What do you do when that last note is struck?  When the sounds of your musical worship reverberate their final sound?
Is that the end of your worship?

Worship is not music.  Music is worship, but worship is so much more.  And I feel like that is something we know in the back of our minds.  But our hearts remain ignorant to the fact many times.

This isn't a post to tell you that you are bad at worship, or that worship is more than music, because like I said- most of us know that already.  It would be redundant to say, as is this sentence (just for effect).
But this post is about reaction to the matter, not the matter itself.

Let's say you just finished a great worship service at your church- you walk outside.  Part of worship is just enjoying God's creation.  But the hope- my hope as a worship leader- is that the worship you experience inside the doors our your worship center carry out into the world. 
So you walk outside, after singing a song like "We Unite", by Elevation Worship (if you don't know the song- click the link).  You just sang a prayer of unity among believers.  So live it.  Take what you experienced in worship and let is leak out of your core.

Say you sang, "Never Once" by Matt Redman.  You walk through the streets knowing that you aren't alone.  Knowing in your heart.  What I mean is this: live with boldness in Christ.  Troubles will come your way, but through faith know that God is here for you.  So as you live your day to day life- let that pour out.  Continue to worship God for that.

When the music fades- what do you do? Do you let it remain what it was? Or do you take that experience, grow it, nurture it, and live a life driven to the worship of our God.

Just a quick thought today:

How will you worship today?  Will you try to find the experience where you found God last time? Or will you be willing to pray for change, to pray for a new experience where You see God in a new way?  Will you long for God to reveal Himself in a way you have never seen?

And just as importantly-

How will you worship tomorrow?  How will you use what God has taught you today in your worshiping?

Don't be afraid to ask God to reveal Himself in new ways. Don't be afraid to take that to the streets.

You looked at me with deep compassion,
not the kind of compassion commonly showed through veils of judgement, but in the way it was meant.
What the dictionary calls a deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it.

You looked at me with compassion.
You didn't blink. Didn't turn away.
You didn't change the channel because there were pictures of me paired with a Sarah Mclachlan song.
You didn't simply say, "That's a shame"

You came for me.
You broke open the door that I had locked myself in, picked me up, treated my wounds.
You were hurt for me.

You set me free.
You took apart my jail cell brick by brick.
Nail by nail.
You destroyed its foundation so that it could not be built again.

You traded my bruises for Your righteousness.
My life for Yours.

You showed compassion for me.

This is a post from Gospel Coalition, and I read it and just really felt like I should share it.:
I was going to post just key points with the link, but I really think that the whole article is important and key.


Waking Up: Worship and Justice In A Messed-Up World by Don Sweeting

I have a friend who sleep walks. Some nights he actually gets out of bed, walks down stairs, goes into the kitchen, opens the refrigerator, eats a snack and then goes back to bed. But he doesn’t remember a thing in the morning. I’ve since heard of people doing all kinds of strange things in their sleep—sleep calling, sleep texting, sleep driving.  I heard about one person who even sleep walked into a shower pajamas and all, and then turned the water on. At that point he woke up!

Unfortunately, many of us go through life asleep. We are asleep to the people around us. Asleep to the needs of the world and most of all, asleep to God.

In his book The Dangerous Act of Worship: Living God’s Call to Justice, Mark Labberton writes, “Worship is what happens when people wake up!” It is a “dangerous act of waking up to God and to the purposes of God in the world, and then living lives that actually show it,” he says.

The problem is, we are so absorbed in our own busy lives, our own local lives, our own inner lives, or even our own ministry lives, that we are sleep walking. Sometimes we sleep walk right into church oblivious to the most important realities of life.

Sometimes those who plan our worship are sleepy. The prayers are self centered. Song texts are all focused on personal concerns. The preaching avoids the issues that concerned the prophets. Our services are safe and predictable. The only time we get aroused is over small stuff, such as music styles or carpet color, not the bug stuff, like justice, mercy, and the weightiness of God.

When a church is asleep it enters worship with a forgetfulness about the lostness of the lost and the brokenness of the broken. It loses touch with the fact that we live in 911 world. Even today, the world is in a state of emergency racked with tremendous suffering and pain.  As we gather today, one-sixth of the world lives in absolute poverty. Each year nearly 1 million children are sold or forced into the sex traffic trade. This house thousands will die from starvation. Hundreds from malaria, malnutrition, genocide, and HIV/AIDS. Some time ago I read that in the last hour 2,738 people died from starvation, 342 people died from malaria, 76 mothers died from childbirth issues, 9,582 babies died from induced abortion, 8,898 infants and children were abandoned, and 20 Christians were martyred.

Worship should wake us up to the reality of a just and holy God who will judge the world in righteousness. Yet he is also the God who hears the cries of the needy.

Worship should remind us of the realities of a broken world, while at the same time showing us the character of the one true God. It should remind us that he heals the brokenhearted, forgives the truly penitent, and specializes in putting broken pieces back together again in Christ.

Worship should be like that guy who went sleep walking right into the shower. When the water turned on, he woke up!

Awake worship brings us to our senses. It can’t ignore the needs of this world. Neither can it ignore the gospel, because Christ is the hope of the world. Gospel hope is broad and deep. It addresses both the needs of my life and the groaning of creation.

Awake worship doesn’t send us away comfortably the same. It transforms us. It sends us away changed. Awake worship reminds us to “learn to do right, seek justice, encourage the oppressed, defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow” (Is. 1:17-18). Then it dismisses us with the call, not just to speak good news, but to be good news to those around us.

Are we willing to start worshiping God as a people who have been awakened? 

How far are you willing to go?


For a stranger?
For a neighbor?
For a friend?
For a brother?


The hard reality is that every answer should be the same.

We were created to worship.  It's true, and you can't argue with me on this.  You may disagree on what we were created to worship, but the point is we all worship something.

Look around you- everywhere there is someone or something pleading their case on why they should be the next worshiped thing.

We were created to worship... our Creator.  Look at the worldly things we place on pedastals and ask yourself how long you have liked them.  All of those things have a expiration date in two ways:

1) At some point you will get sick of them.  I used to love T-Bone, the Christian rapper, but it got old. Go figure.....  At one point I loved the idea of braided belts with the extra looped through and hanging down, and I think we can all be on the same page and say we don't need to see that ever again.
2) Everything will turn to dust someday- except God.

We like to think of worship being paired with time, and we couldn't be more wrong.  Worship is an act completely seperated from time, because it is the one thing that we as humans do that will last forever.  Seriously- think about it- in Heaven we will sing praises to God for eternity. Not for a while. Not "like forever". Forever.  Our worship will not end.

Worship is such a powerful thing, and I don't think I have really ever realized it until now- the idea that it is the one thing we do that is eternal.  And this leads me to the next point: what worship isn't.

Because  worship is eternal, it isn't defined by timely things. I will not be able to play guitar forever. That is a tool limited to earth, as far as I know.  My ability to play guitar shouldn't define my worship.  My worship should define what I do.

Let's use our time here on this world preparing for eternity, by worshiping our God and Savior.

Right now I'm reading through the story of Joseph.  Today I was in Genesis 41, the part of the story when Pharaoh appoints Joseph to be second in command in all of Egypt.  I love what Pharaoh told Joseph in verse 40:

"You shall be over my house, and all my people shall order themselves as you command.  Only as regards the throne will I be greater than you."

In my footnotes it says the Hebrew manuscript read: "and according to your command all my people shall kiss the ground."  Wow.

To say Joseph had a rough life would be an understatement.  Joseph had been sold by his brothers, taken to Egypt as a slave, bought by an officer of Pharaoh and then accused of rape by his wife,  and he was thrown into prison.

In one view of this- Joseph has been dealt some crappy cards.  But you can see something cool here: Joseph was put in charge of everywhere he was!   Potiphar made him in charge of his household, even in jail he was put in charge of the other prisoners.  You can see God all in that!

But here is where it gets simply astounding: Pharaoh brings a slave out of prison to interpret his dreams, and appoints him head over all Egypt, answering only to Pharaoh himself!

And this reminds me of what God did with us. We where dirty, sinful, wretched people.  He is perfection and purity defined.  And He brings us in and not just allows us to be in his kingdom, but calls us Sons.  He makes us family!

It is simply astounding.

We are created to worship. Period.  I don't believe this will be life-altering news to anyone.  You choose who/ what you worship.

But worship is ours. It is unique, like snowflakes, to each person. Which is why it is a tragedy that worship has become linked to an hour on Sundays in Christendom.

So here's what has been blowing my mind lately: worship is the only thing that can be created by man that will last for all eternity.


Obviously, worship didn't start with man. The moment God said, "Let there be light" creation worshiped its Creator.  And worship will not end with humanity.  As Christians, we will spend eternity giving praises to our Savior apart from our earthly bodies.

But the point is this: we get an active role in something that will never end.
The earth will fade away.
Your career will end.
Emotions will be no more.
You're life on this earth will come to a conclusion.
Our bodies will decay and turn to dust.
Everything we own will decompose (yep- even plastic! Well, maybe not decompose, I was trying to not use the same words over and over.  It's really God's call on how everything will end.  But- if the time is there [500 years], plastic will decompose).

And yet worship, our worship, will remain.

So as you head to gather with your church, or whenever it is that you read this, think of the importance worship must have if this is true!  I know that I am blown away by the fact that I get to actively participate!

In Acts 6, a man named Stephen is seized.  He was chosen to serve his community by the Apostles.  He was seized because some of the Jews disagreed with Stephen's love for Christ.  Stephen became the first martyr, being stoned to death.

Reading this, God laid some heavy convictions on me.  We think of martyrs today as people who die for Christ by the hands of godless people.  But the truth is, the first martyr died at the hands of "God-fearing people".

When Christianity started, it was just a "Jewish sect", or a part of Judaism.  When this occured, it wasn't even that official, it was just a group of Jews who believed that Christ was, in fact, the Messiah that was promised.
But the Jews were so closed-minded that they killed any variation of their version of God, or at least they tried to.

Today, in Christianity, there are hundreds of variations.  We get so wrapped up in the differences in them that we many times forget the similarities- we worship a risen Lord and want to see the world know Him intimately.

Stephen death today would be like if a group of Catholics killed a person for believing Baptist theology.  That has happened throughout history.

This saddens me, but it shows a reality that even church-people need Christ. I am saddened because I see that kind of attitude in myself growing up.  I used to believe that Baptists were right, everyone else was wrong, and that Heaven was for those who were right.  I wasn't verbally taught this, my parents never trained me to believe this, but somehow I formed this view due to a traditional Baptist upbringing.

Denominations all started from an argument. Somebody believed something different and split.  And yes, there are denominations with pretty messed up views, but in the realm of Protestantism, every denomination believes a common idea of a risen Christ and a world in need of knowing Him.

Can we just celebrate that for a second.  You can go back to fighting in a second, but let's just celebrate that today, on Easter, there are millions of people celebrating the fact that the cross and the tomb are empty today!

Let's celebrate the common goals.
Let's celebrate the fact that we will stand side by side in Heaven praising our Lord and Savior.
Let's celebrate our mission: to let the world hear the Gospel of Christ.

A Portrait of Christ from Jeremy Cowart on Vimeo.

You can follow Jeremy on twitter here.

I know alot of people aren't like me.  I know everyone doesn't share my taste in movies.  But everyone has that one movie that really inspires them to be greater.

Some people can name it immediately.  Others, they have a hard time deciding.  I do.  Different movies spark different feelings inside of me.

One of my favorite movies, Paper Man, inspires me to follow after my dreams, regardless of what my situations are.

I recently saw the movie Rust, written, directed, produced, and starring Corbin Bernsen.  The movie is about a priest who is tired of feeling like he is in a one person relationship.  He doesn't doubt the existence of God, but walks away from ministry.  He goes back to his hometown, where one of his childhood friends is accused of murder. Bernsen's character feels the need to stand up for his friend, and learns a valuable lesson that drives him back to ministry.

 I don't feel like most people would really get this movie.  I don't mean that they wouldn't understand the plot, but unless you are in ministry, you won't get the idea of walking away from ministry.  Every person who commits their life to ministry has those moments where they must be "talked off the ledge" as Walt Tanner says.  Ministry is tough, and at some point every person will wonder if it would be easier to just become a "normal Christian"- someone who believes in God and shows up at church and stuff.

This movie inspired me to not give up.  That when ministry gets hard, when I feel like I can't go on, I can.

We, as ministers of the Gospel, are doing something that humans cannot do.  This is why we hit a wall sometimes.
This is how this movie inspired me.  For you it may, and probably will, be different.

So what movies inspire you?

If you are a Christian in between the ages 18-50 who enjoys reading and has access to news, you have probably heard about the whole Rob Bell situation.  Basically- there has been a lot of hub-bub about his new book, Love Wins.  Mainly on the subject of Hell.  In Bell's promo video, it seems that Bell is proposing the idea that no one will be in Hell, that a loving God would not send someone to Hell simply for not believing in him.

I have my personal opinions, and I will let you have yours.   I have believed Rob Bell has had beliefs that go against scripture for quite awhile and he hides it behind clever videos and sayings- but I'm not going into that here. I believe Universalism is wrong, and even more, I think it is dumb for Christian pastors to preach that, because if everyone goes to Heaven despite what they do, why would anyone come to church?  But a blog is no place to post one's personal opinions.  O wait.....

Love Wins was released today, and I believe this will be a day people remember for a while.  Not necessarily because something extraordinary is going to happen, but because everyone has an opinion, and it is hard to have a "well, it doesn't really matter" type opinion when someone with alot of influence says that there might not be a Hell.





So today is officially Love Wins-day.  I got you a card.

Our God has brought life into our reach
Victory into our hands
For His love knows no boundaries
His grace knows no fear

He has rescued us, He has set us free
He has taken down our enemy
He has chosen to bring us into His family

So rejoice, all those of the Most High
Proclaim His goodness for the world to hear
Sound your trumpets, and lift your voice, O Chosen People
For today we have been called by the King.

You hear everywhere you go to be tolerant of everyone. Especially of everyone's religion.

I have to say, it has set off a thought inside my head that seems mighty dangerous.  We gotta stop being so stinkin' tolerant!  Christ says to love your neighbor as yourself, and that your neighbor is anyone you come into contact with (check out Luke 10).  We are supposed to be more than tolerant of the people around us, despite their beliefs.  We are supposed to love them.

We have to stop ignoring the sin just because the person is filling a seat.  Stop ignoring the sin just because dealing with it inconveniences us.

We are called to treat people with love.  All people.  No buts.

I can't get this thought out of my head, because what would it look like if the Church tore down barriers and actually loved the people it was trying to reach.  Now- there are many churches doing that.  But there are also many churches not.  Not pitying people, saying "Well, we know he is living in sin- but we are just going ignore it, he might leave, and if he isn't here, who knows where he would be?"  I will answer that for you- he will probably be in bed. asleep.  Sunday morning at 9.45 isn't really the "prime-time" for sin.  If you really love the person you have brought into your church, you would care about them and lovingly correct them.

There is a phrase that has been 'popular' in the church for a while- "Love the sinner, hate the sin".  I vote we change that.  Not to change the meaning, but just the phrasing.  We were sinners, too.  But with this phrase many times we say it in such an airy way as if we have never done anything wrong.   So from now on, let's just say "Love everyone, hate sin."

So stop being tolerant.  Stand up for what you believe in.  Don't "co-exist", because co-existing doesn't work.  Christians are called to spread the name of Christ.  Coexisting says to keep it to yourself.

Just remember- love everyone. hate sin.