Coming Back to the Heart of Worship-Growing in Discipleship

This week I am preparing for fall classes. In October, I will be joining Bob Fuchs in teaching "The Unquenchable Worshipper". The 6-week course is based on the devotional book The Unquenchable Worshipper: Coming Back to the Heart of Worship by songwriter and performer Matt Redman. Although Redman published his devotional in 2001, it still speaks to the attitudes that we bring to the worship of God.

We approach worship in different ways. We bring our experiences, our expectations and our burdens of the day. Our experience of Sunday morning worship can be influenced by the style and/or quality of the music, the tone of a speaker's voice or the child peeking over the back of a pew to take a look at us. The Holy Spirit might "move" for us in the midst of worship or we may find congregational worship disconnected and cold.

Because worship is a means of experiencing God's grace, this course is intended to point us toward the very heart of worship, improving our worship experiences.

Redman's goal is to lead the worshipper to be fully present and expectant, vulnerable and joyous in worship. He believes that worship of God happens in the gathering of fellow believers, but reaches out further. Redman begins his book this way, "Enter the unquenchable worshipper. This world is full of fragile loves--love that abandons, love that fades, love that divorces, love that is self-seeking. But the unquenchable worshipper is different. From a heart so amazed by God and his wonders burns a love that will not be extinguished. It survives any situation and lives through any circumstance. It will not allow itself to be quenched, for that would heap insult on the love it lives in response to."

One of the distinguishing characteristics of a disciple of Jesus Christ is the practice of worshiping with the body of Christ. Worship is a response to God. It is an act of prayer and an act of hope. The more of ourselves that we bring to worship, the more we will grow in love and awe of God.

This six-week study will challenge us to passion and vulnerability, to openness and resolve in worship. We will tell stories of our worship experiences and learn strategies to prepare our hearts and minds for worship.

If you are interested in taking the 6-week course "The Unquenchable Worshipper" it begins on Thursday evening, October 13 at 7:00. Sign up here. Enter group key: W1

Note: Many of our worship songs in our Band Led Worship @ 11 were written by Matt Redman. Here Redman performs "10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord)".