created to love Him...

  "The surrendered heart has no more controversy with God." AW Tozer Tozer is one of my favorite worship theologians, hands down. When I read Tozer I feel like the Holy Spirit lovingly takes a 2X4 and continually whacks me in the face with it. For me, this is fun, healing, cleansing...is that weird?! Tozer brings me back to square one, the foundation. I feel like when I read his books on worship, any peripheral thoughts and tangents on worship that don't belong get swept away and I'm returned to a pure & simplistic understanding and practice of what it means to be a worshiper of Jesus.  I have long understood that worship cannot be separated from obedience to God. Our modern culture and sadly, much of the modern Western church does not teach this. Worship has become a time segment of ritual emotional song singing that leaves us unchanged, yet feeling pretty good about ourSELVES. It lacks reverence, awe and has created a current generation of people who casually ap...

Worship is giving back to God what He first gave to us.  Worship is giving back to Him the song He first sang into us.  When my kids want to buy me a gift for Christmas, they ask me for money. They take my money and buy me a gift with my own money and give it back to me. The word for “worship” used in the Bible is the word, “proskuneo.” It means to bow down, to get low. Worship is the great returning to what we were meant to be. Think about this: We came from dust. In the beginning, God reached down to our level and picked up dirt and then pulled us to His level and kissed us with life. Worship is us, getting down on the dirt to what we were made from and He’s there waiting to meet us. Worship is the romance God created in the Garden. It’s returning to His face.  Our worship echoes into eternity. Have you ever thought about Mary’s (of Bethany) worship? She was the first worship leader of the New covenant…actually her worship started before the new covenant. Re...

I'm sitting in Starbucks today trying to get some work done. My intention was to sit down and write down my weekly worship musing to email out to my church family. But then this song came on and I've had it on repeat for about 45 minutes. I can't even write. I feel like my skin is coming unglued and any minute I'm going to do a glory run around the cafe screaming the name of Jesus. I have so many things swirling around me that feel...just wrong and broken. The enemy is so loud and unleashed. He's forgotten his rightful defeated place. This song is healing to my spirit and motivation for my stubborn heart to say, "Hell? NO! Get back and lay down at His feet where you belong." So, for my weekly worship musing this week, Redeemer family, speak Jesus. Oh, and be prepared to sing this song on Sunday. He is the name above all names!

If you are a part of any kind of ‘modern’ worship service (we are going to say that modern includes an actual drum kit, real live sub woofers, and any kind of creative elements via screens, lighting, etc), those words from Elisabeth Elliot may make you stop and think a minute. We could take that a step further and dare I say, question what you do as a leader of musical worship times. These words capture so much of my heart and focus as a worshiper and a leader of worship.  There are moments when we as ‘planners’ of those times can become so focused on finding that moment, even planning that moment, making sure our sets have a perfect flow, dialing in a particular setting, that we negate the fact that while all of those things are good, they are not the final dictation of how a congregation will receive a worship time. Why? True worship is not an experience. It’s not a once a week feeling or a twice a week meeting. John 4:24 says: ‘God is spirit, and His worshipers must worship in t...

 "Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him"...Psalm 37:7 When I was pregnant with our daughter, Ellie, I strongly craved Mountain Dew. I would've mowed down a puppy some days if that was what it took to get one! I stayed away from caffeine during my pregnancy with her, but the craving never stopped! I craved Mountain Dew because I knew it truly existed. I had experienced it before- cold, sweet, fizzy. I wasn't craving something that wasn't real or I had never tried. Because I've known it, my body desired it.  God is drawn by hunger. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled." (Matthew 5:6). We were made to hunger and be satisfied. To hunger means that there is something more to be experienced that will bring that satisfaction. This is one truth that assures me that God is real. If I'm hungry for Him, just like the Mountain Dew, He must exist or else my hunger for Him wouldn't exist. He alone...

I want to know Christ and Christ crucified. Christ and Christ crucified is the perfect display of submission to the sovereignty of God. It's more than that. But right now the sovereignty of God, His supreme and ultimate power displayed over, in & through my life is where my head is fixed. If He has supreme and ultimate power, then I have very little on my own, if any, as I submit my life to Him. He is the Master Artist, Creator and Upholder of this earth and all its inhabitants.  My girls LOVE art - drawing, painting, creating, cutting, nail polish - any form of adding color and imagination to their world. Often my 4 year old will hand me a picture she's designed with pride and fulfillment in her eyes. She's so excited when she shows off her finished product. Sometimes I've made the mistake to say something like, "Oh, Ellie! That is such a beautiful butterfly! WOW!"  To which she'll respond with eyes rolling, "Mom, that's me and Daddy riding o...

 REPENTANCE?! UGH! That's like the dirty word in our current culture - both national culture and church culture.  It's typically not a happy little Christianese word because let's face it, how fun is it to admit you might be wrong about something, especially in a culture that wants everyone to believe that we're all okay and naturally good with your truth vs my truth, etc. and yada yada yada. Nonsense! We're all not okay nor naturally good. Place an Oreo in front of a 4 year old and tell her she can't have it. GOODNESS goes right out the window, quickly replaced by selfish, instant gratification. This is the core of humanity!  I've been studying the story of John the Baptist in Matthew 3 in a Bible study I attend. John's message was very simple:  "Repent for the Kingdom of  God is coming!" His life mission was to prepare the way for Jesus by making paths straight for Him, like they'd do for the roads when a king would come to town. Only Joh...

I love this guy!  The first place the word, "worship" is mentioned in the Bible in Genesis 22:5,9 where Abraham is going up the mountain to offer up Isaac.   "He said to his servants, Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will WORSHIP and then we will come back to you...When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood."   You will notice here that there are no mentions of keyboards, guitars drums or singers. Instead, there is an altar and the treasure of someone's heart about to be laid on it.  What do we learn from this? Many things. But as far as worship is concerned, we learn that worship is less about music and singing and more about altars and sacrifice . Reminding ourselves of these things helps us move away from the easy tendency to see worship as something that happens in a half hour slot at th...

Our new family addition, Evelyn Anna!     I want to share something I felt God said this past Sunday morning during our worship at Redeemer . I know this was a word for my family and I and I hope it will be an encouragement to you, too!  Psalm 24:7  "Lift up your heads, O gates! ... that the King of glory may come in."  As we were singing, "Reign Above it All," I saw a picture of our world, but it was flat, almost like the bottom layer of a cake. It was dark and swirling, chaotic. Billions of people in different shapes and angles crammed together. At times I could see individual expressions of pain, anger, disappointment, fear, division, etc. The layer had movement to it but no one came out of it.  At first I was in the thick of that layer and the influence felt overwhelming. Michael and I, and our girls, are currently in the middle of some circumstances that leave me very often feeling frustrated, fearful and not knowing what to do. I forget too often...

For Christmas my sister-in-law gave me the Passion Translation of the Psalms. I've been devouring them...slowly. It's May 1st. Today I'm on Psalm 5. Much has changed in my life over the past few years. I'm still worship leader and children's director at Redeemer. God has given me the sweetest man and our beautiful adopted 6 year old daughter the sweetest Dad. We have our 1 year old daughter who is funny, feisty, sweet and sassy...the perfect combo of her mom and dad. I'm in the thick of Mom/Wife life...a place I honestly never thought I'd get to be. I'm thankful. I'm exhausted. I smile more now than I feel I ever have. Yet, I feel overwhelmed with all that's on my shoulders to handle well. I am not one who appreciates having to ask for help. My husband is a pilot and so our life is very different. He's gone 4-5 days a week. It leaves much to juggle when he's away and makes our time together so much sweeter when he's home. I'm ...