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Demonstrating How to Worship and Pray
Navarro suggests that Christian leaders can teach well by demonstrating well. DEMONSTRATING HOW TO WORSHIP & PRAY Our congregations need to see that we are people of integrity, demonstrating worship as a lifestyle. But they also need to see that we are willing to express our love to the Savior. Praise is always expressive, active, and demonstrative in the Scriptures. Worship is something we do! It is something that we express. Psalm 95:1-2, 6, for example, says, "Come let us sing for you to the LORD, let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song . . . Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker." If we want to implement this psalm with our congregations, we need to be the first to sing, shout, give thanks, extol with music and song, bow down, and kneel before the Lord. If we do this, we are demonstrating what worship looks like according to this psalm . . . This especially important as it pertains to prayer. If you were to teach a new believer how to pray, how would you do it? Would you study a book on prayer together? Would you send the person to a conference on prayer? What would you do? The most effective way to teach that young disciple how to pray would be to pray with him or her. Take the person to a prayer meeting where people are praying. That person needs demonstration of what prayer looks like and sounds like in order to learn how to pray . . . Great leaders know that people need a demonstration when learning something new. This is true whether they are buying an appliance, learning a skill, or learning how to worship. Teaching about worship is important, but it is not sufficient. We must demonstrate HOW to worship. — Kevin J. Navarro, THE COMPLETE WORSHIP LEADER. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2001, pp. 129-130. ISBN 0-8010-9116-0 [Well, I’m not willing to agree that learning to worship is like buying an appliance, but I like the author’s point that people learn in a variety of ways. Sometimes we learn by reading the manual and sometimes we learn by watching those around us—perhaps a combination is best.] Have a great week, Chip Stam Director, Institute for Christian Worship School of Church Music and Worship Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Louisville, Kentucky www.carlstam.org www.sbts.edu |