The Forefront of Worship

Two Sundays ago, I experienced something that was kind of terrifying…

Faye and I were in service at The Freedom Center. We entered into a time of worship musically. Towards the end, I happened to look around, so cool to see people just reaching for the Father! That has been on Faye and I’s heart to see at the 11:30a service for a while now.

Anyways… I love to watch Faye worship when music is going… she might pop me in the throat when she reads this, but it’s true. So, I looked next to me and Faye was gone.

I didn’t think much of it, until I saw a familiar hand in the air down front… worshipping… in the front… in front of everyone… not the back… but the front.

“Why did she go down there?”

“Did the Lord call her to worship down there?”

Then… I began to have dreadful thoughts…

“She is your wife… you cannot let her worship down there alone.”

“Go to the front and worship with her as one flesh.”

Who!? Me!?!?

So I did what anyone in my position would do… I drug my feet as long as humanly possible.

Then… I couldn’t take the blatant disobedience anymore, so I did my version of speed walking down to the front (which I’m pretty sure is like everyone else’s regular walking), got on the other side of Faye and began to worship.

At first, I was EXTREMELY self conscious and aware of EVERYTHING around me… I was quite sure that 700 people stopped everything they were doing to look directly at me and question my sanity.

I do a lot of public speaking… give me 10, give me 10000… doesn’t matter, I love it… but there was something so vulnerable about that… something almost intrusive about going to the front and worshipping in front of 700 people…

something so needed…

I really hadn’t thought much about worshipping at the “altar”. If other people wanted to do it, cool… but it’s whatever to me. Not really my thing.

I recommend it… highly! I’m not sure if there is anything special about the act itself… but there is something so special about stepping out of my comfort zones of worship. As we worshipped together in the front, I felt that the Lord knew that I cared more about Him than people… that I would be willing to be seen as undignified (2 Sam 6:22) before the eyes of men (which, no one cared!! Come on…) if it meant being obedient to the Father… that I was willing to push my perceptions and comforts to the side to worship God.

If that can happen in a church service… where else in my life can it happen.

Some of you may well think what I have thought many times on this topic after reading this… that’s cool, man… not for me… but that’s cool. Why isn’t it for you? It wasn’t for me, because I felt like a fool. If that’s your reasoning, like me, you’re wrong. I was in nursery this past Sunday (Husbands, go volunteer in the nursery, stop being chumps), but I’m really interested in what I’ll do this Sunday 🙂

Faye and I walked back to our seats, and I asked her, “Did God tell you to go down there?” I wanted to know if the Lord revealed something to her, you know? I love revelation… especially when God works in the lives of our family.

“No, we aren’t sitting where we normally sit, and people were coming in and out of the doors and I couldn’t concentrate, so I just went down to the front”

So easy for her… death-like fear for me… and as I sat back in my chair with what I’m sure was a look of pure “I’m sorry… what?”, I became amused as the realization that God used THAT to ask me to move out of my comfort zone of worship.

Take the opportunity to do the same.