Unity Community
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Unity Community
Corporate Worship at Unity
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Host Tim DeCresie discusses corporate worship from planning to participation with Worship Pastor Kevin Justice.
Hello, and welcome to the Unity Community Podcast. This is a place where our church family can hear real stories of life change and discover how God is working through our ministries and missionaries, both here and around the world. From conversations with our staff and leaders to testimonies from our people, we're pulling back the curtain on what God is doing in and through Unity Community. Thanks for listening. Let's grow closer to the Lord as we grow closer one to another.
SPEAKER_02Welcome, I'm your host, Tim DeCreesty. Thanks for taking a moment to listen to the Unity Community Podcast. Corporate worship is one of the most visible parts of church life. Every Sunday, we gather together to sing, pray, open God's Word, and focus our hearts on Him. But have you ever stopped to consider why God calls His people to worship together? Well, today we're sitting down with Kevin Justice, our worship leader, to talk about the purpose of corporate worship, what goes into preparing for Sunday mornings, and how each of us can engage more meaningfully as we gather with God's people. Whether you sing loudly, quietly, or somewhere in between, my hope is that today's conversation will help us better understand both the privilege and the purpose of worshiping together. All right. Well, welcome back, Kevin. Thank you for joining us.
SPEAKER_00It's good to be here.
SPEAKER_02And I do want to say before we get too far into it, because you know I'm the voice in this podcast, but you're the one doing the behind-the-scenes things to make this come off what everybody's listening to.
SPEAKER_00Well, doing doing what I can to help. I'm I'm excited about the ministry and how many people are downloading and listening each week, and so whatever I can do to help keep that going.
SPEAKER_02I'm and people and people do ask me, how many people listen? I said, I don't know. I don't Kevin gets all that information. I don't see any of it.
SPEAKER_00I think a little report I got last week is that uh like 90 some people had downloaded one last week. You know, so it's it's growing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So that's great. Well, I appreciate all the behind-the-scene things you do to make this happen.
SPEAKER_00That's what I'm here for.
SPEAKER_02All right. Well, that's not why you're here today. We're gonna uh get into corporate worship.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02So let's get into that and you tell us why corporate worship is important.
SPEAKER_00So corporate worship, obviously meaning worship when a group of believers are together as opposed to just private worship. I think the biggest reason that comes to mind when I think why it's important is because all of the places in the Bible that it says one another. We're where there's there's all kinds of one another commands when, especially in the epistles, Paul or some other writers talking to a group of believers, you know, that how we're it it's not a uh it's not a solo sport, it's a team sport, our our Christian walk. And so we need each other. And so coming together in corporate worship is important as we do the things that we're supposed to do for one another, bear one another's burdens, pray for one another, encourage one another, teach one another. Uh, and when you think about the worship aspect, you think about the parallel passages in Colossians and Ephesians where it says, teaching one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, and teaching doctrine. And and let's not make the mistake of thinking, you know, we're talking about worship that it's only music. Corporate worship is all of it. It's it's giving, it's listening to the word and preaching the word and um all of those things we have in common because we have the blood of Christ in common as believers. So we come together corporately to celebrate that, and that's why it's so important to do it.
SPEAKER_02And I'm glad you made that distinction because a lot of people just think of corporate worship as, oh, that's the music before we get into the preaching.
SPEAKER_00Our entire service from start to finish is a worship service, not just music.
SPEAKER_02So um what do believers miss when they don't gather for corporate worship? And I go back to like during COVID and now that our church is live streaming the services. It's easy just to sit at home and I'm just gonna watch it online. Uh what are they missing out by staying at home and not gathering together?
SPEAKER_00Well, I just think they're missing first and foremost just the participation of it. I mean, I'm not I wasn't so foolish to believe that everybody was sitting there on their couch singing to the top of their lungs when we had to do the online worship, you know, when you were talking about during the pandemic and doing just worship online. You know, nobody's sitting there with their coffee singing those to the top of their lungs. And so there's there's just not an aspect of participation. You're a spectator. Now, you can get caught up in the uh, you know, the danger of trying to be a spectator, even when you're here in the building, too. But it's important as you come together, you see one another, you fellowship with one another, uh, you can you can share with others in our congregation. Hey, here's what's going on in my life right now. You can laugh together, uh, you can pray together. And then standing in that room when the music is going on, we're singing together and we are celebrating together the essential truths of the faith that come from scripture. And uh just celebrating the fact of what God has done in us together. There's something about being in a room full of people that are all doing that of one heart and one mind and one accord, as opposed to just watching it come on uh or watching it on a screen.
SPEAKER_02And that would be comparable to when you go to a concert. Man, that show was awesome. And then you get the live CD. Yeah, that's pretty good.
SPEAKER_00Right, right. That's true, and you know, even being in that live concert that you were there, you know, if you're an active participant, you're gonna have a a much different experience than if you just sit, you know, with your arms folded. Um, you know, what we want people to leave here not saying, Man, what a great service that was, or man, what a great song that was, or what a great sermon that was. We want them to leave, say, what a great God I serve because what he's just done in my heart, because I was a spectator along with my fellow brothers and sisters, or I was a participant, not a spectator, along with my fellow brothers and sisters in this worship service.
SPEAKER_02All right, well, let's shift gears a little bit. Let's take us behind the scenes, and how do you prepare each week to get the congregation ready for worship?
SPEAKER_00Okay. Well, it's a process. There's a lot of steps, and I guess, you know, just starting very, very even fundamentally from the beginning. First of all, I got to have other participants with me, musicians and singers, and people somebody at the computer running the screens, somebody at the soundboard running microphones and instruments, uh, somebody at the lightboard turning lights on and off. Uh all of those things have to be scheduled. So, matter of fact, yesterday, um typically I would have this done before now, but just because of what's been going on, some other things going on. Uh, yesterday I worked on scheduling musicians and singers and tech people for the months of June, July, and August. And that's about to be sent out. So the first thing I got to schedule people to help us pull it off. And uh they'll tell me, yeah, I can be there that day, no, I can't, and we go through that process. So that's a that's the big starting point. And then, okay, what are we gonna do when we get here? Well, typically um about a week and a half to two weeks ahead of a certain Sunday is when I sit down and I think, okay, what are we what are we gonna do during this worship service? What are the big rocks that are gonna go on? Are we gonna have a baptism? Uh, you know, are we gonna have communion? Um what is Jeff going to preach? That's a big one. And and you know, he's got his his things lined out right now through the book of Mark, that on this date I'm gonna preach this passage. And it pretty much goes right according to that. There are some times that, well, he decides that's gonna be a two-parter, so it might change. But it's amazing how the Holy Spirit, even when I'm looking at that ahead of time, say, Oh man, this song would be great with that message. And then he might change into a two-parter, but the song still goes along really great with what he's doing, and I think the Holy Spirit gets gets involved in that. But typically, about a week and a half to two weeks ahead of a Sunday, I'm choosing songs, putting them in the order we're gonna sing them, weaving them in and out with whatever else is going on in the service. Um, then I'm sending those out to the people that are scheduled for that Sunday so they have them and they can rehearse on their own. Uh, they can spend time with it. If we've never done it before, they're gonna spend more time learning. If we've done it before, they're gonna review, okay. And uh singers, I'll I'll uh record uh what vocal part they're supposed to sing and send that out to them, and so they have all that material ahead of time. Uh most of the time, or many times, we'll rehearse on the Wednesday before that Sunday's gonna happen. Uh, and then definitely, even if we can't get the Wednesday one in, we're we're meeting early on Sunday morning. All those singers and musicians and tech people are here uh by about 7.15, 7:30 on Sunday morning, and we're just we're rehearsing through it to make sure we're ready so that uh you know people can just experience God, have an encounter with God through his word that we're singing and reading and hearing preached. Um and we're not uh we're not being a distraction to that because we're not prepared. So that's kind of like the big rocks of of preparation and the planning process.
SPEAKER_02Well, what do you think makes a song suitable for corporate worship?
SPEAKER_00That's a good question. Um, because there are a lot of good songs out there, and not all of them are necessarily meant to be the greatest for all singing together. Some of them are just better to listen to on your radio, and it might be a powerful, truthful song that does something in your heart, but it may not necessarily be the easiest for a big group of people to sing. So some of the criteria what I'm looking at, okay, first and foremost, are the lyrics of this song biblical? And that's the first thing that makes it suitable for us to use in worship. Are the lyrics biblical? Sometimes they're straight biblical quotations, sometimes they're biblical principles that you can see throughout the Bible. And I want to make sure that consistently the lyrics throughout the song are biblical. Sometimes it can be 99% that way, but that one percent disqualifies it. Perfect example. I won't name the song or the artist or the church that put it out. A very, very popular song right now that a lot of people are doing. And I was poised to use that song in worship. Uh, we were really close to using it, about a week out from using it, and we got to looking at the lyrics again and uh talking with Pastor Jeff about one phrase in this song that was used different times throughout the song, we we just weren't comfortable with. It wasn't necessarily that it was a sinful phrase, it just didn't quite quite line up with what we felt was good, solid doctrine. And so we decided, you know what, let's leave this one off. So that's the first thing. It's gotta be biblical, 100% biblical. Then it's gotta be singable for a congregation. You know, it's not meant for you know some opera singer, you know, to sing that nobody else can do it. Uh, and so you want something that's singable. So a lot of that has to do with where where the key you put it in. Is it too high? Is it too low? You know, those kinds of things. And then, you know, does it just fit our church's culture? You know, and that changes over time. You know, there might be songs we use now that maybe we would not have sung 20 years ago. They're biblical songs and they were biblical then, but it just didn't really fit who we were like it does now. There's some that we sang years ago that did that may not fit who we are now, or you know, the structure of the song has just become dated. And you, you know, so you just look at all those things. Again, number one, non-negotiable is the biblical thing of the lyrics, then the the singability, and then you know, just kind of like the style, does it fit us? And then, you know, man, is it gonna is it really is this song gonna hit home with where people are right now? There might be times where I go, man, right now in the season of our church, and what I know some of them are going through, this song is going to minister to people, and so that's the time to to pull that song out. So a lot of a lot of things like that going in, go into selecting what songs we are going to sing and what we're gonna leave off.
SPEAKER_02So you said the lyrics are suitable. Are there songs based off the instruments that you think probably not there can be at times, you know. Um or the sound, maybe.
SPEAKER_00Maybe the sound, and that that's part of just like, you know, is it is it is it fit where people are right now? And does it fit our congregation's personality? I love all types of music. If you look at my playlist in my music program on my computer, my phone, I mean, there's everything from contemporary worship to southern gospel to bluegrass to old, you know, classic songs that everybody would know that are just songs that were on the radio in the 50s. I mean, you name it. I love it all. I love bluegrass. I know there's probably a a little select handful of people in our church that love bluegrass, but our congregation as a whole are probably not going to respond for us to get up and doing a big bluegrass gospel song. Well, hey, I it might be every time every once in a while for a hey, no, that was cool, but not a steady diet.
SPEAKER_02I play the jug.
SPEAKER_00Well, there you go. See, that that might be an instrument that is for a specific time and a specific place. And when we pull out that bluegrass, you'll be the first one I call. I have no idea if I can play the jug, but and and again, you know, there might be some certain occasion where it'd be perfectly great. Hey, let's do this and it'll be different. But it's what what is the steady diet? I love Southern Gospel. There's a lot of people in our congregation that love Southern Gospel. There's a huge portion of our congregation that doesn't care two cents for it. You know, so I can't just sit up there and do a steady diet. I can flavor some of the things we do, even in what we do. I mean, this song has a little bit of a Southern gospel flavor, so I think it's there's there's people that are really gonna like that. But the people that don't really care about Southern Gospel, they like it too because it's not just all the way. And so you you take considerations like that of your congregation style.
SPEAKER_02Well, you know, we used to say uh we used to have those, maybe it was a Sunday night. Open up your hymn book, throw out a song. Oh, I want 487. Well, we can't do that anymore because we don't have the hymn books. Right. But I want to throw out Old Rugged Cross. Uh-huh. Put that one out there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. We we we that's that's in our repertoire. Uh we've done it. I can't tell you the last time we did it, but I know it's one we do. And here's another thing, too. I'll take some of those songs, and this is what we'll do mostly now. We we still sing a lot of those old hymns, um, but but maybe they're in kind of like a refreshed style.
SPEAKER_02Right, you did that last Sunday.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And so that's somebody said it was Randy Vader, who used to be uh the president of Praise Gathering Music, which is Bill Gaither's publishing arm. And uh he he would say, We don't we don't sing the great old hymns because they're old, we sing the great old hymns because they're great. Yeah. You know, there is deep theological truth there, and so I never want to get to the place where we don't sing hymns. No, we're gonna sing hymns. We might sing them in a little bit updated style, but we're gonna sing them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, I I think you do a great job. Just in visiting some other churches, because I'm out and about on vacation or whatever. We have a quality program that's excellent, and so I appreciate all the preparation you put into that.
SPEAKER_00Well, I I owe to a lot of people who have poured into me, owe it to a lot of people here who who serve and help me, and uh owe it to uh just a a culture here in this church that we're gonna be faithful to truth.
SPEAKER_02And so that's and we have a lot of good we have a lot of good singers.
SPEAKER_00Oh man, my goodness, I am so blessed and fortunate with singers and musicians.
SPEAKER_02Holy smokes, they can sing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I I you know I I don't want to say this out everywhere and brag about this, but I tell our people who are participating, I tell them all the time, some of our musicians say, listen, guys and girls, you know, I I've gone to some really big churches, and I'll put you guys up against them any day of the week. You know, some of these churches are paying musicians, all of our volunteer. We don't pay our musicians, they're volunteers and God has just blessed us with some incredible talent. And I I'm not saying that to be prideful, I'm saying that to be thankful to who God has led here and I get to serve alongside them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm thankful. Yeah, you know, they it's phenomenal. So along those same lines, what does meaningful participation look like for you?
SPEAKER_00When you're up there on the stage, kind of what gives you that oomph, you know, like man, this is going well, or well, I mean, certainly anybody who's up there doing what I do, that they're gonna love to see outward response. And that is encouraging. If I can see people that man, they are singing out and uh they're engaged in it. If I can see people, maybe they're raising their hands, maybe they're closing their eyes and they're thinking about what they're singing. You know, that that's great and encouraging, and sometimes you know, it can be discouraging if you see somebody who's, you know, scrolling through their phone and you know, reading a book, you know, they're or you know what they're not engaged at all. But I have to remember I can't always judge everything on that outward appearance. Just because somebody maybe is not a real demonstrative person, they're not a person that's gonna raise their hands or clap or or shout out amen, that doesn't mean God's not doing something in their heart. And so I can't gauge on what I feel like is the level of engagement just based on that. You know, any human is gonna see that and and try to judge. And so is it encouraging when I see people engage like that? Sure it is. But I have to remember also there are a lot of styles of engagement, and there are some people who are very um, maybe they're cerebral people and they're thinking through what they're singing and the truth from the word of God of what they're singing, and they're letting that process in their mind and it's flowing down to their heart, and they're just more reserved people. So I think I can't say what it looks like as much as I can say I know what it is, and that's when people are just engaged in in any style of their outward engagement, and how I know that because I'll see, I'll get feedback from time to time, and it's maybe it's somebody who is that quiet, reserved person will will contact me, they'll come up to me or they'll email me during the email me during the week and say, Man, that song really spoke to my heart. That hit me right where I am right now, and I appreciate that. And so, you know, I know people are engaged even sometimes if it doesn't look like they are.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I mean, to to your point on that, I think last week we sang a song, Lord I lift I can't remember what the song was, you know, but it was lift my hands.
SPEAKER_00So when I fight, I'll fight on my knees with my hands lifted high. Right.
SPEAKER_02So everybody's lifting up their hands, and I remember thinking, I just in that reserve, like, that is just not me. I just, you know, I'm I'm enjoying the song, but I just cannot bring myself to do that.
SPEAKER_00Or sure, and I get that, and that's fine. And you know, there's so many, there's there's a lot of commands in the Bible about outward expression. You know, when you read things through the Psalms and other places where it says clap your hands and shout for joy and lift up holy hands, those are kind of commands, but it doesn't mean everybody has to do them all at the same time. It's just the the attitude behind that. It also tells us sometimes to, you know, lay down prostrate or kneel before the Lord or face down before the Lord. Well, are we doing that 100% of the time? No, it's the attitude of our heart. Right. You know, that flows into some of those outward expressions.
SPEAKER_02And I don't say that to defend myself because I know it's probably just the church I grew up in. Like those things didn't happen. So it's more of breaking out of what I was taught as a kid.
SPEAKER_00And so and so we do see more of that in our congregation now than we maybe did in years past. And it was funny, some you know, in those transition years where you know things were were changing a little bit in that, I would I'd get people telling me, Man, I felt like I want to just raise my hands, but I didn't know if that was allowed in this church. And I would just kind of chuckle at that. It's like, what do you mean, allowed? Sure, you're allowed. You know, you you do what God is doing in your heart, and if that's your personality and your outward expression, by all means. And so I think that's we're seeing more and more of that. And that is encouraging to our singers when we're up on the stage because that's an outward sign of engagement. But again, I understand that's not the only way people engage. And so I don't I don't let it bother me if I'm not seeing hands raised or whatever. I just know that God, you're you're gonna take what we're offering to you and you're gonna make it take effect and take root in people's hearts in the way That you see fit, and hopefully they will be submissive and responsive to you and what you're trying to tell them and teach them and show them through this song.
SPEAKER_02And since we're talking about, you know, with corporate worship, we're leaning on the music side of that. But I got a chuckle the other week when Jeff was preaching in somebody in the congregation, you know, he doesn't always get a lot of amens, but somebody said, preach it. And I thought, okay, there you go. Now I'm not against the preach it. Like, yes, that's you know.
SPEAKER_00And and that's encouraging to a preacher when he's getting amens and uh Jordan, our student pastor, he's a good for uh come on. You know, you'll hear him say that every now and then. That's encouraging to a preacher in the same way that a a hand clap or uh praise the Lord or a lifted hand is encouraging to a singer, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I mean I thought it was great. It just made me chuckle, like, okay, because you just don't hear that. Like I, you know, I hear the amen, but the preach it. All right, yeah, let's have some more of that.
SPEAKER_00Yep, that's good.
SPEAKER_02So that would fit right into maybe what encourages the worship leader leader. So as you're out there, or maybe Jeff's preaching and he hears that somebody, amen, or preach it, come on, you know, what are some things that maybe encourage you while we're doing corporate worship?
SPEAKER_00So things that are encourage me during, first of all, I guess is when God um when I'm allowing him to do the work in my own heart, and I begin to feel something in my spirit because of the truth that we're singing. Um, because you know, let's be honest. We all we all have times where whatever we're doing, we might go through the motions and what we're doing, and we're not really engaged in it. So I but I try to I try to be in the moment and and and have the view that man, what I'm doing right now, I'm offering to the Lord uh the best I can with the excellence I can do it in, and prayerful that he uses it. So that the first thing I I want to happen is I want God to work in my heart. And then again, I just I love to see the outward expression that God's doing the same thing in others' hearts. Whether we're we're during the service, uh if I can see that, again, not only just with the lifted hands, but you can sometimes you can just see it on somebody's face that they're engaged and and God is speaking to them. Uh, and then you know, it's always encouraging when people come up to me and rather than just hey, music was good today. I love that. Thank you. I appreciate that. But when they're, you know, you said this in that song, and I'm going through this right now, and that really encouraged me, or this particular song was exactly what I needed to hear today. I I get those comments, and that's just the that's just the Holy Spirit at work when I'm sitting in my office listen. Here we are, May 27th, and I say on June 14th, let's sing this song. And then on June 14th or 15th, somebody says, Man, that is what I needed to hear to say. That tells me the Holy Spirit is guiding what we're what we're trying to do.
SPEAKER_02That's awesome. Yeah. So on the flip side of that is it's encouraging. Well, I'm just speaking for myself, certainly can't speak for the congregation. Uh when we look up on the platform, or when I look up on the platform and see people smiling, you know, when I was a a youth in the church I was in, our minister of music, John Mullins, we would go on choir tour for two weeks every summer, you know, and he would we would, you know, practice all year, get ready to go, and he would always tell us, Well, when you're singing, you know, sing like you mean it. You know, I want to see you smile.
SPEAKER_00That's right.
SPEAKER_02You know, and he would a lot of times he'd be up there directing and you you're watching him, and he would just, you know, put his fingers on each side of his mouth and smile. Like, you know, sing it like you mean it. Yeah. And that does make a difference.
SPEAKER_00It sure does. I try to tell our praise team members, you know, like don't don't don't be a liar, you know, if a song's saying, you know, we have the joy of the Lord, there's joy in the house. You know, don't look like you're, you know, depressed. Let's let's show it on our face. Some do a better job that than others, obviously. But and then some again that goes back to personality. But yeah, I I want to strive that we're from the stage communicating, you know, the the joy in what we're doing. And uh I think that encourages a congregation to give that back to. Yeah. All right. Well And let me add this too. I love I I'll I'll I'll look back sometimes, maybe it's during the a rehearsal or service, and I just happen to corner my eye, or maybe I'm watching the live stream in hindsight, and I see some of our musicians, and they're not they're not singing in a microphone, but man, they're just playing a guitar part or piano part, and I see them, man, they're singing it along, and their mouth's moving, they're singing it too. They're worshiping while they're playing. And I think that's a big big part of what the congregation sees too.
SPEAKER_02Well, how can we continue to worship beyond Sunday mornings?
SPEAKER_00So maybe if I back up a step and and and I'll get there too, think about leading up to Sunday morning. You know, I think a couple minutes ago you asked me about preparation. There's preparation on my end. Well, there's preparation on the congregational end too. You know, what what what kind of frame of mind are you getting yourself in on Saturday evening, you know, before you come to church on Sunday?
SPEAKER_02Um well if you're a parent with little kids, they're off the hook on Sunday morning. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's right. But are you coming expectantly? Are you looking at coming to church? And I know, you know, Sheila says all the time, you know, whoever whoever put Mother's Day on a Sunday wasn't a Christian. You know. You know, yeah, great. This is my day. Now let's get try to get all the kids ready and all this. And so I know that goes on. And man, my wife, we talked about this when we were on the podcast together weeks and weeks ago, you know, the years she has spent with our kids growing up and being by herself. And I'm already here. So I know you got that aspect. Families, man, they have stuff going on, and lives are busy, and kids are crazy, and you got to do all this. And so it's easy to forget to get your heart and your mind in an expectant spirit. I'm going, I'm going to meet with other believers to lift up the name of the God of the universe and thank his son Jesus Christ who laid down his life for me. I'm not just going to rush into this and get the kids in the class and sit down and then leave when it's over, like I've never been there. I want to get my mind and my heart prepared to what I'm going to experience. And then as we leave here, you know, you you say it at the end of every podcast, we try to say it at the end of service. Go and tell. You're going from this place with carrying what you've just experienced, the truth of the word of God, an uplifted spirit as we lift it up the name of Christ together in song. Um, and so leave from this place and carry that spirit with you throughout Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Obviously, your personal devotion life is a big part of that. You know, take take or or come to a small group that's talking about um, you know, what Jeff just preached. My small group on Sunday evenings, we we talk about the sermon that we just heard that morning. And so we carry that with us throughout the week. Or, you know, some of the songs we sing. Look them up on your Apple Music or your Spotify and worship through those without the week. Maybe make them part of your quiet time, spend time in the Word through the week. You know, private worship is really what fuels corporate worship a lot of times. And so if we're gonna come together corporately, people have to be doing that of their own accord as well. So that when we come together, we're all celebrating that together in the same mind, same heart. And so I think it's just about more than just coming in here on Sunday and singing some songs and listening to Jeff preach. It's it's carrying it with you through the week and being engaged with God through the week.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and that goes back to um, you know, expectations on your own part, like where I was saying, you know, I struggle to raise my hand. Doesn't mean I don't raise my hand. That's just not my natural nature to want to do that. But then I'm conflicted. If I go to an ECU game on Saturday, you know, I'm screaming, jumping up and down, like, why don't I have that excitement for God? It's just a football game, you know. I'm more excited about that than what I would show. So in my corporate worship, I'm not as excited as I am watching football. And that I struggle with that. You know, when I go with an expectation, like, man, let's where I just went to the we took the grandkids to the Beast Games. That crowd was off the hook, you know, where it's one o'clock in the morning, um we had a great time. You know, we want to bring that excitement into church with an expectation of this is gonna be.
SPEAKER_00Sure. And I know part of it is, you know, we we're all creatures that wonder what people around us think about us. So you go to the Beast games, the football game, something exciting happens, probably ninety percent of the people are gonna be showing that outwardly. You come to a church where maybe it's not that big a percentage do it, and you're maybe not even consciously, subconsciously, oh, is somebody gonna see me and think I'm just putting on a show if I raise my hands? Or what are they gonna think if I do it? Because there's only maybe you know, 25% of the people doing it, not 99% of the people doing it. And so all of that comes into our human thinking. And I saw I think the important part of man just lay those kinds of things aside and let God do what he wants to do in your heart. And if if if that bubbles over outwardly into shouting, praise the Lord, or into lifting a hand, great.
SPEAKER_02And I would say some of that, you know, is you know, Satan putting those thoughts in your head, sure, you know, to keep you suppressed.
SPEAKER_00Sure.
SPEAKER_02So well, we appreciate the time and just this conversation. I've enjoyed it. Um but as we are closing up, why is it important what what maybe haven't we covered that you would want the congregation to know just about corporate worship in general that maybe we haven't covered?
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, that's a loaded question. Man, I I I've spent a lot of time you know, I did I did a master's degree in worship studies, and so I've done a lot of reading about it and and all those kind of things. And so man, to boil it down to one key is very hard. But I think maybe more than anything is I I want people to to have a desire for in their heart that it is it's just it's they don't have they don't have to try to make it a priority in their life because it already is a such a strong desire. You know, I I don't I really don't understand the outlook where people say, Well, I can worship wherever I am, you know. I I I I think we ought to desire to be with God's people. Now there's scripture to back that up in Hebrews 10 25, don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together. Uh you know, do you have a a reason why you can't be there or do you have an excuse that gets you out of being there? Right. And that goes back to difference.
SPEAKER_02That goes back to, man, would you rather watch a sporting event with a bunch of other fans that want to pull for the same team or just sit in your living room by yourself and watch it?
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02Depending on the outcome of that, I might want to be by myself.
SPEAKER_00But most of the time, just want to be with people, you know, that share the same if you're a fan of one team, you may not want to go sit with all the fans from the other team and watch that game. Right. You're not going to have that, you're going to be cheering at the opposite times, and vice versa. And so maybe you don't want that experience. But you you're supposed to have in common with other believers if you're a believer. And so you're all on the same team, as it were. Right. And so you ought to have that desire. Man, I want to be with my people. Um, and just again, not not so much that we have to strive to make it a priority, it's just the fact that, man, this is who I am and this is what my heart longs to do. And then out of that flows an example of what a priority is to our kids. Um, you know, my my my kids were athletes, and there were opportunities for them to go off and play ball on weekends. And um, you know, we just we just told coat coaches that wanted my boys to play on their baseball team, just knew we're not gonna be there on Sunday. We'll play Saturday if you want us on Saturday, and if you're playing on Sunday afternoon somewhere just close enough we can get there, we we might do that. But we're not gonna be there on Sunday morning. And thankfully, there were coaches that said, okay, we'll take them Saturday, and they got the opportunity to play. There are opportunities out there, you don't have to spend every Sunday playing ball just because you love a sport. Right. And now, I say that to say, and I I'm not trying to condemn people that do that kind of thing. That's that's not where where this is going. But I do think if our kids uh think it's optional, if they if they think you think it's optional, it won't even be a factor in their life. Right. It just won't. They're not gonna think of it as, well, it was never a party. So just as a desire to be with God's people, ought to ought to fuel us to be in here. Man, there's all kinds of test it's not just sports, there's all kinds of statistics that show um where we're regular corporate worship attendance used to mean you were there like three out of four or four out of four, and now people want one or two times a month, people call regular attendance. That's my church, and they go once a month. You know, I just think in in the heart of believer, God desires for his children to be together and celebrate what they have in common more often than that. And it just it it fuels us, it energizes us, it it motivates us to go and do and serve and tell. And uh I just I want I want what we do to foster that desire in people. I don't want to miss, I don't want to miss what's gonna go on Sunday.
SPEAKER_02Well, I will, you know, this past Sunday when we got home sitting at the table uh with our grandkids, you know, and for them it was a new, I won't say new experience. It's a very they don't have that experience office being missionaries in Japan. Yeah, you know, music's in Japanese, which they all speak Japanese, that's not a problem. But it's a small church. So here they are sitting here with seven hundred people, and you know, they loved it. They thought, man, this was great, you know, just being around that many other believers, and they really enjoyed it. So, to your point of coming together.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, good. Praise the Lord for that. They got that opportunity. I know, you know, yeah, I I want to think about those things. Those people that maybe have the well, well, Josh Josh or um Doug and Miriam, you know, here here they are, they're having to be in the leadership role of that every Sunday or whenever they meet in Japan and having to think about all the thousands of things they got to think about going into a service to prepare for God's people to come together. And so if they can come into a service like that and experience it, you know, I tell you, some of the, some of the some of the best worship times I have, if I can turn my um evaluator off, you know, when I go to another church and just make myself, I'm not gonna sit and evaluate, well, I would have done that that way, or I would have picked this song, or I would have ended that song this way, or you know, why did they get that up and do that at that time? If I can turn all that off and just worship with a with the body of believers without the responsibility of having to think about what's next, what do I gotta do next? It just fills my cup. And so I I want people just to have a desire to come and have their cup filled and give back and pour it, pour it back out, come fill it back up, go pour it back out just week to week.
SPEAKER_02Well, like with data, you know, bad data in is bad data out, good data in is good data out. So uh with that said, I would encourage all of our listeners, come this Sunday, pour it, pour yourself into it, and you'll get a lot out of it. It's again, uh you have an exceptional worship program, you know, or you know, your music part of that, you know, of course, Jeff's preaching, you know, it's all top-notch.
SPEAKER_00And so Well, God has blessed us and He's uh He's put us in a place where I feel like uh by His grace He He's using what we can offer Him and making a difference with it.
SPEAKER_02All right. Well, thank you so much for giving uh giving of your time today. Uh sit down, talk about corporate worship, and I hope our listeners take it to heart and come this Sunday, you know, ready to blow the top off. Raise the roof. Raise the roof. There you go. So let's pray before uh we we close it up. Awesome. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the gift of worship and your privilege of gathering together uh with your people. Uh thank you for the voices, the gifts, the hearts that lead us each week and help point out attention towards you. I thank you for Kevin and the other uh worship team members and the tremendous gifts you have given them, Lord, and that their willingness to uh share their voices, their talents with us in a corporate setting. I ask that you continue to work with them and through them to bless our congregation as we lift our voices towards you uh in meaningful worship that shows our love and gratitude for all that you've done for us. In thy name I pray, amen.
unknownAmen.
SPEAKER_02So thank you for being with us today, for sharing, and for all those listeners out there, as God is writing the story in your life, go and tell.
SPEAKER_01Thanks so much for listening to the Unity Community Podcast. If today's conversation encouraged you, we'd love for you to take one or more next steps. Join us this Sunday morning for worship at 9 or 10 30. Get connected to a life group andor find a place to serve. You can learn more about Unity and how to get plugged in by visiting the links in the show notes. So until next time, let's grow closer to the Lord as we grow closer one to another.