't be simple stories of my life. I have been called by my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to go into the ministry as a youth leader. It wasn't too long ago that I almost dismissed this calling as a fanciful whim when the Lord put me in my place through a series of events in my life which were almost All-ending to me (though in reality were probably miniscule and unimportant to the flow of life). So I have once again been led by the Good Shephard into pursuing my calling.
This blog will actually be a recording of my thoughts of Bible verses or stories as well as the occasional speaker from the interweb (i.e. Rob Bell, Mark Driscoll, Brad Stine, Louie Giglio). While that is my main goal I may even ask for lessons that God has led you to in your life.
As I intend this blog to be aimed toward Christians helping each other grow in the faith and to people I wish to lead to Christ, I would be greatly Appreciative of any who choose to challenge my faith and ideas in hopes of Refining them and helping me grow in the word.(Proverbs 27:17-- "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another")
Without further Ado I will open with my first thought, while small, I consider it of high importance because it is so overlooked in the world nowadays.
I know that as a youth, I am constantly surrounded by noise, iPods, tv, radio, friends, computers (cough,cough), etc, etc, etc. Now, I cannot make any researched guesses about adults, but I would be willing to venture the same goes for most of you. As we have grown accustomed to the constant noise we rarely notice a lack of something in our life, obviously, this something is Silence. Now you might (or might not) ask, "Jared, what is so important about Silence, nothing can get done without communication of some kind" but I would strongly beg to differ. For in the book of 1 Kings (Chapter 19 Verse 11b-12) the Bible says "Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper"
There ya go a "gentle whisper." God was not in the powerful wind, the earthquake, nor the fire, but in the gentle whisper after it all. Had the noises not all left Elijah in this moment he would not have heard the small, gentle whisper that was the voice of God; That is why silence is so important.
A couple of Months back my youth pastor showed the group a video by a somewhat well-known video pastor by the Name of Rob Bell. He does many videos that all have a different Biblical value to them all in a unique way. I like the way he addresses the issue of Silence and so I will post his video up for all of you to see, enjoy.
God Bless,
Jared
I've been reading a few of my dad's posts (http://sarchsblog.blogspot.com/) and even managed to take a little while from my life to gaze over Anna C's photography and decided that I would like to have a blog of my own.
However, my blog won't be simple stories of my life. I have been called by my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to go into the ministry as a youth leader. It wasn't too long ago that I almost dismissed this calling as a fanciful whim when the Lord put me in my place through a series of events in my life which were almost All-ending to me (though in reality were probably miniscule and unimportant to the flow of life). So I have once again been led by the Good Shephard into pursuing my calling.
This blog will actually be a recording of my thoughts of Bible verses or stories as well as the occasional speaker from the interweb (i.e. Rob Bell, Mark Driscoll, Brad Stine, Louie Giglio). While that is my main goal I may even ask for lessons that God has led you to in your life.
As I intend this blog to be aimed toward Christians helping each other grow in the faith and to people I wish to lead to Christ, I would be greatly Appreciative of any who choose to challenge my faith and ideas in hopes of Refining them and helping me grow in the word.(Proverbs 27:17-- "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another")
Without further Ado I will open with my first thought, while small, I consider it of high importance because it is so overlooked in the world nowadays.
I know that as a youth, I am constantly surrounded by noise, iPods, tv, radio, friends, computers (cough,cough), etc, etc, etc. Now, I cannot make any researched guesses about adults, but I would be willing to venture the same goes for most of you. As we have grown accustomed to the constant noise we rarely notice a lack of something in our life, obviously, this something is Silence. Now you might (or might not) ask, "Jared, what is so important about Silence, nothing can get done without communication of some kind" but I would strongly beg to differ. For in the book of 1 Kings (Chapter 19 Verse 11b-12) the Bible says "Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper"
There ya go a "gentle whisper." God was not in the powerful wind, the earthquake, nor the fire, but in the gentle whisper after it all. Had the noises not all left Elijah in this moment he would not have heard the small, gentle whisper that was the voice of God; That is why silence is so important.
A couple of Months back my youth pastor showed the group a video by a somewhat well-known video pastor by the Name of Rob Bell. He does many videos that all have a different Biblical value to them all in a unique way. I like the way he addresses the issue of Silence and so I will post his video up for all of you to see, enjoy.
God Bless,
Jared
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