JUSTICE & PRAISE // Join us

This December we are exploring one idea on all of our social platforms - JUSTICE & PRAISE - How can we live out of a Christ-centered life while equally seeking justice and offering praise? What part does Jesus tell us to play? How does the Local Church get involved?

Will you join us in sharing the ways that God is moving in your life of worship publicly online? If something I’ve said, or something from Scripture has resonated, please SHARE IT with your friends and community. I’m asking the Holy Spirit for fresh wind and fresh fire to captivate, resonate, liberate, and recreate us. This December I want to invite YOU into what we’re calling Justice and Praise - an exploration of what I believe Jesus refers to in

John Chapter 4:32-24 (NIV)

“YET A TIME IS COMING AND HAS NOW COME WHEN THE TRUE WORSHIPERS WILL WORSHIP THE FATHER IN THE SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH, FOR THEY ARE THE KIND OF WORSHIPERS THE FATHER SEEKS. GOD IS SPIRIT, AND HIS WORSHIPERS MUST WORSHIP IN THE SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH.”

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FINDING FREEDOM

“Blessed are the people who know how to praise you. They walk in the light of your presence, O Lord. They find joy in your name all day long. They are joyful in your righteousness because you are the glory of their strength.” Psalms 89:15-17

I’ve always wondered if there was a “right” way to worship God. So many times I’ve entered into church services or worship nights’ wide-eyed, looking around for affirmation from others that I am doing it right – that my response to God’s presence is good enough or appropriate. It’s like when you were a kid learning to play baseball for the first time. You know you have to hit the ball, but what is your batting stance suppose to look like? When you walk up to the plate, you immediately look to your coach and teammates for direction. You ask yourself, “am I bending my knees enough? Is the bat high enough? Are my shoulders down? Am I looking the right way? Do I know where I want to hit the ball? And when that ball finally heads towards me at full speed, am I actually going to connect with it or will it fly right past me?” Sometimes, this is how I feel when I enter into worship.

It’s easy for me to get caught up in all the moving pieces and find myself asking God, “Am I doing it right? Am I connecting with you? Did I hit the mark?” Psalms 89 says, “Blessed are the people who know how to praise you.” So, how do I know? How do we know when we enter into worship that we are praising God and doing it well? Over the past few months, I’ve found myself wrestling with these questions and what I’ve realized is my definition of worship was totally warped! I held worship at a distance. It was something I stepped in and out of when I entered and left church. But that is NOT worship! Worship is an everyday, all the time practice.

Romans 12:1 says this: “Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to- work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering.” 

What if we lived our everyday lives EXPECTING the glory of God to dwell in us? 

What would it look like to be so AWARE of God’s presence in conversations, in the grocery store, or on our way to work? 

As Christ followers, we have the opportunity to worship God in every moment of our days because He has made His dwelling place in us! God puts His Spirit in us and where His Spirit is there is freedom - freedom to dance, sing, shout, kneel, cry, and praise Him all day long (2 Cor 3:17)! The great thing about this way of worshipping is that there is no right or wrong way of doing it. The pressure is off because God’s Spirit is freedom. We are free to be our broken and human selves - to not sit wide-eyed looking around for approval or affirmation. Our everyday, ordinary lives placed before God is enough.

MEGAN SISK // SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR 

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MEGAN SISK IS A GRADUATE STUDENT AT FULLER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR FOR URBAN RESCUE AND WIFE TO NOLAN SISK (ELECTRIC GUITARIST). HER PASSION IS TO SEE PEOPLE INVEST IN INTENTIONAL COMMUNITIES AND EXPERIENCE THE LOVE OF JESUS THROUGH DISCIPLESHIP AND WORSHIP.

KEEP LEADING

I always wanted to lead worship. I never really wanted to be a guitar player.

Growing up, I was a worship leader in my youth group. Multiple times a week I would lead services for my peers from my acoustic guitar and try my best to sing so that people could recognize the song (a real challenge for a pubescent boy with no vocal training).

So I decided to get the formal training to go with my new found passion. But a couple years into my music degree I found myself getting discouraged. I found myself doing something besides what I defined as “worship leading”. I thought I was there to run the show, pick the songs, and sing the music. Instead, I constantly found myself in a supporting role. I tried for years to pridefully, and unsuccessfully, make myself into the “worship leader” that I thought I was suppose to be.

I failed to recognize that the job of leading worship was not limited to the 30 minute music set on stage or to even one person. I had to let my narrow definition of what it means to lead worship go and try to find where God wanted to use me.

I think it’s an easy mistake to make. In churches everywhere we have designated the title of worship leader to those who lead worship during a scheduled window of time every Sunday morning. It’s convenient for us to pack “worship” away into a drawer and pull it out once a week, as our Sunday's best.

As precious as those times of corporate worship can be, worship should never be limited to music that we may or may not “be into to” on that one particular Sunday morning. It’s a lifestyle that takes whatever we have and wherever we’re at and lets us extravagantly serve Jesus.

For me, it's playing electric guitar.

Worship leading doesn't have to be limited to the chosen “worship leader” because by learning to love Jesus, as best we can, we set the stage for others to do the same...we are all leaders. It was in this moment of clarity that I realized Jesus was with me the whole time, loving selfish me, as I strove to accomplish a personal goal that almost kept me from seeing where he already using me. I was free to stop trying to be something I wasn’t and instead rejoice in who I really am.

So, whatever it is that you do. Whether that’s music, art, sports, or academics. You can lead people into worship. Jesus never called us to worship with an acoustic guitar, a synth pad, and a chorus after the bridge. He called us to worship him with our lives.

Nolan Sisk // Lead Guitar

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. Romans 12:1 (MSG)