Hello Team..
This is my first contribution for our Worship Blog. From time to time I come across articles or things of interest that relate to what we do as lead worshipers/vocalist by way of research and my own personal developement. I have been collecting these over time and so I will share them with you in bite size chunks on this site over the next few terms.
In recent months I have been thinking a lot about the Prophetic side to worship as this is an area I really would like to see us develop in as a team. This was brought into focus for me when I recently attended a 3 day training course with ‘Integrity Worship’ which I will talk about in a future blog.
I was researching a story I heard about Matt Redman who felt led to sing a Michael Jackson song while leading worship. It was part of a larger article about Prophetic Worship. It’s a very long article so I copied what I saw were the highlights. I’ve also included the link should you want to read it in it’s entirety.
Cheers Nathan
Prophetic Worship.
There’s a sense in which the prophetic flows from that place of Intimacy. You have to be close to God to hear His voice… He speaks with a whisper. He may shout to His enemies but to His friends He whispers. If you want to sing, play or dance prophetically, it has to come out of place which is close to God.. whereyou hear His voice, you become His spokesperson.
Just in the same way that God speaks through creation; you see a lovely landscape and you think ‘now I know there’s a God, I can sense Him speak through these things’. It’s the same in music; you can hear Him speak through music which is just another part of creation. God created it for His glory and His honour but it can be used in many different ways; even sometimes when someone is not playing it for the glory of God (example Dave Gilmore with Pink Floyd playing a big guitar solo) it points you towards the Lord. How much more so, we who are saved, with our music point people towards the Lord; usher them into His Presence. It allows peoples minds and their hearts and their spirits be stirred, even by the music alone. Again in the Old Testament; I Chronicles 25:3it talks about Jeduthun’s sons. It says they prophesied using the harp, thanking and praising the Lord.
A prophetic word will break through into your life. In the same way prophetic songs, dance, music will cause a breakthrough in a time of worship. People sit up and listen when you prophesy over them, a change occurs. It’s the same in worship. People get ushered into the Lord’s Presence through the prophetic in our playing or in our words. That’s what we should be aiming for. Our aim is to put people in touch with God.
The Bible says we only see in part when we prophecy. One day we’ll see in full. Often with the prophetic we won’t understand the whole of what we’re singing or be consciously cognizant that we’re not seeing the whole picture.
I was in Norway once and in the middle of the worship time I felt the Lord put the Michael Jackson song ‘You are not alone, I am here with you’ into my head. So I sang this song out and at the end of it I felt ‘Oh no, what have I done’, I thought – at least I’m in Norway, we’ll be going home in a couple of days’. At the end of that I felt ‘that was not from the Lord… your a prat.’. But then this lady comes up to me at the end and says ‘I’ve been desperate for the Lord, I’ve been crying out for him and I came tonight In the car I said to God I felt so alone, where are You… You’re not with me.’. That seemed to be the heart of God for that day… God will often leave the 99 to go after the 1.
Matt Redman
To read the full article click on the link below:
http://www.passionforjesus.org/DevelopingthePropheticinWorship.html