Worship styles

I was raised in the south. My religious background is very conservative. I spent the largest span of my lifetime in Louisiana. Dad preached there a total of 10 years (3 years and then 7 years). It is what I think of as home, even tho i have spent most of my life in California. But Jennings, Louisiana is where I graduated from high school. GO BULLDOGS!

Dad preached at the First Church Of Christ in Jennings. I don't remember much about the "music ministry" until both of my sisters went to college and there was an empty piano bench. I really wasn't a piano player.

I had taken a month of lessons (not my choice) when I was 8 and my piano teacher (who was the pianist at the church) went to my dad and said they were wasting their money on me. HAHA.. and it wouldn't be the last time. I didn't want to be there...at all. So I was allowed quit. 2 years later I decided that I wanted to play piano. I figured if Bonnie and Becky could play... it couldn't be that hard. So I learned how to play by the bang and pick method... I'd pick notes and then bang them to death. And I only knew one song... something about a train, and that poor train went fast and furious.

Just a side note... I have a picture of me at the piano when I was about 6... i had no idea what to do, but I always thought I'd play concerts... idiot! ok.. i have done that, but if you really knew how much I DID NOT KNOW about piano at that time, you'd be shocked. I HAD NO CLUE! So the challenge from dad was that I should play piano at church.

I have to give it to First Church of Christ in Jennings... they are a patient lot. I could only play songs in C or in F or in G... one # or b was my limit. Then I added 2 flats, then 3, then 4... I was really playin' piano.. then I added 2 sharps, then 3 and that's it. I actually only did 2 sharps, because 3 was too much.

I took piano when I went to Ozark.. During my first lesson, and I can't remember the guy's name, but after he explained to me that when you play piano each finger was assigned a specific note. I looked at him and just laughed... i told him that wasn't true. But again, how would I know? I had a month of lessons 10 years before. So I did ask around and found out it was true. Piano was officially hard!

I traveled all over the US playing piano and singing and singing and playing piano. There eventually there comes a time when you don't have to focus so much on the piano, it becomes a natural thing, a tool. And then you just lead worship... it isn't playing piano at all, it is simply a tool you use to lead others into worship.

David used his harp, songs, voice to lead people into worship. David wrote at least 73 of the psalms, and probably several more. the very word Psalm means "songs sung to a harp" or "play on a stringed instrument." Beings the piano wasn't invented until 1709 (the first keyboard instrument was invented and made in the 1300's), it is hard to imagine a time when there were just plucking instruments, harps and lyres. But David used a harp. He got his at Walmart at the After-Hanukkah sale. His instrument was one part of the worship he led, but the songs... the songs he sang and wrote and gave us changed the way we all worship.

Who hasn't read Psalm 23? Who hasn't memorized Psalm 119? What Psalm speaks to you? What Psalm if your favorite?

I love so many of the Psalms, so it is hard for me to just pick one, but I would like to share one of my favorites. Psalm 34... i wrote my own melody to this a few years back. I call it "I Will Bless The Lord" (fitting huh?)

Psalm 34
A Psalm of David when he pretended madness before Abimelech, who drove him away, and he departed.

1 I will bless the LORD at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
2 My soul shall make its boast in the LORD; the humble shall hear of it and be glad.
3 Oh, magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt His name together

I think in these three verses that David said all that needed to be said. It is what I call the essence of what worship is. If we would only bless Him at all times... every single second of every single day, and if his praise was always in our mouth... if we would boast in the Lord from the bottoms of our feet to the top of our heads... simply worship, we could change the lives of everyone we could contact with, beginning with ourselves. Just by blessing Him and praising Him and Boast in Him every day to everyone all the time. the humble or the every day person would hear it and be glad... satisfied...changed. My challenge to you tonight is that you would hear the Word of God. Magnify the Lord... Exalt His name... every day, all the time.

The essence of worship are in those verses. We are usually the people who get blessed, but here we must bless the Lord, and our lives and what we do with them is how we Bless God. Together, let's magnify the Lord... let tell everyone, all that will listen. Tell it over and over, magnify it, make it known. Tell everyone of God's greatness... exalt His name in your life and your speech and most of all in all you do. Let's exalt His name not just singly but with every voice, all of us, every week, every time we meet together, let us sing and speak of God's greatness.