I don’t really consider myself to be a writer. I know I have been known as a song writer, but writing like this finds me a little nervous because my spelling and grammar are not the best; although by writing for a US based church, at least I can hide behind some spelling differences. J I do however like thinking and sharing thoughts, and so when I was asked to write a blog for Casa de las Naciones / House of the Nations, a church I had the privilege of helping start with Felipe and Olivia, I felt honoured. At the beginning I knew no Spanish at all, in fact I disliked the sound of it, (forgive me), but when Felipe shared his vision about starting the church and his need for a worship leader, I heard God tell me to get involved and offer to lead worship. I argued with God, but He won. As I offered myself, something leapt in my heart like a magnet doing a 180° flip, and from that point on I fell in love with the language so much so, I think it is heavenly to worship in it. Though accomplished in ‘English’ worship leading, I had to totally move out of my comfort zone and rely fully on God.

The times of worship we experienced together were powerful because we all knew that we had to come as we were before Him and offer what little we had. That first Sunday I had learnt ‘Toda Honra’, and we had decided to sing that live, and then play a few songs from a CD. The idea was to learn a song a week. I remember sitting on the edge of my seat, sweating and nervous, waiting for Felipe to announce we were going to worship, when all of a sudden I heard the key words ‘toda honra’, and I leapt up and walked down the aisle from the back to the front. Felipe stopped speaking and looked a little confused, and I then looked back at him confused. I explained I thought he’d said we were going to sing the song as he had mentioned the words. He hadn’t. In fact all he had done was talk about how much God deserved all the glory and honour etc. Graciously he covered my mistake and turned to the people and told them we were going to worship. We sang that song 3 different times that service, each time over and over, and the presence of God was so powerful. God responded to our weak and tiny offering of worship by filling it with his presence. I have remembered this event so many times over the years, reminding myself that when I lead worship it’s not about who I am, but about who He is.

Over the last number of years I have found myself in the unique position of being a ‘somebody’ and a ‘nobody’. I say that with all due respect to those who are involved in church life in whatever shape or form, however, when you are in leadership and on stage you can be quite high profile and therefore seem to be a ‘somebody’. We chose to return to the UK in challenging circumstances, not quite knowing what we were coming back to. For a season, I felt I should lay my public ministry down. This, along with a prior experience allowed us to experience being ‘nobodies’ – i.e. we were not known in the circles we moved into. This is a very humbling situation to be in as you can be tempted to have an identity crisis where you try to assure people you that really hadn’t lost it, and did have experience. When you are flying high in any kind of ministry it is easy to forget it really is only in God that we have our identity. We so desire peoples affirmation, (of course we are too spiritual to admit it, but we do). We all need encouragement and to feel we are being effective, but how do we react when we have to let go of that which is so precious to us? Ah, here is a key principle of worship – dying to self.

Loving God with all we are requires us to let go of any rights we think we have. Actually we don’t have any rights other than what He gives us anyway, and yet, like tithing, for many it is a hard thing to do. We can only give what we have been given. We created nothing ourselves. It’s all ‘from Him and through Him and to Him’ (Rom 11:35-36). The uniqueness of this situation has meant we have been on both ends of the spectrum of church relational dynamics in being either the honoured guest or the unknown visitor. I have found that I learn a lot by observation. This has made Rachel and I question the whole role of hospitality as part of worship, which is really rooted in the second part of the ‘greatest commandment’ to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’. Loving God requires us to practically love others. And so I have decided to reflect a little on this idea, and write some thoughts up on this blog. So now I will go away to think, and then I will share some thoughts. See you later.