This Is Not Your Mother's Church or Dis Ain't Yo Mama's Chuch (intentionally misspelled) No Mo'

A friend told me that she was talking to one of her friends who said, "Worship isn't the same anymore. Since _____ left, it hasn't been the same. The songs don't do anything for me anymore. I just don't feel like worshiping." I had another friend of mine tell me that he likes to dance when he worships. On a recent weekend, he was told that the bobbing he was doing was a distraction and he was politely asked to stop.

Worship is defined as honor, adoration, glorify; to render religious homage, as to a deity. - from Dictionary.com

In America, most Christian churches worship by singing; JUST singing. People walk in and are given a hymnal or a lyric sheet to help them sing along with the others attending. If they're in a more progressive church, they may have some big screens with the lyrics scrolled through onscreen by someone typically in a different room. This is how many churches have been worshiping for hundreds of years. This is the way they've always done it. They say it's traditional, but it's really not.

Music is not that important to me when I'm worshiping with others. I imagine that it's just a glimpse of what it is truly going to be like in heaven. There are choirs in churches, although it seems like there are fewer and fewer. Now churches have bands called worship or vocal teams. To all my vocal/worship team friends, my apologies but I hope we're singing "a capella" in heaven. You get just a little too loud for me. I love hearing the sound of harmonious voices singing with just their voices being the instruments and I can't hear them.

Worship for me is an intentional act. I enter ready to honor, glorify and praise my King, music or not. I don't need to go to a service expecting the music to move me to worship. Worship is so much more than that. I lift  my hands and eyes up to heaven lost in my worship of Jesus not caring about what people around me think. Worship with music in a church is a way of worshiping, but I also worship in prayer and how I live my life to honor God (even though I fail so much).

More churches today are becoming more traditional. Yes, MORE. All you need to do is read some of the stories in the Old Testament. The Hebrews worshiped God through singing and dancing with tambourines, stringed and percussion instruments. These are the traditional ways of worshiping from centuries ago. Even through their oppression, they celebrated God. So why aren't there many more churches doing this?

Most churches today are still clapping along with the music, but now there are more that are lifting their hands and eyes up to heaven glorifying, honoring and adoring God. Then there are the churches that are dancing in the aisles or just where they're standing. There are those with people worshiping with flags and ribbons.

I think the "modern" American church is genuine in it's intent to follow Jesus' example of being a fisher of men, but in doing so, they've kept people from freely worshiping God. They frown at you you if you become a distraction because "that's just not the way we worship here." They've forgotten that your worship is between you and God. Frankly, if someone standing near you when your worshiping in a traditional way is distracted, they're not worshiping; they're just singing along.

They've forgotten the long heritage of the church. A good friend told me that one of the reasons African Americans go to church dressed up in their "Sunday best" is because that's the only time they really had the chance to dress up. As slaves, when they weren't in church, they were typically working in the heat at back breaking jobs, so they took the opportunity to remove themselves from that. Through time, that's evolved to today's men wearing suits and ties and the women wearing bright colored dresses and those great hats. And they sing!

They sing like it's nobody's business. They sing like they're almost shouting. A choir of twenty in an African American church will sound like sixty at any other church. When they sing, it's a celebration honoring God. And they're clapping, and they're dancing in the aisles, and they're lifting their hands up praising Jesus. They are worshiping!

There is a change going on in the churches today. There are more modern churches becoming traditional. I have a friend in the Midwest where they have  dancers dressed in traditional looking dresses and scarves playing tambourines. You can now find more churches with vocal/worship teams lifting their hands in praise and celebration, dancing in the aisles with flags and ribbons, These modern churches have evolved to be more traditional like the Hebrews thousands of years ago. This ain't yo mama's chuch no mo'.

There are too many people looking for a church that truly worships. They either don't have a background in the church, or they're looking for something different from what they grew up with. Churches have a great opportunity to draw these in if they would just become like the churches long, long ago; but more importantly, it allows their members to worship freely without someone making a remark because they are breaking away from the modern form of worship.

My worship is between myself and God and yours should be as well. I lift my hands and eyes to the heavens as the Spirit leads me. Don't let anyone come between you and God because you don't fit into their idea of what worship should look like. The devil may be using that person to keep you from honoring God with your best worship. Who knows? There may be someone else who's been timid in their worship because they didn't see anyone else worshiping like you and you'd be helping them towards freedom in worship.

So how will you be worshiping this weekend?

Quiet Time

Be willing to fight for this precious time with Me. Opposition comes in many forms: your own desire to linger in bed; the evil one's determination to distract you from Me; the pressure of family, friends, and your own inner critic to spend your time more productively. As you grow in your desire to please Me above all else, you gain strength to resist these opponents. Delight yourself in Me, for I am the deepest Desire of your heart. - Jesus Calling July 1

I've been pretty much bed-ridden the last five weeks due to a back injury at work. It's been painful to stand or sit for any amount of time and I feel the least amount of pain as I'm lying down. I've been entertaining myself by blogging, going to the doctor and physical therapy, spending time on Facebook and Twitter, listening to music, and watching cooking and home improvement shows on TV. I've gotten up to go for short ten minute walks (per my physical therapist), take care of personal hygiene and to go grocery shopping while coping with the pain associated with these activities.

The problem is that all these activities have taken me away from a great opportunity to spend time with my Father. I've made the time in the past to engage with Him while I've been healthy (relatively speaking), but now, I've wasted a golden opportunity to do this. What is it in this world that is so enticing to draw me away from the One who loves me unconditionally? Why haven't I used this time more wisely?

It is hard for me to have a relationship with anyone where I don't see them or hear their voice on a regular basis (my apologies to some of my social media friends). My faith allows me to believe that God is real, but not real in the physical sense. It is through faith, believing in what is unseen, that I am able to, when I choose, nurture my relationship with God.

In those quiet times He has spoken to me through the beauty of His creation all around me. It's not just the natural beauty of snow-capped mountains or gentle rolling waves at the beach or a gentle breeze on a warm day. It's also the architecture, the sounds of civilization, the technology that all have their beginnings with the Creator.

I can vividly remember the first time I heard His voice during my quiet time. I had been sitting in a chapel praying about a group of people I was leading. It was quiet and I was at peace with everything going on in my life. As I opened the doors to leave the chapel, I distinctly heard Him say, "You are their shepherd, take care of them." It was a surprise to me, but there was a sense of peace as I heard His words.

He has even spoken to me as I was journalling. I was sitting in a sterile setting insulated from the world. I began to write questions to Him and before I could get to the end He was already answering me. It wasn't an audible voice, but a voice from inside to my soul. I would write His answers and begin a new question and He would again answer before I was done writing the question. I just couldn't write fast enough. I know there is only one true mind reader and it was becoming fun to hear His answers so quickly. At the end of our time, His answer to my situation was to trust Him.

It's really up to me to consciously think of spending time with Him. It's not that hard, especially now in my condition, to do this. Lying around gives me all the time I need.

Egg Wife Beater

When I was growing up, the only kind of beater I heard of was an egg beater. It was the predecessor to the electric mixer and whisk. Where an electric mixer had two mixing blades, the egg beater only had one. There was a handle on the side that you would crank to make the blade spin and beat the egg.

These days, the beaters you hear about are the wife-beaters, female-beaters and child-beaters. You don't hear about man-beaters because the men are the ones doing the beating. It happens no matter the race; White, Black, Hispanic, Indian, Middle-Eastern or Asian, they all do it.

Whatever the case, this cannot be tolerated. It is absolutely UNACCEPTABLE! What possesses someone of great physical dominance to perform such an act? Nothing against the women I know, but they just don't have the physical power that a man has. If you put a man and a woman with similar size and weight into a ring with gloves on, all my money is going on the man. Women were not created by God to be that way. Women were created by God to be the child-bearers and nurturers. There's a reason that God says to take care of widows and orphans, and not widowers and single men. Men were created by God to be self-sufficient and have the physical strength to be the warriors and protectors.

What these men are modeling is anger in it's most extreme form, rage. I understand rage. I've been there. It was only once but it scared the daylights out of my then wife. I don't remember what triggered it other than we were having an argument. We were attacking each other verbally when it just got to the point where I had this uncontrollable desire to hit something. I put my fist through a wall. It got quiet for a moment and then she asked me why did I do that. I told her it was better to put my fist through the wall than her face.

I come from a time long ago where it was okay for corporal punishment. My parents rarely used their hands to discipline me. There was always some apparatus used as an extension of their hand to do the disciplining. It ranged from flip flops to extension cords and garden hoses; just whatever was in close proximity at the time. I always got it below the waist, either on my butt or the backs of my legs, but they never beat me with a closed fist. I still believe in corporal punishment, but only to the degree where it's only with an open hand below the waist to the butt.

Beating is something totally different today. It's man on woman. This is horrendous. Why do men do it? Is it to prove their physical superiority over the woman? I don't think any of us need to have that proven. Is it uncontrollable rage? This I believe is the most common reason for beatings, and there is help available for this. But first this has to be identified by someone early, before it gets to the uncontrollable stage.

People have to be honest about themselves and the people closest to them. I believe in many cases this can be caught before a boy becomes a man. Parents have to be cognizant as to how their sons react and deal with relational skills. Caught in time, there can be counseling and therapy to deal with this. Even after the boy becomes an adult, there are anger management classes to help with this. But you have to be honest about it. Don't give them or yourself any room for excuses.

Untreated and uncured, this can and does lead to more violent scenarios. The most tragic is the murder-suicide where the man murders the woman, then kills himself. The tragedy is not just in the act itself, but because many times it happens when there is a family and the children are left behind to deal with the tragedy. That can and probably does lead to issues where the children will have to be counseled and given therapy for all that comes with the aftermath of this kind of tragedy.

If you've been a victim, report it! If you've been a perpetrator, get help. There is absolutely no reason for a man to lay a hand on a woman. NONE!