Kiki's Worship Blog

Proclamation is declaring what's true about God.  According to Kauflin, it is often underrated because we already know about the good news of the gospels and that God loves us.  But proclaiming sets our minds and hearts right.  When people come to church, they proclaim about different things, meaning those things are at the forefront of their mind.  These things are worldly things such as work and fashion.  But when they leave, they should be proclaiming about God.  Proclaiming about God says that this  is what's important and this  is what's right.  People are okay with singing proclamations once a week during chapel, but that doesn't mean that they know how to apply it to the rest of their week.  God's love applies to every part of their lives, and we are blessed to be able to help people see this.  It's unfortunate that we forget to proclaim the gospel, I do too, honestly.  I should proclaim more, it will set the gospel at...

    One of the greatest challenges a worship leader can face is trying to lead an unaffected and disinterested crowd.  There are three ways not to do while trying to lead this audience.  First, we should not demand that people worship God .  Second, we should not manipulate people into worshipping through things like insincere emotion or mysticism.  Third, we shouldn't make the audience feel guilty.  If the people are not motivated to worship, it is not the worship team's fault.  It is up to the audience themselves.  We cannot force and motivate the crowd to worship, but we can make it easier for them to.  Leading by example is important.  Singing along when possible and not seeming like we are absorbed into the music can be helpful.      The student body is hard to motivate to worship unless we play their favorite songs.  But it is not up to us to make them worship.  It's only up to God to lift people...

In Chapter 13, Kauflin gives us tips on how to choose the right songs for worship.  He points out that when we rush and stress, we tend to focus on ourselves and how to make us look good.  We obviously should be picking out songs for God, not ourselves.  Instead of rushing, we need to plan our set lists selectively, peacefully, and prayerfully. I believe we can resonate a lot with choosing songs for the wrong reasons.  Often we find ourselves searching for songs that we know well, so we can do well.  There's too much of "us" in that statement and not enough of God.  We also choose songs to excite the student body, so that they can sing along and make us feel better while performing.  We should be choosing songs solely for God and His worship.

In Chapter 12, Kauflin gives valuable advice for how we choose and play our songs and gives us the reasons as to why we should be doing it.  People often repress their emotions during worship, but they shouldn't.  There is a difference between emotionalism and emotions.  Emotionalism pursues the feelings as the end themselves, while emotions are felt because of what God has done.  Worship should be focused on God for these emotions, not emotionalism.  As for actually playing music, Kauflin advises that we should choose meaningful songs with meaningful lyrics.  We should adjust the volume of our playing accordingly, because the real worship team is the student body.  Lastly, we should use variety in our songs.   I agree with what Kauflin said about emotionalism.  Students associate worship with the tingly feeling they feel in their chest during their favorite Jesus song.  They focus on that instead of God.  The emotions they ...

Worship and God's word are not separate entities.  They are one.  Every meeting should be characterized by the Spirit's presence and God's word.  The spirit is what inspired God's word, so we should incorporate it into our worship.  We can do this by treasuring, singing, reading, showing and praying God's word.  When we treasure God's word, other people will know it.  Lyrics matter more than the tunes, so we should understand the lyrics we are singing to convey the word more.  Lastly we should obviously read it in order to show it and pray it. Being raised as Christians, it feels sometimes that reading the word has become a chore.  When chapel speakers throw lines of verse on the screen and start reading it, I unfortunately feel my eyes glaze over, zoning out to the max.  It really shouldn't be this way, and I know it.  In order to be a true worship band, we should exude the Word too.  Read it, pray it, sing it, and show it.

Worship cannot happen without the Holy Spirit.  Worshipping without the Holy Spirit empowering the band is like the power cutting out.  We should be desperately dependent, eagerly expectant, and humbly responsive to Him.  We are helpless, and God sent the Spirit to help us, which should instill feelings of humility, gratitude, and peace in our hearts.  We should be eagerly expectant that the Spirit will come through and do great things in our worship time.  We should be humbly responsive to what He is doing.  We should not rely on our own skill and music, but rely on the Spirit.  No worship is possible without Him. What's the one thing we keep forgetting?  Oh right.  That we are worshipping God.  That shouldn't be a thing.  I know I stress about my musical skill.  I practice for hours everyday because I think I should be the one helping people draw closer to God through the music.  Wrong.  The Holy Spirit does that....

In Chapter 9 of Worship Matters, Bob Kauflin reminds us that worship is all about God, and is not possible without Him.  There is nothing about worship that is not affected or defined by Jesus Christ.  We tend to forget how offensive our sins are to God because we do it all the time.  In truth, God is perfect.  When we sin, we are defiant against Him.  Jesus is the mediator we need to be saved from God's justice.  Christ's work on the cross is the only reason why we have any access to God.  Apart from Jesus, we cannot approach God.  This makes a huge difference in our worship because biblically speaking, no worship can lead people to God, only Jesus Christ can, with his work on the cross.  Our access to God is not based on our performances, for we are already accepted through Jesus.  Our own musical skill, or even heartfelt sincerity, does not make us acceptable to God, only Jesus does.  As a kind of new drummer with not a lot of ...