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One aspect of church worship that’s always been a challenge for me is communal prayer. Partway through the church service every Sunday morning, a designated member of the congregation leads the church in community prayer, incorporating prayer requests from the community and sometimes asking the rest of the congregation to add their voices to the prayer as they feel called to do so.

Community prayer doesn’t come easily for me. I’m a private person for whom public and community prayer doesn’t come naturally. But there’s something powerful in a group of believers gathered together for prayer, and Bible Prayer Fellowship argues that it’s a crucial part of Christian worship:

Every congregation and all believers everywhere need united agreement in prayer and faith. True, we can play privately, but we must also come together with the church expecting to find one accord in prayer. The church in Acts began in one accord in prayer (Acts 1:14; 2:1). United prayer was a top priority of the apostles and the people (Acts 6:4; 4:18-33; 12:1-25; 15:1-30). United agreement in prayer is necessary because of who we are.

We are related to Christ and each other like the members of our natural body are. Our head coordinates the life and action of all the parts of our body (I Corinthians 12). Christ is the head over all things to the church.

We are one family. We pray to “OUR Father.” Andrew Murray said that it is unnatural for the children in a family to always meet with their father separately and never know a shared relationship with him.

Read the rest of “Why Pray Together?” at the Bible Prayer Fellowship website.

What’s been your experience with communal prayer? What does it bring to worship that private prayer doesn’t? Have you seen tangible effects of community prayer in your community?

Share your thoughts!

Today’s devotional comes from A Slice of Infinity, a daily series by noted Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias. Drawing on an unusual experience from a visit to a communist country, Ravi shows that powerful witnessing can take place when we simply model for others what prayer and worship look like:

A few years ago, two or three of my colleagues and I were in a country dominated for decades by Marxism. Before we began our meetings, we were invited to a dinner hosted by some common friends, all of whom were skeptics and, for all practical purposes, atheists. The evening was full of questions, posed principally by a notable theoretical physicist in the country. There were also others who represented different elements of power within that society. As the night wore on, we got the feeling that the questions had gone on long enough and that we were possibly going in circles.

I asked if we could have a word of prayer with them, for them, and for the country before we bade them good-bye. There was a silence of consternation, an obvious hesitancy, and then one said, “Of course.” We did just that—we prayed. In this large dining room of historic import to them, with all the memories of secular power plastered within those walls, the prayer brought a sobering silence that we were all in the presence of someone greater than us. When we finished, every eye was moist and nothing was said. They hugged us and thanked us, with emotion written all over their faces. The next day when we met them, one of them said to me, “We did not go back to our rooms last night till it was early morning. In fact, I stayed in my hotel lobby most of the night talking further. Then I went back to my room and gave my life to Jesus Christ.”

I firmly believe that it was the prayer that gave them a hint of the taste of what worship is all about. Their hearts had never experienced it.

Over the years I have discovered that praying with people can sometimes do more for them than preaching to them. Prayer draws the heart away from one’s own dependence to leaning on the sovereign God. The burden is often lifted instantly. Prayer is only one aspect of worship, but one that is greatly neglected in the face of people who would be shocked to hear what prayer sounds like when the one praying knows how to touch the heart of God. To a person in need, pat answers don’t change the mind; prayer does.

Read the complete devotional at Ravi Zacharias’ website.

Pointing people to God doesn’t always mean handing out tracts, preaching to them, or outwitting them in an apologetics debate—sometimes it’s as simple as showing them what worship means in your own life.

Is it appropriate for Christians to attend worship services for a different religion?

I think few Christians would object to the idea of learning about or reading up on another religion, but is there something special about a dedicated worship service that makes it spiritually unwise for Christians to attend? Is there a clearly identifiable line between attending such a service, and participating in the worship?

Share your thoughts!

It’s easy to worship God when the mood and setting are pitch perfect, but what about when things aren’t quite right?

Shawn, over at the Youth Specialties blog discusses something key to worship: we don’t always want to. He’s discussing it in terms of youth ministry, however, I think his observation holds true for adults as well.

Here’s an excerpt:

Time after time I’ve seen students enter in to no-holds-barred worship when the “atmosphere is right”: when the place is filled with teenagers lost in passionate worship… when the music is loud and the band is tight… when the lights are set… and when the smoke machine is on. The camp atmosphere… where it’s hard NOT to enter in. You know what I mean.

But I want to challenge our students to remember that God is worthy of ALL of our praise even when the group is small, when the music isn’t on, when they are not in the church building, and even when they don’t FEEL like it.

Read the rest of It’s Not About Us.

We all like those times when the musicians are on and the lyrics what we’ve needed to hear all week. But, as the YS post points out, sometimes the mood is just all wrong. There’s a new drummer who can’t quite keep a beat or it’s a rainy day or you and your significant other were fighting 15 minutes ago in the car; you name it, you’re not feeling it. It’s in those times that worshiping God is more of a decision than an outpouring of our heart.

This is an unformed thought, but I wonder if our ability to worship during imperfect circumstances is a reflection of our spiritual maturity. When we first come to Christ, many of us are so spiritually full we could worship God anywhere at any time, but slowly that ever present feeling fades. It’s then that we face the true worship test: finding God in the midst of a less than stellar situation.

What do you do when faced with a less than ideal worship experience? How do you worship when you’re not feeling like it?

Have you ever seen an abandoned church building?

At WebUrbanist, there’s a fascinating series of photos of abandoned church buildings, in varying states of decay and ranging from the strangely beautiful to the downright depressing. Here’s a sample:

I recently took a road trip through the American midwest and saw several abandoned-looking churches (although none as photogenic as these). I don’t believe that church buildings, simple or ornate, have any special quality of “holiness,” and so seeing these images isn’t a spiritual shock.

But they do raise questions, some of them a bit sad: what happened to the people who once worshipped here? Are they happily worshiping at another church today? What caused them to leave the church—was it theological disagreement, a slow decline in membership, collapse of the local economy? What was it like to worship in these churches for the last time?

Jeff Berryman has some poignant thoughts on these images:

Two hundred years from now, or four hundred—and I know it’s not the same for a thousand reasons—but imagine someone wandering through the ruins of the place where you worship, if you do.  What, they will wonder, went on here?  What happened?  How and why did such beauty get lost?

And of course, people are churches, many abandoned and worn down, the images of these abandoned rooms images of many spirits and souls.

What about you? Do you pass churches like these in your own town? How do these images make you feel?

Musical preferences are complicated and personal things. One person loves rock music, another classical, a third folk and a fourth hip-hop. And all of them might be sitting in the same pew!

Given these differences in musical preference, how should we use music in worship? Should we just standardize on one style of music and expect everyone to take part, or incorporate different styles into worship to connect with as many people as possible?

Speaking as an avid lover of music, I think that when we join a community, we need to learn to worship in the way that community worships. We need to uphold the parts of the body of Christ that are responsible for worshiping God through music, even when the style of music isn’t to our personal taste.

What about you? How do you handle the tension between your personal weekday preferences in music and what you sing on Sunday? Is it even an issue for you?

More importantly, what is it about music that connects you with God? Is it a certain style of music? Is it the words? Something else entirely? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Have you ever wondered what kind of thought and planning goes into choosing the songs you sing (and sometimes play) in a worship service? If you’re a worship leader, do you have a solid, Biblical system for thinking through and choosing music pieces that fit each church service?

The process of selecting worship music will be different for each individual congregation and worship style, of course. But to help you think through your music choices, FarsiPraise has collected some thoughts on the matter from a variety of church and worship leaders (both are in PDF):

• An essay by Paul Oakley (of the Church of Christ the King in Brighton, England) that walks through seven steps for considering and choosing worship music.
• A second collection of short mini-essays by seven other church leaders explaining how they choose music for their churches.

If you’re a church leader struggling to pick the right music, these thoughts from other leaders might help. And if you’re a congregation member who’s always wondered who chose the music and why, they might give you some insight into an important part of weekly worship planning!

When was the last time you praised God in another language?

In high school and college I took a few Spanish classes, which means that I know just enough to know that there’s a whole lot I don’t know about the language. My brother’s family attends a bilingual congregation that sing in both Spanish and English. The few times I’ve worshiped there have shown me three things:

The only thing that’s worse than me speaking in Spanish is me speaking in Spanish.

It’s hard for me to praise God while fumbling with unfamiliar words and grammar.

For native Speakers, Spanish is the way to sing praises to God.

And just like for me it’s easier to praise God in my language, it’s probably true across the wrold. It’s because of our distinct cultures that ministries like Farsi Praise exist. It’s easy to forget about that little bit from the bible concerning every tongue, tribe and nation.

Farsi Praise’s is:

dedicated to train worship leaders around the globe, provide extensive worship resources, encourage an innovative worship culture and spread Christ’s love through praise and worship among Farsi-speaking Muslims and Christians worldwide.

It’s a lofty goal, but a necessary one. You can check out what they’re doing to connect to Farsi speaking people on their site, jump over to their artist page, or jump in and try some Farsi songs with the tag “Praise”.

Have you ever thought about the function of a worship leader? Is it just to look cool? Maybe you’re the person behind the keyboard or guitar every week wondering what in the world you’re doing. This short reflection from studentsoul.org talks about The Importance of Being a Worship Leader. Here’s an excerpt:

Do you sometimes feel insignificant or inadequate as a worship leader? Worship has the potential to bring people before God, and worship leaders, like doorkeepers, assist by standing at the door and welcoming people into God’s presence.

I remember being on the worship team at a retreat and feeling depressed because I didn’t possess the same gifts as the others. When I shared my insecurity, one of my friends quoted Psalm 84:10: “I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.”

It made me feel worse.

…

Jump over to their blog to read more on this from Sundee Frazier.

Psalm 84:9-12

Behold our shield, O God,
And look upon the face of Your anointed.
For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand outside.
I would rather stand at the threshold of the house of my God
Than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
For the LORD God is a sun and shield;
The LORD gives grace and glory;
No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.
O LORD of hosts,
How blessed is the man who trusts in You!

For many churches, Christmas worship services are marked by special music, and that means there are lots of opportunities for members of the congregation to contribute their musical talents to the service. If you’re helping out with worship music this Christmas—whether you’re singing in a choir, playing an instrument in a brass ensemble, or playing in a worship band—the Farsipraise ministry has some good guides to using your musical talents well. They have practical advice for musicians playing the electric guitar, bass, brass, and more. Other essays address topics like using Gregorian chant in your service and teaching new songs to the congregation, both of which are relevant this time of year. If you find these useful, see their many other articles about music and worship.