Seeking God's Presence in Corporate Worship

Over the past several months, Pastor Steve has been encouraging the musical worship leaders to intentionally seek God's presence among us as we lead the congregation in worship. As we've led from week to week, one of the things we've done more of lately is to "linger" in worship. That is, we have taken time between songs to do several kinds of things. We are doing these in part, as an antidote to falling into the rut of simply going through the song list and then moving on to the next thing. We are seeking to wait on the Lord, to hear from the Lord, to respond to the presence of the Lord from moment to moment as we worship rather than just at the conclusion of the singing. One of these ways is to sing spontaneous songs using either a chord progression from the previous song or a newly formed chord progression. Often we try to use a progression from the previous song so that those who are more unfamiliar with spontaneous singing might be able continue singing the chorus, verse or bridge of the previous song while others sing a more spontaneous song. Sometimes, we simply wait quietly while one of the instrumentalists plays gently. Sometimes, members of the congregation respond in worship during the singing through raising of hands, dance, movement or processional (e.g., Palm Sunday). Sometimes, the congregation will respond by coming forward to stand or kneel. Sometimes, the Pastors will invite those who would like prayer for healing or for other needs to come forward during or immediately after the time of singing rather than waiting till the prayer for wholeness at the conclusion of the service. All these are efforts by the Pastors and music leaders to seek and respond to the presence of the Lord moment by moment as we worship as a congregation.

Wednesday nights feature an even more free-flowing, unstructured time of worship, prayer, ministry and teaching. The focus, however, is similar to that on Sunday morning - seeking the presence of God among us. We generally begin with a time of worship through singing led by one or two of our worship leaders on the piano or guitar. This is generally followed by a time of extended prayer that takes many forms - sometimes intercessory for those outside the church such as the  nation or region or its leaders, sometimes for those inside the church and its ministries, sometimes for those in attendance for healing or other needs. This time of prayer is often "accompanied" by instrumental music and sometimes punctuated by a song or songs that express the current theme of the prayers being prayed or ministry taking place. Recently Pastor Steve has been doing more teaching on Wednesday night. More about that in the next blog.