Worship

Boy, time has gotten by me! I haven't written since February. Here it is now July - in the midst of a hot Texas summer! My two oldest kids -- Garrett, 19, and Erin, 16 -- were blessed to attend the National Worship Conference last week in Austin, Texas. They were invited to attend to represent our church, St. Paul Lutheran Church, in Fort Worth, Texas, along with another gentleman. Over 2500 people from all over the United States, and even the world, attended the conference. The speakers, workshop leaders, and performers were a "Who's Who" of modern Christian Worship. My son attended a guitar workshop with Lincoln Brewster. My daughter attended vocal artistry session with Tim Carson. They both attended a song-writing session with Chris Tomlin (Awesome!).

Talking to both of them about what they learned and what God showed them at the conference was very insightful. Every evening after supper the conference attendees were treated to a Worship concert. The first night they were there, Leeland was playing followed by Phillips, Craig, & Dean. Leeland is a very young group -- the group members are about my son's age or just slightly older. Garrett has enjoyed their albums and was excited to see/hear them. He appreciates PC&D, but wasn't necessarily on fire to hear them. After the concert he called me completely pumped. He said Leeland was good... but PC&D was absolutely AWESOME! Their message, their musical abilities, the depth of their songs, and the clear superiority the musicans were evident. Not to take anything away from Leeland -- I'm sure they will continue to produce excellent music -- but there is really something to be said about the obvious maturity and godly wisdom of Randy Phillips, Shawn Craig, and Dan Dean.

Proverbs 6:31 says, "Gray hair is a crown of splendor; it is attained by a righteous life." Not that I'm even commenting on the color of their hair... the point is in the Christian life, age is sign of wisdom. Not that everyone's that's older will necessarily have wisdom or that young people can't also have wisdom, but with those that are walking with the Lord, experience leads to godly wisdom. In fact, there is really a humility that comes with a continued walk with Christ. The more we learn, the more we find our we really don't know!

As far as the major "take away" from my daughter... she said she came to real appreciation of how big our God really is. 2500+ people from all over the world discussing and learning together how to worship Him better and more perfectly really gives one an appreciation of the awesomeness of our God. You begin to realize that He goes well beyond the confines our own little church buildings! You begin to see that he is the God of all time, of all people, and of all places. I know I so easily get caught up in my little desires -- even those things where I believe I am being led by God. It is such a small part of his grander plan (Yet still very important to our Heavenly Father!). It reminds me of when Elijah was being chased by Ahab and Jezebel and he was feeling like he was the only one remaining that was attempting to faithfully follow God. God basically had to slap him down and say he wasn't even close to the only one left -- "Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and all whose mouths have not kissed him." (1 Kings 19:18) (emphasis mine).

I thank the Lord that we can be a part of something so much bigger than ourselves. I thank him for the opportunity to worship him in "spirit and in truth."