Setting an Atmosphere for the Presence of God

Well, the Church is not just for young people and religious hierarchy; and godly elders have learned the Word over many years and walked with God. To cast aside God's counsel and invent new things beyond Scripture to please the flesh, is a dangerous thing and is not truly "setting an atmosphere" for worship; and in fact is often just stage shows to entertain with loud bands and soloists, rituals, etc. One should bow to the Word of God, which is very OLD counsel still God's mind today.

1watchman said:

Well, the Church is not just for young people and religious hierarchy; and godly elders have learned the Word over many years and walked with God. To cast aside God's counsel and invent new things beyond Scripture to please the flesh, is a dangerous thing and is not truly "setting an atmosphere" for worship; and in fact is often just stage shows to entertain with loud bands and soloists, rituals, etc. One should bow to the Word of God, which is very OLD counsel still God's mind today.

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Well interestingly enough in the Syriac Orthodox church we do venerate icons of the Lord (Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word as per John 1:1), as well as the Gospel Book. However I did not see anyone in this thread proposing anything that struck me as unbiblical; on the contrary I see an interesting thread. Liturgics is my main interest; I also enjoy heresiology; I see nothing on this thread that applies to the latter interest, and given the focus of this subforum on worship leaders, forms of worship and so on, I think we ought to leave it at that.

"Worship Him: Discover the Joy of Pure Spiritual Worship" Fuchsia Pickett

It's a great read - re-reading it in fact.

talitha said:

I will check that out, tturt. #thankfulforkindleforPC

Personally I don't believe in bowing to the Bible - that would be idolatry in my view - but I am sure that statement was meant to be figurative..... but my worship team would tell you that I love singing the Bible - we do a lot of scripture-based songs....


I agree - but I don't think it's the style of our worship that offends God - I think empty or compromised worship does (cf Amos 5:23).


In this case, why do you post so often in the worship ministry forum? I would really like to know why. I find most of what you post here to be off-topic. Maybe I need to understand you better as I seek to approach "church" in a different way.....

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Hello Talitha. Bowing to the Bible is a figure of speech which means to yield to that authority ---not worship. Yes, singing praises is what the whole congregation does at appropriate times, but I am speaking against stage shows for entertainment, which exalts man. I post at times in the Worship section (as in many others) to share thoughts about that section. I don't see how one could say it is "off topic" in any way; and I really would like saints of God to understand and appreciate Worship, which is individual and collective, but not for a few to be expressing self in such ways. The Bible must be our only authority, not religious ideas of men ---right?

The ref. in Amos is good in a general way for all of us, and to Israel it was about their vanity and failures in worship of God. Look up always!

The first thing that came to mind when reading the header to this thread was ... I hope someone said something about praise! I don't care how bad the speaker is, if the first part of the service is good we would have been able to say that we had been in church!

Make thee two trumpets of silver; of a whole piece shalt thou make them: that thou mayest use them for the calling of the assembly, and for the journeying of the camps. - Numbers 10:2

Metaphors...

First Trumpet - The Spirit - The time of praise and worship!
Second Trumpet - The Word
Whole Piece - They never take two opposing views
The Assembly - Church service
Journeying - Direction and order of service

First Trumpet - As in....
*** The song service
*** Worship
*** Praise!
*** The Holy Spirit
*** Prayer Meetings
*** Spiritual fruit - The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. - Galatians 5:22-23
***Spiritual E/c2 - Spiritual Energy (warmth, love, motivation) / Spiritual Light (faith, hope, charity, joy)

Second Trumpet - As in....
*** The Ministry of the Word
*** The Preacher or Evangelist
*** The Circuit Rider of Exhorter
*** Christ Jesus
*** Bible studies
*** Spiritual Knowledge - And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. - 2 Timothy 3:15

And we have had ministry teams such as...

John and Charles Wesley
DL Moody and Ira Sankey
Billy Sunday and Homer Rodeheaver

These are just 3 lines out of a paragraph from Fuchsia Pickett's book, "Worship Him" "Marcyne Heinrichs gives us a wonderful contrast of praise to worship:

Praise lifts, worship bows;
Praise celebrates; worship humbly reveres;
Praise extols God for what He has done; worship extols Him for who He is."

Reading today about Charles Finney. Father Nash would go to the cities where Finney would be coming. Nash and a couple of others would pray until there was evidence of repentance in that area. Then they would send for Finney and continue to pray until the revival ended.

The only reason why "setting" an atmosphere is helpful is because believers are made up of body, soul, and spirit. You can think of it like a mobile over a baby's crib. When one thing hanging on the mobile is touched, it moves the other pieces as well. Our body, soul, and spirit are much the same.

And our bodies do react somewhat to our environment, so I believe it can be helpful to put people at ease and even make it easier for them to not feel so observed around others, for lack of a better term, when worshipping God.

Our focus should be on Father God.

All that being said, it's a small piece of the puzzle.

If anyone has a legitimate prophetic calling, and praise and worship people should, they won't be able to stop what the Holy Spirit is doing through them while they lead worship. It's what their role in the Body of Christ is!

And that's not just the praise and worship team, either. You will find other prophetic types in the congregation whose job is to worship with such ferver in heart the Holy Spirit just begins to bathe the sanctuary in His presence.

Consider the Ark of the Covenant. On one end, you see one worshipping seraphim angel, on the other end you see another. Both with their wings outstretched in fervent worship of God. What happens right in the middle? God makes that place His mercy seat!

David knew this, and it's referenced subtly in the Book of Nehemiah relating to how the priest would stand directly across from those who were praising God with musical instruments.

The problem we have in the church today is leaders can't see past their natural inclinations. They find someone who is gifted musically, and presume they should be part of the praise and worship team, when, in fact, they are not meant to be.

Churches would do better to find the person who may not be the perfect musician, but is intimate with God and has that prophetic calling because it is, in fact, the worship leader's job to help usher the people into the presence of God.

tturt said:

Agree with you 100%. Makes you wonder how many definitions of worship leader exist.

Talitha, I'm sure you've seen the differences in services. That's the reason you're aware and want that to be the focus . If the worship leader lacks understanding of that, the congregation probably won't be able to make that important move to worship at the beginning of the service nor wait to see what direction Yahweh wants. But I have seen some pastors or church leaders be able to lead the congregation into worship at different times sometimes during communion, some prayers, some sermons, etc.

We've found that as long as we're singing about ourselves, our minds are primarily on us. But when we finally get our minds off ourselves (whether we're singing or not, privately or congregational) and think primarily about Him, we can move from praising to worshiping Yahweh - engaging our spirits (John 4:24). Then we can expect His manifested presence. One way we know that we've been in His presence is there will be "fullness of joy" (Psa 16:11) and times of refreshing (Acts 3:19).

Interested in sharing what you've learned?

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Hi, I've been a worship leader for almost 10 years now. In the beginning I didn't understand this very concept, but quickly realized that when I did song that were about Jesus and what He has done and not focused on my/ourselves His presence would fall so very sweetly. Causing us as a body, not wantinv to stop worshipping our Savior. So...yes! I totally agree with you and those that don't understand are missing something that only having an experience with the King of Kings can teach. I have always been one who wants to go deeper with Jesus, staying on the surface is almost meaningless to me. I hope that's not too bold to feel this way... I so enjoy the Journey that happens when worship starts and how God bring ya into His secret place is truly amazing! One of the other things I've learned within the few years is... Just because I'm "leading music" doesn't mean I'm "leading the service" that's the Holy Spirit's job and He does it sooo well, every time we let Him be in the drivers set!!
What adventure it is to be led by the Spirit of God in the midst of worshipping Him!