Walking with God

This week, I had the privilege of sitting down with Dr. Estes, a professor at Cedarville University and author of several commentaries. When I was still at Cedarville, I took several of his classes and always appreciated what he had to say and his heart for the Lord; I could tell that he walked with Jesus.

A bit discouraged, I walked into Dr. Estes office and after catching up for a minute, I asked him the question that had been burning a hole in my heart: How do I lead people in worship all week long? He nodded his head to show empathy and then spoke from his 40 years of worship leading experience. "You must walk with God."

That's all he said for a brief moment.

I was shocked. I was looking for an answer with three action steps like every sermon I have ever heard. I was expecting him to lay out a 5 year plan of how I could lead people in worship every day. I actually had brought a yellow legal pad in expectation of furiously writing down the genius that flowed from this man's heart. If there was anyone who could tell me what actions I needed to take, surely it was this man. But all he said was, "You must walk with God," and I didn't need to write that down on my legal pad to remember.

After letting it sink in for a minute, Dr. Estes went on to explain that walking with God is how we continually worship. There are countless examples of this metaphor in Scripture that he pointed to, but his point was that walking with God is something that every Christian is called to do and has the privilege of doing. Maybe it was just me, but this concept seemed rather abstract. "How does one practically go about 'walking' with God on a daily and hourly basis?" I asked.

"It begins by being rather rehearsed. If one doesn't have the habit of walking with God, he may need to put some artificial things in place in order to remember Him and think about Him throughout the day. For instance," Dr. Estes continued, "something that may help would be to take two minutes at the top of every hour and meditate upon God's Word. This is a practice that allows our minds to refocus on what really matters, God. Something that also helps is having a visual reminder. Set out an extra chair in your office or house and every so often, look over and imagine Jesus sitting there and talk with Him. It may seem silly at first, but I don't think Jesus would mind." He said smiling. As he was talking, I could tell that this man truly walked with God. I literally could feel God's presence in the room and sat speechless as he continued to talk. How I long to be a man who truly knows and walks with God.

The conversation continued for a while as we discussed that importance of the corporate celebration of God and the individual devotion of every believer. I came away with one main point: God wants us to walk with Him. This is something that I am still trying to figure out, but I encourage you to not pray to some God who is far off. Pray to the God of the universe who lives inside of you. He is right there with you. He is sitting in the spare chair in your living room. He is in your passenger's seat when you are driving. He lives inside of you. He walks with you.

God doesn't desire your flowery language and eloquent speech, He desires a relationship with you. He just wants to talk. He just wants to walk with you. We have the privilege to walk with the God of the universe. How is your walk with God going?

I need your feedback

Hello UBC family,

Worship is complicated. Over the past 15 or 20 years, worship has become a genre of music and something that happens after the meet and greet and before the pastor preaches. As a Christian culture, we have dug ourselves into a hole.

As a worship leader and someone who cares about God's people praising Him, I am attempting to fight this stereotype, but I need your help. I believe it is God's desire to see University Baptist Church full of devoted worshipers of God, not just Sunday morning singers.

This can be hard.

It can be hard to think about worshiping God when you feel like the only noise you hear is your baby screaming. It can be hard to worship God when you are talking about football on Monday mornings with your buddies. It can be hard to worship God after a long day of work. It can be hard to worship God when all you want to do is escape from the busyness of this life.

But we're still called to worship God.

We're called to worship God when things are going great (Isaiah 12:5). We're called to worship God when life seems overwhelming (every Psalm David wrote). We're called to worship God in the mundane (Hebrews 13:15). And we're called to worship God with our entire lives (Romans 12:1).

So what do we do about this dilemma? How do we go about worshiping God with our entire lives everyday of the week?

I need your feedback. What are some things that you find helpful or you would find helpful in encouraging the continual worship of our Savior? Do you need to be spurred to think about worship more in depth? Do you need creative ideas in order to help you worship and lead your families in worship on a daily basis? Do you just want to more fully grasp the basic definition of worship? What is it that you feel you need in order to begin this journey of continually worshiping?

If you are willing, please respond to this post, subscribe to this blog by putting your email in on the right, and or email me your thoughts at worship@universitybaptistchurch.com.

God is Faithful!

Hello church!

For many of you, this is the first post you have read. You have probably come here because you either read the newsletter or heard about it on Sunday morning. So welcome!

As the article in the newsletter said, I will be posting on this blog weekly. You will see that I have been posting for the past month now. I have done this because I wanted to prove to myself that I could diligently post every Tuesday before I made it known to the congregation (I had to be accountable to myself before I could be accountable to 300 people!).

I encourage you to go back and read the three posts prior to this one; hopefully that will allow you to catch the vision for this blog. If nothing else, please go back to the first week's blog post and skim over it because it outlines the purpose of this blog more clearly.

This past week, we ordained Nick Clason as a full time minister of God's Word. It was an amazing experience and a privilege for me to watch a good friend and co-worker be affirmed by you all, his brothers and sisters in Christ.

The morning was geared towards charging Nick as he moves forward in full time ministry here at UBC. As we closed the service, we sang the song Never Once. The purpose was to encourage not only Nick, but each one of us that we never have been and we never will be alone in this world. Why? Because God has promised us that He will never leave us of forsake us and he has and will always be faithful to his promises.

Take a minute and write a list; if you're anything like me, you're currently looking at about 20 lists piled up on your desk. But write another one. Write down 7 ways that you have seen God's faithfulness in the past. Some of them can be found in the Bible, but also try to recognize the ways He has been faithful to you in your personal life (in the past 20, 30, 60, 90 years). After you make a list, thank God for His faithfulness.

When we recognize how God has been faithful in the past, we will be encouraged to trust Him with our lives both today and forever.

The center of our lives

I recently picked up a fascinating book entitled A Neglected Grace: Family Worship in the Christian Home by Jason Helopoulos. It is very likely that these blog posts will be inspired from this book for the next month or so and I highly encourage you to read it if you are able. In his opening chapter, Jason states that we all live for something. Another way I have heard this phrase put is that we all worship something.

And these two phrases feed off of one another. If we live for something, we will worship it. If we genuinely worship something, we will live for it.

For instance, we worship God, so we live for God. Because we deem him worthy of our praise and adoration, we also deem him worth living for. The definition of worship at its simplest form is to give worth to something. So we give worth to God. But what else do we give worth to?

What does your calendar say that you ascribe worth to? If a stranger looked at your calendar, would he be able to say that you ascribe worth to God? Or would he see that your top priority is your kids, golf, or ladies' get-togethers?

This obviously doesn't mean that we have to pray and read our Bibles 24/7 to show that we value and worship God, but it does mean that our calendars should have God at the center of our lives. Do you put your kids athletics or Boy Scout meetings above church and other Christian gatherings? Would you rather watch football on a Saturday then help people in your Growth Group move?

We are always worshiping something and if we are not careful, we could possibly be worshiping the created rather than the Creator.

Take a minute to write down your priorities. What are the things that fight for your attention and time? Critically evaluate your life and see what you ascribe worth to. There is a good chance you may not like what you find. You may realize that you would rather do a list of things before serving God. If this is the case, it is time to re-prioritize your life. It's time to put God back in His rightful place, at the center of our lives.

God's Indescribable Gift of Forgiveness

What a great morning of worship yesterday! It is always a privilege seeing you all praise our Savior collectively, but yesterday was very special to me. Something that we don't do enough, and I take the blame for this one, is collectively confess our sins to the Lord. It sounds morbid and depressing, but confession is a key component to understanding the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Imagine that I was sick and I had to go to the doctor. Upon examination, the doctor decides that they need to rush me into the operating room as quickly as possible to perform surgery but he never tells me why they are going to operate. After the surgery, I wake up and feel a lot better, but I end up just kind of shrugging my shoulders and saying thanks to the surgeon. 

I don't recognize the weight of what he did! If I would have know that I was about to die and he performed a very difficult surgery to save my life, I would have woken up and ran to give him a hug! I would have realized the weight of what he had done for me and thanked him accordingly.

This is what confession does. It allows us to see the weight of our "sickness" and realize the beauty and power of Jesus' life giving power through his death and resurrection. As a community of faith, let's continually confess our sins. Because when we do, we will see the beauty of God's indescribable gift of forgiveness. 

Welcome to the UBC Worship Ministries' Blog

Hello Friends,

When I used to think about worship, the first thing that came to mind was music; maybe many of you can relate. I knew in my brain that you could worship in different ways, but I just figured that God wanted us to worship by singing because that’s what we always did in church. So in order to check off my worship box for the week, I would sing on Sunday mornings and possibly (if the Spirit REALLY led) clap my hands. I was misled.  

Growing up, my family sat together during church. I don’t mean just my mom and my dad, but my uncles, aunts, cousins, and grandparents. As you are well aware, everyone has an assigned seat in church and my church or 2,500 was no exception. But one Sunday I was thrown off. My uncle Mike had sat where I was supposed to sit. I quickly gathered myself and quietly sat beside him, subtly letting him know that I did not approve of his musical chairs game. Little did I know, God would use that encounter to change my perspective on what worship really was.

I sat through 20 minutes of a tone deaf 45 year old yelling in my ear. To say the least, I didn’t sing much that morning. My first thought was how is that worship? And then God stopped me cold. I realized that God didn’t want music. He could care less about the way the guitar sounded or how high the energy level was in the room, He just wanted to be praised. And that was exactly what my uncle was doing. He was worshiping.

Friends, let’s not get caught in the lie that worship is music. Yes, you can worship through music, but music is not worship in and of itself.  God wants so much more than that. He wants our whole life. He wants our hearts to be attuned to His. He wants us to humble ourselves before His throne and say thank you, thank you, thank you.

“Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.” Romans 12:1

And that is why we are starting this blog. We want to encourage you to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice all week, not just on Sunday mornings. Every week, we post a blog that includes various ways you and your family can worship throughout the week, new songs we are planning on introducing, and thoughts and questions to help us think deeper about worship. Subscribe and follow along as we seek to figure out what it means to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice all week long. 

In Christ,

Zach Santmier