Restless Ones - Pueblo Incense House of Prayer
A production of the Pueblo Incense House of Prayer. Our mission is to help normal believers sustain a life of worship and prayer by exploring what the scriptures say about the urgency of the hour we live in as well as how to grow in intimacy with God.
Restless Ones - Pueblo Incense House of Prayer
ADORE - Conversation: AI, Authenticity, and the Heart of Worship
Welcome to the Adore series on the Restless Ones Podcast! In this episode, hosts Brennan and Zach dive into one of the most talked-about topics in modern worship culture: AI-generated worship music.
What You'll Discover
With AI artist Solomon Ray making waves by hitting #1 on Christian music charts, we explore the question everyone's asking: Can artificial intelligence create real worship?
Key Conversations
Can AI Worship God? - We examine whether something without a soul, emotions, or authentic self can truly worship, or if it's more like a rock crying out (Luke 19:40).
Using AI as a Tool - Is AI-generated worship music like a piano—a neutral tool that can facilitate worship? We discuss when it's helpful and when it becomes a dangerous crutch that short-circuits intimacy with God.
The Power of Story - Discover why knowing the story behind a song matters so much and how AI's lack of history and authenticity creates shallow worship experiences.
Emotion & Worship - Explore how worship is primarily a response to seeing Jesus, why emotion matters (but isn't everything), and what to do when you're not feeling it.
Community & Hunger - Brennan shares a powerful testimony from a house of prayer where hunger in the room transformed his entire worship experience.
Challenging Moments
- What happens when we use worship to get something instead of simply beholding Jesus?
- Are we replacing the Holy Spirit's role of unveiling Jesus with ChatGPT?
- Why microwave Christianity through AI threatens the beautiful wrestle of growing close to God
The Heart of It All
At the end of the day, worship isn't about performance, perfect lyrics, or even the latest technology. It's about bringing your authentic self before a real Jesus sitting on a real throne in a real place—and responding to His beauty with everything you have.
This episode will challenge you to examine what worship really is, why it matters, and how to protect the intimacy with God that makes worship truly come alive.
Well, welcome back to the Restless Ones Podcast. We are back again. I'm Brennan. I'm here with Zach.
SPEAKER_01:Come on.
SPEAKER_05:And we are here to equip you with the tools to build and sustain a life of prayer. So starting a new series today. We are. Adore. I'm excited. Come on. I'm excited. I think this is one's going to produce some very fascinating conversations. I think it's a yeah, hopefully. I think it's a pretty typical, you know, thing that we all know. Worship. Right. Everyone goes to church, everyone hears worship. But I think as we dig into a little bit deeper beyond the surface level, I think there's going to be some fascinating conversations that we have.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:So I think we just go for the giant right away.
SPEAKER_00:I'm I'm here for it.
SPEAKER_05:I think we jump in and we go for AI.
unknown:Yes.
SPEAKER_05:Right. Because here's why. I think in the conversation about AI, we're going to define what worship is. Because the easiest way you're going to see, oh, this is the real thing, that's not the real thing, is to see something that's not the real thing. Right. You can tell something is authentic when you see something that's fake and go, oh, well, that's clearly not this, right? Not saying AI is fake, not yet. But I think that the conversation will help us as we move forward and try to define what worship is, why it happens, all of that sort of thing, kind of laying the groundwork here. So AI worship music. Um, I think probably most people that are listening know, especially if they listen to the podcast that teaching that you just gave, which if you haven't listened to that, go back, listen to the teaching Zach gave. A lot of what we say here might not make a lot of sense because we're going to be pulling from that teaching quite a bit as we discuss it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:But in that teaching, you referred to there's an artist out there named Solomon Ray, and he is making waves in the music industry right now because he doesn't exist.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Number one on the charts.
SPEAKER_05:Artificial intelligence, right. And I looked into that. So he's not number one across all charts.
SPEAKER_00:Praise God.
SPEAKER_05:Um, it's number one within specific like gospel Christian music. Okay. Um, I looked on Billboard and like the top songs across all charts are like Forrest Frank, Brandon Lake, things like that. He's not up there, but he is number one on some charts, his album, um, two of his songs, and especially on iTunes, um, he's number one and two there. So it is interesting. It's causing waves in the worship community because it's artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence created music, created worship, as he would say, right? So the question is that's kind of being wrestled over right now, is that actually worship? Is artificial intelligence able to create worship music? So, what are your thoughts? Just kind of opening that up.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think I'll I'll start by just mentioning a little bit of what I said in the teaching. How when Jesus was riding into town on the triumphal entry, he was like, Hey, if you guys aren't going to cry out, Pharisees, even these stones will cry out in worship. So is it worship? I don't know if rocks can sing and stars and rivers. Maybe, maybe it's worship to some degree, but I think what moves his heart, what he's really after isn't rocks singing. The rocks sing because they were created. And what God is really after is hearts that are connecting with him. So I think that if it is any bit of worship, and I'm sure that we'll dive more in and you'll make me take more of a stance, but if it is any type of worship, it is not the type of worship that's stirring his heart and ravishing his heart. I think it's it, there's ideas that were somehow plugged in by another person or it created its own ideas based on all of what's on the internet, and it's using biblical gospel language. And does it glorify God? Probably. But is it authentic worship? I don't know. I don't maybe it's more of a spectrum than a yes or no. I don't, I don't know. But what I do know is that um people listening to it, consuming it, and turning it into their own worship song is authentically worship.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, that's interesting. I think there are two parts to the question. The first is, can AI worship? Right. Is it worship in and of itself worshiping God? And then the second part is can people take what AI has created and use that for worship? Yeah. So I think there's two sides to that coin. Let's let's focus on the first uh to start. Can AI itself worship? I think of what you said towards the end of the podcast, I believe, when you were talking about how in worship we bring our authentic selves before God, right? That's not really something AI can do because it doesn't really have a self.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Right? It's not self-aware, it's not created in the image of God with all of those capacities. So can AI generate a song, let's say, and sing it because there's AI that can, you know, that can communicate. Is that worship to God because it lacks any form of self or authentic self to be able to worship Him? Is does that bring God glory? Like let's say no human ever heard it. Is it still glorifying God just by making those words and noises?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Um I think the nature of AI not being able to create its own prompts out of nowhere is an important uh distinguishing factor in the conversation. There had to be somebody on the other side of the engine typing in something or talking to their phone saying, create this. So there had to be some sort of initiation. And so I think AI, I mean, I I would just this mostly because they're A's, I would just juxtapose the authentic self versus the artificial self, if we want to call it that. Yeah, and so no, I think artificial things cannot really inherently bring God glory. They're not real. AI isn't real.
SPEAKER_05:Sure. Yeah. I mean, in my mind, it's similar to like AI is like a rock or a stone, right? It it's effectively what it is. Everything we have, we've built out of dirt, rock, stones, chemicals, all those sorts of things. And so AI has been built out of that. So I think it was interesting. Um, I was listening to John Piper um and his views on AI.
SPEAKER_00:It's a good guy to listen to.
SPEAKER_05:It's a great guy. I love, love how he digs into the word. And so what his point was, because he's very focused on how emotions glorify God, right? God's most glorified in us when we're most satisfied in him is probably the foremost of his theological thoughts that he's presented. And so when he was explaining AI and how it works, in this case, he was talking about uh using it for preaching and creating notes, he said AI is unable to worship God because AI has no emotion, right? The the inability to feel worship means it cannot truly worship. So I think for me that's a very interesting point because if you make that point, then it means that worship is ultimately tied to emotion. Right. To some degree, right? Not perhaps not entirely, but to some degree that it is an emotional experience. What are your thoughts on that?
SPEAKER_00:So I agree that worship is and should be emotional, but that's not all it is. I would say that that's not the exclusive defining uh facet of worship. I think that is an aspect of what our worship can look like.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Um, I think we can worship God with our mind. That is also not very emotional. Like, I don't know. I sometimes I come across emotional. Maybe I'm an emotional guy, but I'm actually pretty like logical and like thinker and really stirred and moved mentally by fun facts and just you saying that the quote uh that or his whatever you said about it just got me so excited because it's such a cool thought in the words. So anyway, I think we can worship God in our mind, we can worship God with emotions and also just with our physical body. So many times throughout the scriptures, we're commanded to do things with our physical body that actually counts. We lift our hands, even if we don't feel it, that's biblical command to worship. And I think that that counts. Though we may feel disconnected, it can still be surrender, like authentic surrender to God without emotion. So I would say yes to worship is emotional, but not the exclusive defining feature.
SPEAKER_05:Can it be worship if it's devoid of emotion?
SPEAKER_00:I think it can be a degree of worship, maybe shallow, maybe I I don't even know if I want to make that case that it would be shallow without emotion. I mean, we are emotional beings, and I think so often we almost demonize that when it comes to worship. Like, oh, they're just playing music to stir your emotions.
SPEAKER_02:Well, yeah, of course we are.
SPEAKER_00:We want you to worship with your emotion. Yeah, and so I think without emotion, you really do miss uh a significant part of what worship is.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I agree. I think you touch on this a little bit when you talk about uh worship is a response, right? You defined it as that. And for me, that's primarily an emotional thing, right? Even if even if my mind is amazed by something, like that's still an emotion, right? Even amazement is an emotion, right? For my mind to go, whoa, that's it's emotional. So I think whenever I see God and my heart responds, I think it's it's always a form of emotion. Now, I think what we're dancing around is there's those moments when you're in worship and you're feeling nothing. Yeah, right. Is that worship, right? Is kind of the question. Yeah. Um, I feel like it may be something along the lines of like looking at David and the Psalms, right? Or bringing your authentic self before God. If you're having an emotion and you're bringing that before God, like I think that's still worship, even if it's not the proper emotion. Yeah, right. Even if it's you're you're angry, you're upset, or you just feel dead, right? He talks about, you know, I'm in a like a deer thirsting for water. I feel dry. I feel like I don't even care. But even within that, there's that, but I I want to, like I desire to, or there's a regret that I don't feel it. Sure. Right. And I think those, those aspects of emotions, those can be seen as worship too. Like I never want to invalid, make those invalid that when you're worshiping and you're not feeling it because you're going through something horrible and you don't really trust God or you believe him, right? Then that moment, I think it's still worship, it's still valuable.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Because you bring in your authentic self.
SPEAKER_00:It's so good.
SPEAKER_05:So tie back then. In that sense, then AI never has emotion, right? It can fake emotion, right? It can it can make it feel like it has emotion, but at the end of the day, it's not really feeling anything because it's not self-aware, right? It doesn't have a soul.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:And so AI then is a worship, if it is worship, that is devoid entirely of emotion.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Right. When it itself is singing the song, it has zero emotion behind it. So I think at least what we're saying at at best, that's like a a far lesser form of of worship. Sure. Would that be fair?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, maybe, maybe lesser is a good way to say it. I I think about this in um in regards to music as well. How lots of what's popular is a lot of worship artists will um create like instrumental albums or instrumental tracks, or even in worship times, they'll be just instrumental settings. And um music in itself doesn't have emotion, like it can provoke, it can evoke emotion from somebody, but music in itself also doesn't have emotion. And so it's not like I wouldn't look at the music and be like, oh, that is worship. I would say the response that it provokes is worship. So in a in a similar way, AI as a tool, if we want to call it that, is can be like music, where music inherently doesn't worship, but when it's taken and somebody uses that music even without words, then it can become genuine worship. So it is like it, I can I can see it as a vehicle to provoke worship.
SPEAKER_05:Interesting. So what you're saying is like, let's say, you know, someone's playing the piano, the piano itself isn't worshiping, right? You're saying that that's not actual worship. Now the person playing can be worshiping through that. The people listening can worship with it or through it, but it the piano itself isn't creating worship. Interesting. So you're saying AI could be similar to that, of it's it's a means that if the person using that tool is wanting to worship and the people experiencing it are worshiping, then it's a tool to aid worship potentially.
SPEAKER_01:For sure.
SPEAKER_05:That's interesting. So let's switch to the second one then, where we kind of went there of can we use what AI has created to worship? Right. Um, artist Forrest Frank put out a post saying you can't worship like that's not worship because you're opening your spirit up to something that doesn't have a spirit. So how how are you worshiping if the thing that created it doesn't have a soul?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:So thoughts on that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Um with that statement, particularly, I've I've heard him say it on multiple like podcast people quoting him. I don't know if I agree. Like you're opening your your spirit to something that doesn't have a spirit. I think we do that with a lot of stuff. You know what I mean? Like I'm drinking coffee right now and opening it up a lot to this coffee and this caffeine. And um I think that God can take even things that were created for evil and turn them for good. And I mean, I've heard stories and I know people who have had profound worship encounters with songs or with musicals or instruments that were not created to glorify God. And they took that and they applied it to their relationship with the Lord. Some people even getting saved because they're sitting watching a musical that has nothing to do with God, and maybe there's undertones of of Christianity or the gospel message within there, whatever. But I think that um it can be useful.
SPEAKER_05:Hmm. Yeah, I think of like uh old hymns and stuff, and I haven't fact-checked this, but I I, in my understanding, a number of them were made from bar tunes of the day, right? Like super popular hymns that we know today that have encountered people and that people have used for worship for ages, right? Like I, in my mind, to use a bar hymn, something that's used to sing about things that are not God, is in my mind almost worse than taking AI, which is completely objective, and using that then to sing, right? So I feel like if we can use bar hymns as worship, I think we can use AI as worship too. Now, though, here's the question: do we think that's ideal?
SPEAKER_00:Right. This is great.
SPEAKER_05:We can use it.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_05:I think it's a tool, but is it preferred? Because it's a lot easier. Yeah, heck of a lot easier if all the main big artists just suddenly switch to AI, right? I could do music. Yeah, I'm no musician, right? I could create things. So is that ideal though? Because God gives people giftings, he gives them talents, he gives them skills for a reason that he wants us to use, right? Man was made to work the garden. So is there an issue if we become entirely dependent on AI for our worship songs?
SPEAKER_00:Right. So I look at that as using a crutch that is so not necessary. Though we can, I think, I think what we're saying is, yeah, I think we can use AI to help us worship.
SPEAKER_05:Right.
SPEAKER_00:But you don't need to. Like you really don't have to. And God is not looking for our performance. I think I hit on this a few times throughout the teaching. He's not looking for us to craft the right words, the right melodies, to sing it all in tune, to say it all in the right way. He's looking for our authentic self, our hearts turned toward him. And though AI can maybe spark something, he doesn't need the cleaned up, polished, number one song to help us get to that place. What he's after is just the rawness of crying out, the the honesty of who we are. So, well, maybe you're in a dry season and you're like, I am not inspired whatsoever. I need something. I maybe you turn to the keyboard and you play music and your heart gets moved emotionally, stirred. So you're thinking about God. Maybe it is you type in a prompt to AI, help me worship Jesus. Give me something exciting about Jesus. You use that and that turns into conversation, sure. But I think that within who we were created to be, within the scriptures and the unveiling of Jesus through the Bible and the Holy Spirit living inside of us, we don't need it. And if we're turning to AI as our as our primary way to get started and inspired, that's a problem. When it becomes every day before I start worship, I'm talking to AI. Don't do that. You've got the Holy Spirit living inside of you, who one of his primary roles is to unveil Jesus. So there, that's when I would say it's a red flag. Now, I I use AI probably every day to write the notes. I make so many spelling mistakes, it's not even funny. I made some really bad ones. So every time that I finish my notes, I plug it in and say, check all the grammar and spelling. And most of the time, everything comes out pretty spelled right.
SPEAKER_04:Nice.
SPEAKER_00:I've written a number of songs, and sometimes I get so stuck on a lyric that I can't figure out how to rhyme. So I'll just type into AI. Hey, give me, give me words that rhyme with this. Help me finish this phrase. And I chew through it and try to find the right things, but I don't, I don't think it's good to come to AI as the everyday crutch. Hey, reveal Jesus. Why would we do that to replace the role and the voice of the Holy Spirit in our lives?
SPEAKER_05:Such a good point. I feel like too, it kind of short circuits uh for the songwriter their relationship with the Lord. Like if you're in that field, like you are a songwriter, that's what you're designed to do. God's given you a gifting and a talent, a desire to craft music, to craft lyrics, to make things that are gonna worship him. And so I think to short circuit that and just go straight to Chat GPT or whatever AI of your choice, I think you lose that intimacy with God. It's gonna take time, which I think is an issue with our generation, is Chat GPT is fast, right? It's microwave Christianity. That's right. We we have to go back to the there's there's a value for this taking time because then you've got to sit there, you've got to talk to God, you've got to talk to the Holy Spirit. Spirit. You got to ask him, how do I craft this? What do you want me to say? You have to get inspired to do it, right? If if Holy Spirit, or not Holy Spirit, oh Lord help. If Chat GPT, which is not the Holy Spirit, is what's giving you inspiration, then why do you have to go to the Bible? Why do you have to pray to create a worship song? Why do you have to get to know God? Why does there have to be a relationship? You can get it just that fast. Yeah. Right. And that's so dangerous.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:And even not talking about the people that are listening to the music, just for yourself. Yeah. Right. As the songwriter, I think that's that's a dangerous, dangerous path to walk down.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. This it brings up the garden scenario, where in the teaching I talked about how how worship is about proximity and also partnership with God. In the songwriting process, we'll use songwriting as the example. In the songwriting process, we're exercising what we were given in the garden to get close to him and also to partner with him, intending and cultivating that skill set. Maybe he's given us a degree of a skill set. And I mean, nobody starts off a good songwriter, like an amazing songwriter. It takes cultivating that. And so the resources and the skills that God has given us, we're called to cultivate that. And when we when we come to AI and we don't we don't cultivate that, we don't sit in the pain and the wrestle of writer's block, the pain and the wrestle of not understanding this concept about God or digging through it emotionally, then I think that'll be reflected in what's written. If if we are writing AI generated songs, I think it'll be reflected. Now, admittedly, I I've heard bits and pieces of the Solomon Ray thing. So I don't know how good it is. If it comes across as passionate or if you can tell the dryness of it, I don't I don't know. But what I do know is from my own heart as a songwriter, there's no way that I would feel good saying, A, I wrote uh even a third, a fourth of this song, or a third or fourth of a teaching, because I didn't sit in the wrestle and cultivate and get close to God. I love creating stuff. I love, I love teaching, I love writing songs and creating set lists because it draws me close to God.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And when I don't, when I don't have that time of like the wrestle, I mean, it took me what, three weeks to write this teaching? Because I'm sitting there just trying to wrestle, Lord, like let me hear your thoughts on this. Let me get close to you about this.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so, oh, I would never want to trade that in for even a perfectly crafted song or teaching.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, come on. I agree. And I think too, like at one point that John Piper made, he said, if you're going to use Chat GPT to like write your sermon, write your song, then just say you did.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Right. Like if you're going to say do it, don't lie. Because I think that that's a point, right? Is we can make it sound like this is me and my ideas. Right. And he's like, just don't do that. It's okay. But like say, hey, ChatGPT wrote this sermon today and I'm going to preach it.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_05:And no one's really going to appreciate that, right? Because they want to hear you, right? They're they're there to hear your heart, to hear what you care about. I think that's it's similar in music, right? When I listen to a worship song, there's more depth to it when I know the story. Absolutely. Right. I think this is something that's good. Possibly our modern worship culture has kind of lost in worship because we're so separated from those that are worshiping, that are leading the songs, right? I don't know Brandon Lake's story very much at all. I guess I could learn from social media and stuff like that a little bit. But when someone I know writes a song, like I've listened to some of your songs that you've written, and I know their history, I know where that song came from. I know why they wrote that song, right? I by our friends Abby and Jonathan, right? I Abby wrote a song that she explained the history to, and then she had me listen to the song. And oh my goodness. I don't know if it's an amazing song or not. I'm not a musician, but it moved me so much. Why? Because I knew the story. I knew it was what happened behind it, and it gives so much more force and weight to it when you know that. And so I think that's something AI will never have.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:It'll never have the capability of having a story attached to the song. Right. And I think we we've gotten used to that, to singing songs with no story behind it, because it's just popular worship songs and stuff, which I don't know if there's anything necessarily wrong with that. But I think there's beauty in the personable songs that I know the story and the history behind that person. It's even why I like going to concerts. Yeah. Because a lot of times they'll share the backstory. Absolutely. And then it's like, oh, well, I can sing that. Like I can worship that because I've been there. I know what you're going through, and I can sing the same thing. I think that's a key point that AI simply doesn't have.
SPEAKER_00:It's so good. One of my favorite worship bands when I was in middle school and high school was the Desperation Band. They've written so many classics now at this point that were so good. And they would all they they back then, I thought, man, they just over-emphasize these stories. Like they tell the story of the song way too much. Like just sing it. But I as I've gotten older, I've I've understood the value of like exactly what you're saying, where the song story matters and it's it makes a huge difference. I think about in the book of Revelation, mentions the song of Moses at some point, one chapter in there. And if you just read that at face value, you just read the book of Revelation, you're like, that's so random. Why is the song of Moses just kind of thrown right here? Well, you've got to go back to Exodus 33 when they cross the sea where they were getting delivered. The armies of Pharaoh are catching up to them, and God splits the sea and delivers them. And then this song bursts out from an entire nation. And then that's recalled in the book of Revelation and all throughout scripture. There's this call to remember your deliverance from uh Egypt. And that's powerful. So I think of that at the end of the age, when the whole world is remembering and recalling what Jesus has done, there's a powerful story about who God is that that's shapes who we are. So it's such a good point. And it's littered throughout the scriptures.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, it's true. I think we worship God better when we know the history behind the song, like when we understand the story. Like I've listened to like Forrest Frank explaining the background behind a couple of his songs and just hearing simple things like that. And it's like, oh wow, I love these songs so much more.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:I think it's I think it's a great point.
SPEAKER_00:Even even the for everyone who's seen it, the Forrest Frank and Corey Asbury social media thing, yeah, where they were like beefing on social media, and then we were brought into the story. Like as this song was being created back and forth, we get brought into the story, and that song's like I would probably never listen to it. It's not really my style, but because I watched the story play out, I love that song.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, it's really cool. It's true. The story matters.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:So let's let's take a little pivot here off the AI subject. We can come back if we want to. Oh, I'm sure we will. But um, I mean, I I think let's try to summarize a little bit actually where we just landed with AI, right? So we're we're talking, we don't think AI is actually worshiping.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Like maybe, but likely not. Right. It would be kind of where I would say we landed. We can take AI and use it to worship. It's a tool similar to a keyboard that could be used for worship, but it's not the ideal, right? It has no history, it has no story, it has no authentic self, like none of those things. It can be used, you can worship with it, but it's not the ideal because it short circuits the process of getting there. And the it's in the process that we really encounter God, both the worshippers and the one creating the music. So I think that's helpful because I think if we take that, then we can look at, okay, so what is worship? Right. So worship from that kind of journey is it's a very emotional experience, perhaps not all emotional, for sure, but it is emotional. Like there's some degree of emotion and there's there's an element of story to it. There's an element of our authentic selves, our story being woven into the worship that creates worship to God. Right. I think that's that's just hitting me right now. That's super interesting. The fact that it's our story that allows us to worship. Yeah. Right. Because so often in the Bible, it's a call to worship, is the call to remember, right? It's think about what God's done, see how he's moved in your life and worship, right? It's a part of who you are. It's bringing your authentic self before the Lord. So that's interesting. Yeah, I like that. I like that story is a part of that. So let's let's balance that then. So if if emotion is very emotion, if worship is very much emotional, right? If it's connected to our story, who we are, our authentic selves, what else is it? Right. If it is those two things, what else is worship?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's a response to the beauty of Jesus. Nothing that he's done and nothing that we've done, but just who he is. Worship is the natural response to that beauty, to his holiness. I like how thinking of the throne room scene where they're saying holy, holy, holy, thinking of that word holy as there's nothing that even comes close to who you are, what you look like. This beauty, this glory is just transcendent. There's nothing that compares. And it's the natural response to that type of beauty.
SPEAKER_05:I like that. I feel like I think of a moment in my life where like I'm just explaining myself a little bit. I'm not a huge worship guy, right? I don't really sing or play. I sing four times now, you know. That's right. So we're getting there. But I'm not a musician really by nature. Um but and I and I struggle when I'm in worship services to worship. I feel like I I'll sing the songs and stuff, but I don't ever really feel like I'm worshiping. But I do remember one time where I did feel like I was worshiping. Um I was at another house of prayer um or use house of prayer down in uh Tulsa and was there. We walked in, and I've I've never had an experience like what I had there. I would love to go into a ton of details, but I'll shorten it to say I went in and it didn't sound very good, right? They were good musicians, but the entire room was cement, like walls, floor, ceiling. It was basement. Oh boy, and there was no drum cage. So when I tell you the symbols were a little annoying, it was bad. Right. And there were no chairs.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Wow.
SPEAKER_05:And I was there for six hours. So it was it was a difficult experience because I'm sitting there going, okay, my back is killing me. I don't have a good back to begin with. And the symbols are just clashing off of everything, and it's horrible. And I sat there and I was like, I think I'd stay here forever.
SPEAKER_01:Wow.
SPEAKER_05:Because the presence of God was so thick in that room. And for the first two hours, I was singing and I was worshiping. And like every time I stopped, I felt like I had to worship because they were singing about Jesus. And that I was like, oh my gosh, I need to sing with them. Like he's worthy of that. It was a Spanish set though. I didn't understand. But five words of it.
SPEAKER_02:That's great.
SPEAKER_05:So it was it was wild to me. I'm like, I wow, I don't even know what they're saying. Wow. I know Santo and I know Jesu Cristo, but I don't know anything else, right? And but so they're they're going, or it may have been Portuguese. I forget which one it was. But anyway, I don't I wouldn't know the difference. And so anyway, they're going on, and we get to the end of this time, right? I actually had to leave for a minute, drop off a rental car and come back. But we come to the end, and it was English set for the last two hours. So I understood what they were singing, and they were just adoring Jesus so much. Every prayer, every song was just Jesus, we want you. We're hungry, we want to see you rightly. And they ended with the song Um Izzy Worthy, right? So good. I I love that song mostly because of this moment. Um, but they were singing it and they just they kept just singing the Izzy Worthy and didn't ever get to the he is part. It just kept going with the Izzy Worthy, Izzy Worthy. And then when they hit the he is, like I had no idea what the rest of the room was doing, right? And I'm not a very expressive person in worship. You've seen that. I I don't even really stand, right? But in that moment, and I tell you, I was jumping and screaming. He is, I was because something in me was like, wait, no, he's worthy of me yelling.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:That he's worthy, he's worthy of me jumping. He's worthy of that, right? And I looked around the room going, oh my gosh, I'm probably annoying a million people, but the whole room was jumping and dancing and screaming. And so I'm like, okay, we're we're all feeling it, we're all seeing he is worthy of our worship. And so that to me was a moment where I encountered, like, okay, that's what real worship is. When you talk about it's a response, right? I saw Jesus in that room like I'd never seen him before. And what came out of me was real worship. Like I don't feel like I find that very much. I'm I'm typically a more of a Bible reader nerd, love the facts and stuff that blow my mind. But in that moment, I was like, oh my gosh, this is worship. Like, because I I see Jesus and I want him so bad, and he's so worth me singing and praising him that everything in me just wants to do that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. That fact alone is a good enough reason for all of us to get involved in a worshiping community, in a prayer room. I mean, the the primary thing we do here at our prayer room is worship Jesus. Yeah. At every single prayer meeting we have, we spend more time adoring him than we do anything else.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Because that is who it's who he is. It's who who we were made to be. We were made to adore him. That's that's the key. I mean, it's that fact alone is worth us selling everything to worship him and adore him for all of eternity, not just in this age, but in the age to come or ages to come. Um it's another podcast, but I I think that adoring him, there's there's truly nothing better. And um I'd love to do an entire session on the idea of antiphonal worship. Um, but it's so key to look at Jesus, respond to him. And when we don't feel it, when we're not in that space and that that encounter, yeah. This is the beauty of doing it in community because you see the guy who is jumping and going crazy, and you're like, what do you see that I don't see? What encounter do you have? And I want some of that. We get a little jealous, and that's okay. Like, I want you're excited. I I'm gotta get that excited so many times. You know, we do this day in and day out. I lead worship every single day of my life, and not every single time am I in that space where I'm like, I'm ready to cry or jump or scream. And so sometimes I've got to sing truths that I don't feel yet. And it's like that that old uh uh Laura Park song. You gotta sing your way into the truth. You've got to sing your way into worshiping and glorifying him. Like so many times I'll be singing songs this morning. I did it right before we started this set. I was singing about Jesus, have it all. I wasn't feeling anything. And then I started singing set of fire. There's no place I'd rather be. Set me on fire, Lord. Like, I want more, I want more. And I sang my way into that moment, and there was a moment where I felt like it broke open for me and maybe a little bit for the room too. Um, so it's it's so important to respond, to listen and feel where you're honestly at. Don't fake anything and try to, you know, provoke something and conjure something up that isn't there. But we can prophetically sing our way into where we should be.
SPEAKER_05:That's such a good like explanation of what we were talking about earlier of does it have to be emotional? Right. And it's like, yeah, we want it to be, but then there's those places where you're not feeling it. What we're saying is like in that moment where you're not feeling it, go for it. Like press into it, sing it, right? Get into a community with others that are feeling it. I think that's really uh the one of the biggest reasons why I had that encounter there was because the room was going there. Right. I walked in and to be honest, like we were there to help like give some training and teachings around house of prayer. Yeah. And so I walk in thinking, all right, you know, I'm gonna see how they do it and we'll give some pointers on, you know, here's how to run a house of prayer, here's how to do it, you know, all that sort of thing. And so I walk in with uh a very logical mind, ready to analyze, right? And not really ready to worship a little bit. I love prayer room, but you know, I've been in them all the time. And so I walk in, and the fact that everyone else in the room, it felt like, was just going for it. They just wanted Jesus so bad. You could feel the hunger. I left going, I wonder if they could teach me how to do a prayer room.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Wow.
SPEAKER_05:Because I haven't had that. Like that, wow, that something was different about this experience. And I think it was that a huge part of it was the hunger in other people. And so there's there's a value. Get around a hungry group of people that really want to worship Jesus, that want him bad.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:And it makes you worship because you you get that, it rubs off on you. Yeah. You all want to go after him together.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I've been leading worship for about 15 years now, and that's what makes all the difference in a worship during a worship set or in a culture of worship. What makes all the difference is how hungry are the people in the room.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Do people show up on Sunday morning ready to worship? Do the worship team, do they show up excited, ready to worship? And are we bouncing off of each other's excitement? Like are we leaning on one another and going? Because when there are those settings, man, it's so easy to get lost in worship. Yeah, it's so easy to linger there. It's so easy to not move on from there because there's genuine and authentic hunger. It's even in the Song of Solomon, when the bride is feeling dry and scorched by the sun, she's like, Where do I go? I am so dull and dry and I've been burned out by all of this. And Jesus is like, Well, follow the hungry, like follow the trail of the flock. Look at their footsteps, follow where they go, get around them, do what they do because they're the hungry people. If we could just find some hungry people and kind of cling on to them for a little bit and then become a hungry person and cling on to others who are not hungry, that provokes something in us and in those that we surround ourselves with.
SPEAKER_05:I love that. Have you ever had a moment in worship where, or maybe not in worship, but where like things shifted for you on how you saw worship? You ever had like a moment, an encounter where the way you saw worship or the way you worshiped kind of shifted?
SPEAKER_00:There this is interesting. I don't know why this came to mind. There was a time I was in an internship. We were on like a U. Tour hitting churches and doing nights of worship and prayer. And we were in this night of worship. The team was leading. I wasn't on the team, but there was this guy in a wheelchair. And I was like, oh, he's getting healed tonight. So I walked over to him at the beginning of the night, gathered a couple friends, and we prayed for the guy all night. He stood up three or four times, tried to walk, and he left in his wheelchair, didn't get healed. I was like, man, that's a bummer. But he seemed pretty encouraged. And afterwards, I missed out on worship. Like I didn't really didn't participate. I was contending for this guy's healing, which is noble, and we should contend for everybody's healing for sure. Always go for it. But in our debrief, our leader was like, You guys are so full of faith. And I'm like inspired by your prayer and your willingness to continue to pray for him and not give up. He was like, But I'm grieved tonight. And I was like, Because he didn't get healed? Me too, bro. Like he goes, I'm grieved that I think his name is Stephen. I'm grieved that Stephen didn't get the opportunity to worship Jesus tonight.
SPEAKER_01:Oof.
SPEAKER_00:And I had never, I had never realized that. I was I was using the atmosphere of worship to get something, not necessarily for myself, but for somebody. I was using that to try to get something. Like it was the atmosphere of intense worship and a whole room singing. And I sort of capitalized on that to try to get somebody healed. And that guy showed up not for healing, though he wanted it, contended for it with us. He showed up because it was a night of worship, but he didn't get a chance to worship. And so that scenario, I think, just demonstrates the privilege that it is to gather with believers for the sake of worshiping Jesus. There's a lot of things in those moments of worship where we can ask God for things. We're in worship, God, I need money. What's always money? God, I need, I need friends. God, I whatever it is. But I think sometimes I leave those scenarios grieved now because of that situation where I'm like, oh, wow. This was this was supposed to be all about you. This was supposed to be all about me beholding you. And I think that if we just do that, like if we just behold the presence of God, the beauty of God, the power, the majesty of God, then I just think he shows up and healings happen and lives get saved and deliverance. We just gotta learn how to behold.
SPEAKER_05:Wow. That's that's intense. The phrase you used if we he you used worship. That's rough. Like I think, I think even in my own life, right? I I typically, because I struggle to connect in worship, I typically use worship to write my emotions. I use it as like an emotional health tool of I'm not feeling good, so I'll go into worship. The music will make me feel better, and then I'm good to go. Right. And that's not worship.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:That's not. Is it helpful? Yeah, it's probably a good thing, but it's it's not worship at all. And I think, man, we we need to get back to that place. I need to get to the place of where worship is that response, right? What's what I had at the House of Prayer in ORU, where we see Jesus and it moves us to sing to him, because then it's all about him. Right. If it, if it's not from this place of having seen Jesus and loving him, then it can become about us or about other people or other things. But that that experience, like I feel like we we lack such a view of God today. We don't see him like we're meant to. Because if we did, we wouldn't stop. Yeah. Right. If we truly saw him, then it would, like you said, it would produce authentic affection, right? If we truly could catch that glimpse of Jesus. I feel like we we need that. We need that view of Jesus in our lives and in our churches.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. That's why we pray Ephesians 1 all the time around here.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Because we just need the eyes of our heart opened to see him. We need the Holy Spirit to unveil the glory of who Jesus is. We need to see him rightly. That changes everything, man. And there have been so many times in our history of a house of prayer where we'd have nobody in the room, literally just me on a guitar. It's a snowy day, and I'm the only one who made it to the prayer room. And I'm like, what am I doing? Why didn't I stay home? Like, I could have just done this at home. And I've got to picture Jesus sitting in the front row. I've got He's here. What do you look like? What are you thinking about? Help me to see you. And that that changes everything. It gives so much purpose and so much meaning when we when we see him rightly.
SPEAKER_05:I think it's going back to what you said at the very beginning of the podcast, right? You said Jesus is a real man, sitting on a real throne in a real place. I think we we lack that. Like I I struggle to think of that when I'm worshiping, to think I'm actually singing to someone who's real. And he's he's actually listening. He says that throughout scripture. When we lift our voice, he hears, right? And so if we can get that mindset, I think that's a place we need to start. Amen. Is okay, Jesus actually hears me every single time. Like if we can picture him, like you said, in our minds, if he's sitting in the front row or picture him on his throne, picture him on the cross, however you want to picture Jesus in your head. But if we can see him and then we worship straight to him, I think that will begin the shift because then we'll start to sing. And as you sing, you'll get to know him more.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Because all the songs we sing, they're they're biblical. They they have hopefully they have all that stuff unless they're AI.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, they can still have some extra biblical.
SPEAKER_05:That's right. But as you sing, you'll get that view of God that then stirs you to really authentically worship.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I think that when we take worship and we we make it about something other than staring at him and his beauty, we will always leave with a measure of dissatisfaction. When it's more about us, when it's more about a scenario, circumstance, or we're trying to get something out of it that doesn't happen, or even if it does happen, I think we still leave a little dissatisfied because it's always been about Jesus. It's always been about who he is. Even the throne room scene in Revelation 4. Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God Almighty, you're worthy of everything because you created everything. That is the puzzle piece that fits into the last piece, is when we actually behold him and look at him for who he is and what he's done.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And when it's about us, we only leave thinking more about us.
SPEAKER_05:Come on, Lord, put Jesus back in the center.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Worship and our hearts.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. That's good.
SPEAKER_05:All righty. We'll wrap it up there. Thank you all for listening. Check out other podcasts down below, other discussions. You can find study notes and a blog post with new content on similar themes to this Adore session. And I'm looking forward to diving into Adore and Worship a whole lot more with you guys. God bless y'all.