From Quiet Solitude

You lead worship and just can't engage the congregation...you preach, no one listens...you pray over someone, nothing happens...forgot the last time you gave a prophecy, visions have disappeared, words-of-knowledge seem a million miles away...you go through the ministry motions and when someone talks about the 'anointing', you think "anointing? now, what in heaven is that??"

Sounds familiar? No? good for you :)

Yes? Please check your prayer life...your personal prayer life and read on.

Too many servants of God substitute personal prayer with community worship. I did this during my initial years of walking with Lord and how! Membership in 4 prayer groups at the same time, one of which met daily...plus I used to give talks/lead worship in all of them...trust me, attending and/or ministering in 10 prayer meetings a week is the fastest effective route to spiritual (and even physical) burnout!

Then circumstances (pretty sure the Lord also had a hand in it!) pushed me to live without a community fellowship for about 3 years.

But I ended up enjoying spiritual growth in those 3 years like no other...built my personal prayer life, learned to seek God's will, learned to depend on God for my needs and even received excellent training in worship ministry etc.

That's why I am blogging this post...so that someone may read it and avoid the same mistakes.

Before Jesus did anything significant like choosing His apostles (Luke 6:12-14), ministering to others (Mark 1:35-39), walking on water (Matthew 14:22-27) or even before His passion (Mark 14:32-39), He never gathered with His followers singing 'let's all praise and sing alleluia', instead, Jesus prayed......alone. Let us also do likewise.

Community worship and fellowship are no doubt very important, but personal relationship with Christ comes first. Just as loving God comes first before loving neighbor. Believing and practicing otherwise is a sure way to stifle the Holy Spirit's anointing.

For how can I inspire someone to worship God with a song I myself haven’t used to worship Him in that quiet place?

Or how can I help another be comfortable with God in silence if I myself don’t know how to listen to Him in solitude?

Luke 5:16, "...Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed." How much more should we?

Editing ‘Song of Christ’

Met with Mano and Bruce today to explain in greater detail all my requirements on the overall sound of the album.

We walked through ‘Song of Christ’ section by section, replacing the oboe intro with an Indian flute and repeating it as the interlude before the second verse and the outro.

Mano had added a percussion track from the second verse onwards, we added it to the first verse also and toned downed the drums - now it sounds even better; all we need is Bruce’s guitar work to complete the music!

We also discussed the overall sound and decided to maintain rock grooves fusing it with some Indian & ethnic sounds for all the songs.

Presenting God

“Look, I shall send my messenger to clear a way before me. And suddenly the Lord whom you seek will come to his Temple;” – Malachi 3:1

For the people to behold the arrival of the Lord, a way is to be organized for Him. Similar to Malachi in the Old Testament or John the Baptist in the Gospels, the worship leader is called to prepare the way of the Lord.

It’s not that the omnipotent Lord of the universe needs someone to prepare a way for Him to arrive, but the way is actually needed for us to realize His arrival.

We are kidding ourselves if we think we can simply walk into God’s Holy Presence and experience it without adequate preparation!

After all, He is Spirit, we are flesh. He is holy, we are sinners. He is God and we are only created beings.

The predominant task of the worship leader is to prepare an environment conducive for presenting the God of the people to the people of God. Throughout the worship session, with every song, prayer, dance, etc. this environment is sensitively organized by the worship ministry so that the congregation is guided to offer their worship honestly.

“Go up on a high mountain, messenger of Zion. Shout as loud as you can, messenger of Jerusalem! Shout fearlessly, say to the towns of Judah, ‘Here is your God.’” – Isaiah 40:9. The worship leader is sort of like this messenger shouting to the congregation, “here is our God, c’mon worship Him!!”