Improving Worship

How often do we say to ourselves and those we minister to how can we improve our worship in the corporate setting. Each Sunday, when we come together, should be a time of celebration and reflection. It should be the highlight of the week.

Here are some considerations on how we can improve our worship:

1. Always pray before coming to worship. This puts one in the right frame of mind. I appreciate a team of men and women at Central that pray each Sunday for those of us that lead worship. This ministry is a very valuable part of our church. Each of us should reflect before we participate in our weekly worship.

2. Come expecting to be uplifted spiritually as a result of your service to God.

3. Come to worship God. Remember worship is not about ME it's to honor our God.

4. Enter enthusiastically into every part of our worship. Sing from the heart, pray, study, listen, give. Be a worshipper not a spectator.

5. When worshipping forget the faults of others there and think on your own imperfections. Confess your sins and seek forgiveness from God.

6. Listen to the lesson. Don't let your mind think about other items outside of what is being discussed by the minister.

7. Sit close to the front. Less distractions. Easier to participate.

8. Be positive, warm and friendly to all that are in attendance.

9. Seek out those who need a helping hand.

I am so blessed to worship with a church that truly loves to worship. If you are looking at ways to enhance your worship as a congregation, look at improving your personal focus on worship first!

Easter Sunday

What a great day of worship! Easter service was very encouraging as we added a new brother in Christ as he was baptized by one of our elders this morning and a woman coming that needed encouraged. Hearts were changed with the theme "Jesus is my Lamb". The video of "Watch the Lamb" highlighted the message Jim gave. Thanks to Carl for another spectacular technology worship presentation. We love you bother! You have a heart for worship and for encouraging our younger worship leaders. You are a continual blessing to me as well as the Central Family. Steve and Ed did a great job also on the music and video. Evan thanks for running the controls today.

This evening capped off a great day with our young men who participated at LTC leading our services. My son Craig, led singing. It brought tears to my eyes as he led, "In the Cross" and had my feet a stomping as he led "Nobody Feels My Heart Like Jesus". I watched his eyes as he led. His love of music and for God was evident. Kyle thank you for reading scripture tonight. It touched our hearts. The church is in good hands! Our future leaders are better prepared and trained than we ever have been. They have a heart for worship and for God!

May we all tell the EASTER story each day!

KC

We have arrived in Kansas City for the 2005 LTC Conference. The kids should be here anytime.

As I sit in the lobby of the Crown Hyatt Hotel I enjoy watching the people. So many stories, so many thoughts, so many hurting folks. I hope LTC can encourage many from small congregations this weekend.

Be praying for the Central Church, we are in the process of selecting a new youth minister. We believe God has provided the right young man and woman to minister here at Central. We are in constant prayer seeking God's direction and guidance.

LTC Bound

Easter weekend. Its LTC time again. Leadership Training for Christ is a weekend that our young people look forward to for many months. It's great to see our kids participate in bible bowl, song leading, Christian drama, puppets, bible reading, Christian art and a number of other activities.

Central will be bringing about 50 to Kansas City for the two day event.

I'm thinking about the future men and women that will be preachers, worship leaders, elders, deacons, bible teachers that will have their beginnings in KC this weekend. May God be glorified by the 1000 young people this weekend! And may God give us adults PATIENCE as we sponsor these great kids!

Easter-Order of Worship

Many times I hear worship leaders asking for special orders of worship. In the blog today, is the Easter service for Sunday at the Central Church of Christ in Topeka. We hope the service glorifies our Father as well as encourages the church.

Easter Sunday
March 27, 2005
Order of Worship

Theme: "Jesus Is My Lamb"

Worship Leader: David Carriger
Speaker: Jim DuBose

Welcome (Jerry Myers)
Reading: Psalms 24:7-10

100 Holy Ground
101 Holy Ground

Prayer

Reading: Matthew 27:45-54

361 Nailed to the Cross (Verse 1 Only)

"THE WORTHY LAMB" (Jim DuBose)

176 Lamb of God

218 Blessed Jesus

"THE SACRIFICIAL LAMB" (Jim DuBose)

Communion
Contribution

195 Behold the Lamb

"WATCH THE LAMB" (Jim DuBose)

Video "Watch the Lamb"
Invitation

904 Have You Been to Jesus?

Announcements

344 Low In the Grave He Lay (Verses then Chorus)

Closing Prayer

A Typical Sunday Morning

What do people really think about during a Sunday morning worship........

*A business woman, thinking of the house she hoped to sell that afternoon.
*A teenager thinking about the touchdown he scored on Friday night.
*Several adults have already started to think about the NFL football game that will be on this afternoon.
*A married couple sits in the pew upset with each other, contemplating divorce.
*A young teenage girl upset that she had sex with her boyfriend last night.
*A woman's mind returns to the kitchen, and the roast she placed in the oven.
*Many people thinking, will we get out early so we can beat the crowd to the restaurant?

A typical Sunday morning. Worship requires discipline. Make sure your worship is a response to God, to what God has done, and to what God is doing.

"Give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name: bring an offering, and come before Him: worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness" (1 Chronicles 6:29).

Sleeping in Church

A Sunday school teacher asked the children just before she dismissed them to go to church, "and why is it necessary to be quiet in church?" Annie replied, because people are sleeping."

A Prayer

Today, I share with you part of St. Patrick's "Breastplate Prayer":

Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

Church Growth?

Some rather absurd things have been done in churches to promote church growth:

“An article in The Wall Street Journal described one well-known church’s bid ‘to perk up attendance at Sunday evening services.’ The church ‘staged a wrestling match, featuring church employees. To train for the event, 10 game employees got lessons from Tugboat Taylor, a former professional wrestler, in pulling hair, kicking shins and tossing bodies around without doing real harm”.

“Just how far will the church go in competing with Hollywood? A large church in the southwestern United States has installed a half-million-dollar special-effects system that can produce smoke, fire, sparks, and laser lights in the auditorium. The church sent staff members to study live special effects at Bally’s Casino in Las Vegas. The pastor ended one service by ascending to ‘heaven’ via invisible wires that drew him up out of sight while the choir and orchestra added a musical accompaniment to the smoke, fire, and light show”.

Where are we headed next?

Easter

We have started our preparation for our Easter service on Sunday, March 27 at Central. Easter has always been very meaningful for me. As a kid mom filled our Easter baskets with candy and I was allowed to eat chocolate before church and after church. We all dressed usually in new clothes and went to church and saw people visiting that we hadn't seen in many months.

That's where it becomes a special day. We have many visitors on that Sunday. For that one moment we have the opportunity to tell the story of Jesus. If we are successful we might be able to invite them back for another service or even better an opportunity to attend one of our bible classes.

That's why worship preparation is so important. Not just that we want to Praise our Heavenly Father but we want to stir the hearts of those in worship.

I am excited for Easter. Our message and service will center around the theme, "Jesus Is My Lamb". We hope to show the video, "Watch the Lamb" by Ray Boltz. We will use the Hallal sound track. The video and song are very moving.

I encourage you to look forward to Easter. For a Christian, Easter is each first day of the week. A time to reflect on a Savior that lived, died and arose!

The Word Became Flesh

A friend of mine who is a worship leader sent the following to me:

"Incarnation. The WORD made flesh. He didn't do this just for us. He did it to show us what incarnation looks like. We are his hands and feet. It's not a Sunday morning service, it's a way of life (or should be). I desperately want to know how to make that more true for me. I long to be his hands and feet more than I am now--and I long to CARE about that more than I do".

What have you done today to show Jesus to someone else. Slow down and take the time! Take the time to be the light to a dark world. I need to practice this so much in my life.

Prayer

I always enjoy visiting churches on Sundays throughout the United States. I enjoy the different types of worship services offered and always bring back fresh new ideas on how to enhance our worship.

This past week, I had the opportunity to worship with a church in Oklahoma City. I enjoyed the more “contemporary music” that was offered, but the item that has stuck with me all week is the concern they had for people. Prayer was a very important part of their worship and family time. Hurting people and individuals celebrating good things that God has given them highlighted the end of the service.

We sometimes leave out prayer, and rush to the singing or the preaching. Prayer is vital in our worship time. Not just in the corporate worship but our personal time as we prepare for worship each Sunday.

You Are the Words and the Music

Music has always been a comfort and joy for me as long as I can remember. During the tough times as well as those times of praise the lyrics to songs have encouraged me to overcome, gain strength and praise the Creator of the Universe. They remind me that the Spirit of God works through songs in ways we NEVER could. Sometimes music can be the hands and arms of Jesus holding us. Sometimes it's His face we see. Sometimes it takes us to a quiet garden where we can be ministered to in ways that are immeasurable.

Thank you, Lord, for music. Thank you for putting it in our souls and communicating your love to us through song. May we hear your voice singing over us today! Zephaniah 3:17

Go into all the World...

Received this e-mail today from a minister in Texas that has been concerned about the "state of the church" in the United States:


We're living in what's being called the "Post-Christian Era." Christianity in North America has been on a steady decline for the better part of a century, with the most staggering drops occurring in the past 25 years. Christian statistician and church consultant George Barna reported that over the past decade, three million people have been leaving churches every year in the United States.The actual center of Christianity in the world today is highly debated, but experts agree it lies in one of three places: Latin America, Africa or China. Some have estimated that China, which had only 700,000 Christians at the beginning of the Communist rule in 1949, now has between 60 and 100 million believers, most of them meeting together in large, underground house church networks. Africa now boasts nearly 400 million Christians, but that number is expected to eclipse 600 million by 2025.This kind of rapid, exponential growth simply is not happening in the United States, which now has the third-largest un-churched population in the world. The rumors are true, by the way: Missionaries from African and Latin American countries are now moving to our continent to work among the lost North Americans.The question of how we got to this point isn't nearly as important as how we will get past it. The message and commission Christians have simply is too important to ignore this glaring problem. Many have ignored it, however, to the detriment of their hearts and the faith.One solution to the problem will need to come in the form of a paradigm shift-a change in methodology or theory-regarding the nature and role of the church. The technical definition of the word "insanity" is repeating the same action and expecting a different result each time. This definition often describes Christ's church to a T. Churches will need to take a hard look at the Great Commission-"Go and make disciples"-and then formulate strategies to best accomplish this commandment.Here's a clue, though: It's probably not going to look anything like what most churches have been trying in recent decades. "Attractional" Christianity, which attempts to bring in the un-churched with dynamic worship, flashy programs or the best preacher in town, has been the strategy of choice for churches for much too long, and research is indicating that the post-modern unbeliever isn't falling for it anymore.If churches take the Great Commission seriously, though, one word ought to stick out: Go. Christ went when he became the incarnation of the living God on earth. The apostles went upon receiving the Holy Spirit, first to their hometown, then to the world. And our responsibility is the same in our neighborhoods and cities in the United States.The second phrase that should stick out in a fresh reading of the Great Commission is "make disciples." Baptism certainly is what happens at the initial decision to be a disciple, but it doesn't magically spawn a disciple. True discipleship literally means "spending time with Jesus" and requires relationship, accountability and lots of latitude. "In-process" disciples make lots of mistakes, but that's OK-that's why Christ came. Mature Christians must see that Paul's vision for growing Christians in his young church plants-sanctification-is carried out in contemporary congregations. Sanctified Christians no longer run back to their old muck and mire but strain forward, pursuing righteousness and nurturing new disciples of their own.The Western Church does itself and the Kingdom no good in denying that it has a problem. It is hemorrhaging because it has emphasized the phrases "baptizing them" and "all nations" to the detriment of the three most important words in the Great Commission, "go" and "make disciples." If North America is to see an in-breaking of the Kingdom of God, and if Christians desire to delight their Creator, the Church will need to wake from its slumber and dive headlong into God's mission.All North American disciples of Jesus are missionaries, after all-now more than ever before.

Sunday Everyday of the Week!

I love Sundays. A time to tell the busy world to stop!

I need this day to re-evaluate and reconnect with my Heavenly Father and with my church family.

Ever hate getting up on Monday. Another week at work.

When I was a young middle school teacher twenty years a go, in our building was a female physical education teacher named Fran who probably had taught for 50 years. Every Friday she would come into the teachers lounge (recovery room) and say the same thing, “Thank God it's Friday. She would sprawl out on the couch looking like she was never going to get up again. Being young and wanting to have some fun, I would always go up to her and say, you know Fran, I wish it was Monday all over again. I wish we could start the week all over with the kids. The kids are great. She would look at me like I was a nut!

I really felt sorry for her. She didn't understand what true living was all about it.

I know, I try to live each day like it is Sunday. Being able to take what you longed for on Sunday and using it in the workplace each day should be our goal.

But usually I mess up. Having to deal with people, problems and situations, and the last thing on my mind is what occurred on Sunday.

Our goal should be this:

1 Peter 2:9-12

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

Ephesians 5

Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Colossians 3

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

1 Thessalonians 4:11-12

Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.

I want my life to reflect Jesus. I want each day to be a Sunday. For some people the only aspect of Christianity they might ever come in contact with might be you in the workplace at the store at school. We need to be positive, loving, caring people.

How has your week gone so far?

Blessed Be Your Name

Even on a cold cloudy winter day, when your not feeling the greatest.....I love the words to this song:

Blessed Be Your Name

In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your name
Blessed Be Your name

When I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed Be Your name

Every blessing You pour out, I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord Still I will say
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

Blessed be Your name
When the sun's shining down on me
When the world's 'all as it should be
'Blessed be Your name
Blessed be Your name

On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name

Every blessing You pour out, I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord Still I will say
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name
You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Blessed be the name of the Lord!

Sunday-Monday Dichotomy

I have been teaching our Young Professionals Class at Church on a subject that has been on my heart, Faith in the Workplace. The following article was discussed on Sunday:

Sunday-Monday Dichotomy

Is there really a difference between Sunday and every other day of the week? We sometimes act like there is. Sunday is comprised of hymns and scripture, worship and visiting with other Christians. Then on Monday, we head back to work and life takes on its usual sort of flavor. Six days a week we take on the real tasks of living; Sunday comes and we go through the rituals of our faith. Sunday is the day off from the reality of life; one day out of seven where we can think in a different way about what is important. But alas, Monday comes and then it is back to normal. But maybe it doesn’t have to be that way. Maybe it would make more sense to understand Sunday as the day when we have the leisure to experience life as God really intended it to be. As Thomas Long would say: “Sunday is not just one more day in a string of days. Rather, Sunday, as the day of worship, is the essence of the week, the Day of all Days, the day that discloses what is deep and hidden, but nonetheless true, about every day.” To heighten the value of worship, to rethink the significance of Sunday, to refrain from thinking that the real world is what happens Monday through Saturday, such tasks strike deeply at the heart of Christian identity and faith. Worship is the place where, through language, song, scripture, prayer, and community, a vision of the “real world” is experienced. And it is that vision that corrects the false and inadequate visions of life that I encounter throughout the rest of the week.

On Bended Knee I Come

"O Come let us bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker! For he is our God, and we are his people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand"

A Bible Professor once stated:

"Standing before God represents demands and confrontations.
Sitting in God's presence suggests that we are passively waiting for him to act.
But when we kneel down we are worshipping! We are saying we can't do this without you, we are in submission. We praise You and only You!"

The Heart of Worship

Ever feel like church (worship) has become a musical-theatre production? Who is worship for? What needs to be our focus?

The song below describes what our worship should focus on:

The Heart Of Worship (When The Music Fades)

When the music fades
All is stripped away
And I simply come
Longing just to bring
Something that's of worth
That will bless your heart

I'll bring You more than a song
For a song in itself
Is not what You have required
You search much deeper within
Through the way things appear
You're looking into my heart

I'm coming back to the heart of worship
And it's all about You
It's all about You, Jesus
I'm sorry, Lord, for the thing I've made it
When it's all about You
It's all about You, Jesus

King of endless worth
No one could express
How much you deserve
Though I'm weak and poor
All I have is yours
Every single breath

Words and Music by Matt Redman

The Real Celebration of Love

Communion Thoughts
Sunday, February 13, 2005
A Celebration of Love Sunday
Central Church of Christ-Topeka, Kansas


It was a hot day, a very hot day, temperature was 106 degrees. It was a day that I had dreamed about for a long time. A day that would mark a new beginning in my life. I would never be the same again.

I couldn't believe that only four years ago I met her for the very first time. It was strange how the first one I met when I moved there was her father.

Now it seemed like we knew each other forever, it was like God placed me at that place for this particular reason.

The day was long. It seemed like 2:00 would never get here.

As I drove to the church with my brother and groomsmen I was becoming more and more anxious and nervous.

I was wondering about the ceremony.

I hope I can get the words out.

I hope I don't trip in these tight shoes I have to wear.

What will Debbie look like in her mothers wedding dress?

To be real honest, I don't remember much about the ceremony.

But I do remember one thing, when I looked in to Debbie's eyes I saw love. A love that still to this day keeps growing and growing. One that is so special.

But you know, there's a love even stronger that I see each and every day. A love that never fails. A love that is truly special. It's not an ancient story. It's a real life love story today. It's our Savior who lived, died and lives today.

He has asked us to partake in this feast today as a family so we can remember the love he has poured out for us.

This is the real celebration of love.