November 2002 Newsletter - Lifting Jesus Up

28"Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water."  29"Come," he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.  30But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!" 31Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?"  32And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down.  33Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God." Matthew 14:28 – 33

 

What can we learn about worship from this story?

 

Q. When do we walk on water? 

A. When we look to Jesus and keep our eyes fixed on Him.

 

Q. When do we sink?

A. When we take our eyes off Jesus, doubt and think about our troubles and ourselves?

 

Q. Why did the disciples worship?

A. Because they had seen Jesus’ glory!  Note: there were no guitars involved.  The word translated ‘worshipped’ here (proskuneo) means that they fell on their faces!  

 

Some definitions of ‘worship’:  

 

1.  'The English word 'worship' is derived from the Anglo-Saxon 'weorthscipe' - 'worth' and 'ship' meaning one worthy of reverence and honour' (derivation).

 

2.  The act of revering or honouring God; obedient service (Heinemann Dictionary).

 

3.  To pay great honour and respect to (World Book Dictionary). 

 

But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself. John 12:32

 

There are heaps of great songs around at the moment that focus on my response to God, how I feel about God.  But in the middle of all these funky songs about how I feel we must not forget to lift Jesus up. 

 

Something to consider when preparing your next worship service is this:  If we neglect to spend time looking at who God is and all that He has done for us what will we be worshiping?  What will we be responding to?   Our feelings?  Ourselves? 

 

 

Craig Bateman

 

Craig Bateman of Remnant has just finished recording a new CD of his own material called "Songs from the Desert".  “This new release is a collection of songs that have been borne out of my own desert experience with the Lord leading me through it over the last 12 or so years of my life. There are both songs for worship and songs reflecting on my walk with God.”

 

 

Kriss Reffett

 

Kris Reffett combines the gutsy guitar driven rock styles of Sheryl Crow, and Melissa Etheridge with a straightforward hunger for God to produce some wonderfully unique worship songs.  “I believe that one of the main purposes for my life is to draw people to the foot of the cross through the vehicle of song.”  Kris has serves as the Worship Coordinator at The Church in Galloway and works as an independent worship leader and consultant for churches seeking to expand their worship outreach.  

 

 

November Featured Songs

 

1.      Unto You That Fear My Name - Bill McKinnon and Gary Hemstreet 

2.      You Are There – Marty Kendall, Grant Walker + Karen Jenkins

3.      Body Life – Threshing Floor

4.      I Worship You My God – Michael Lion

5.      Clean – Craig Bateman

6.      Worthy to Be Praised – Kriss Reffett

7.      Declare Your Glory  - John Green

8.      Who Can Be Against Me – Matt Adams

9.      God’s Grace – Craig Bateman

10. Less of Me – Kriss Reffett

 

 

World Wide Worship Team

 

Our partners at HighestPraise have recently launched World Wide Worship Team – a resource created to provide powerful, innovative tools for equipping to become worshipers in "spirit and truth". 

 

For only $5 per month you can access the sheet music (in transposable SmartMusic format), full mp3s, sheet music and chord charts for HighestPraise’s back catalogue of more than 50 great praise and worship songs. 

 

As well as this, you can also access instructional videos on worship, and music theory.  And if you don’t want to spend time downloading it all you can order it all on archive CD for only $3 per CD.  Much cheaper than your local bookstore!

 

 

Statistics

 

It’s exciting to see that everything at ShareSong.org continues to grow from month to month.  Not only are we getting more and more visitors to the site,

 

and songwriters continuing to add their songs,

 

 

but we seem to be getting a snowballing effect in the downloads from the database as users come back again and again to access more and more worship music.  Last month we had over 7000 downloads per day.  The graph below shows how exciting the monthly growth in use is as more people find the great praise and worship resources available freely on the WWW. 

 

Until next month, may God continue to draw you to Himself as we lift up the One who is the beginning and the end “for from Him and through Him and to Him are all things”.

 

Blessings

 

Marty Kendall

ShareSong.org Coordinator