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 A Stronger Heart for WorshipHow one pastor found intimacy with God
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I confess. I've lusted. I've lusted after the kind of church that someone else is pastoring. More than occasionally. Worse yet, I hid my lust by pretending my church was actually better. Or at least just as good. The object of my lust was worship. I wanted the kind of worship at my church that I saw and heard about at others. I wanted to see people moved by the Spirit during a service. Tears. Joy. Intimacy with God. I found many people and situations to blame for my unfulfilled desire. It was the board, the lack of musicians, the town, the backward people, the building ("If only I had a larger sanctuary"), the denomination ("Pentecostals don't have this problem"). It was everything, except me. After all, I had the desire. I was the one who "spoke for God." I couldn't be the problem, could I? Well, yes. I didn't openly hinder worship; in fact, I was all for it. I taught that it was a good thing to celebrate God. "Taste and see that the Lord is good" was a text I was familiar with. (I wasn't too familiar with the taste, just the verse.) It wasn't that I didn't want people to love Jesus. The problem was I had no idea what loving Jesus meant. Messing with My Mind and EmotionsMy faith was cerebral. I grew up in a stoic family that went to a stoic church. Faith had to do with reason. If someone were to ask me, "Do you love Jesus?" I would have said yes, though with little emotion attached. I had the "if you love me you will obey my commands" down cold. I would love Jesus as long as doing was as far as it went. I didn't want him messing with my emotions. Worship was an hour on Sunday morning. While I had passion when it came to my wife and children, I had none when it came to expressing my faith through worship. I was opposed to the "hand-raising, oil-slinging" crowd because I mistakenly thought their faith was all about emotion. I failed to see that my own faith had swung too far in the opposite direction. It was 1983, and I was pastoring my first church. Sixty people in a poor, rural Kentucky county. Fortunately, only one family in the church had problems with me. Unfortunately, 58 of the people in the church were from that family. I had no idea what I was doing. I felt like a failure. That's when God did it. He chose that time to begin drawing me into a love relationship with himself. I wasn't seeking him wholeheartedly. Yet despite my sin and immaturity, God wanted my heart. Over the next several years, God taught me to express love and adoration to him that actually came from my heart. Patiently and gently, he transformed my heart of stone. Beyond "Pass It On"I suspect God knew that I had to love him with all my heart before I could help the people to love him. It began simply enough. I felt an "urge" to worship the Lord. Not a mandate, not a command, just a simple, quiet longing. |             | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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