Music Ministry

Personal – Personal worship is spending time with God one-on-one.

God created mankind for a personal, intimate relationship with Himself. Jesus says in John 17:3, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Personal worship is the foundational practice to nurture and grow a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

Spending significant time alone with God communicating through prayer and Bible intake is the strongest, most consistent way to develop this relationship. As God says in Jeremiah 29:13, “You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart.” As we sacrifice our time to God in personal worship, He reveals Himself and His will to us so that we might know Him more. In times of personal worship we also receive discipline, encouragement and direction for how we are to live our lives in relationship with God.

Service – Service worship is the outgrowth of our times of personal worship.

We receive direction from God in personal worship and then live it out through service. Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

In personal worship, God directs us to serve His people and to reach out in love to family, neighbors, co-workers and friends. As we live out our obedience to what God has revealed in personal worship, we worship God through service.

Corporate – Corporate worship is our group celebration of God’s character and His activity in our lives!

In corporate worship, we gather together with other believers to celebrate who God is, what God has said, how He has empowered us for service and what He has done through our obedience! God communicates with us through personal worship, acts in and through us as we serve Him and then we celebrate all of that together with other believers as we worship corporately. Psalm 145:4-7 says:

“4 One generation shall commend your works to another,
    and shall declare your mighty acts.
5 On the glorious splendor of your majesty,
    and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.
6 They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds,
    and I will declare your greatness.
7 They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness
    and shall sing aloud of your righteousness.”

Corporate worship is also a time of teaching and learning. As God’s word is sung, prayed and preached, we grow in our relationship with Him and with other believers. Colossians 3:16 says: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”

This is the Biblical picture of corporate worship. As we hear from God through personal worship and obediently live out His will in service empowered by His Spirit, how can we not share and celebrate corporately the great things He has done?

In John 17:20-23, Jesus prayed that His people would be one, as He and the Father are one. In this passage, Jesus says that our unity will be part of our witness – “so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” If we are to “be one” as Jesus prayed, we must seek unity in our worship and surrender to God’s ways above our own. In Romans 15:2-3 we see the approach that God has prescribed:

2 ”Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. 3 For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, ‘The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.’”

To promote the unity that Christ prayed for, God desires for us to put our neighbors before ourselves. Rather than solely pursuing expressions of worship that edify only ourselves, we are called to unselfishly pursue and promote the varied expressions of worship that edify others. The beauty of God’s plan is that our sacrifice for our neighbors joined with their sacrifice for us edifies everyone. Deeper than that, to truly pursue unity with fellow believers, we must do more than just tolerate their favorite expressions of worship while we wait for what we like.

The greatest sacrifice is that which seeks to be open to God’s presence and glory in every expression of worship, regardless of our own personal preferences. This kind of sacrifice shows that we desire to worship God above our own pleasures, and that we desire to please God by “being one” with other believers, as Jesus prayed. When we seek to do this, our corporate worship will be more pleasing to Him. Romans 15:5-6 shows us the result:

5 ”May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, 6 that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”