Ordained Minister with the Assemblies of God. Received Ministerial Studies with Leadership Honors at Global University. Received Bachelors in Ministerial Leadership. Pursuing Master’s of Divinity.
A busy life can make it easy to move through spiritual routines without pausing to examine our hearts. We attend church, hear Scripture, and participate in prayer. Yet a question remains: Are we willing to let God change us?
During a recent prayer-night devotional, I reflected on Ezra 9:5–6 and two closely connected themes: honesty before God and concern for His people. Ezra’s response challenged me to consider both the sincerity of my worship and the people I carry into prayer.
A Restored Temple and a People Still Needing Renewal
Ezra ministered after the Babylonian exile, during the Persian period. The temple had already been rebuilt under the leadership of Zerubbabel and Jeshua, with encouragement from the prophets Haggai and Zechariah. Ezra later arrived as a priest and scribe committed to studying, practicing, and teaching God’s law (Ezra 6:14–15; 7:6–10).
Although the people had returned to their land, they still needed spiritual renewal. Ezra 9 describes covenant unfaithfulness involving marriages with surrounding peoples and participation in their detestable practices.
When Ezra learned what had happened, he grieved. At the evening sacrifice, he knelt, spread his hands toward God, and confessed the community’s sin.
His response invites us to ask how we respond when we recognize compromise in ourselves and among God’s people.
Honest Worship Requires Surrender
Ezra’s posture expressed the seriousness of his prayer. His kneeling and outstretched hands accompanied grief and confession. The challenge for us is to consider whether our outward expressions of worship reflect inward surrender.
Am I honest with God in prayer? Do I want Him to change me? Am I willing to follow His direction when it differs from my preference?
Luke 10:27 describes loving God with our heart, soul, strength, and mind, alongside loving our neighbor. That wholehearted devotion helps us consider how much of our lives we are willing to surrender.
I recognize how easily busyness can carry me through the motions. Work, school, and ministry responsibilities fill the day. I can think about Scripture while still needing to pause and respond to God personally.
Honesty also requires recognizing how we justify wrongdoing. We might describe a misleading statement in a way that makes it sound acceptable or compare ourselves with someone whose actions seem worse.
Different sins can cause different degrees of harm. However, comparison does not remove our responsibility. We need to ask what is true, whom we have hurt, and what obedience requires.
Repentance opens the way to acknowledging our wrong, receiving God’s mercy, and making the necessary change.
Intercession Grows from Shared Concern
In Ezra 9:6, Ezra speaks of “our” sins and “our” guilt. He identifies with the community as he confesses before God.
That shared concern challenges how we respond to struggling people. Do their difficulties move us toward prayer and restoration?
I work with fourth- and fifth-grade students. When they do not listen, frustration comes easily. But am I praying for them? Am I praying for my coworkers, for people who have hurt me, and for fellow believers who are struggling?
First Corinthians 12:26 teaches that members of Christ’s body share one another’s suffering and honor. Intercessory prayer is one way we express that belonging. We carry people’s needs before God because their lives matter to us.
Spiritual growth should deepen our compassion. Prayer, Bible study, and ministry service do not give us grounds to treat others as spiritually inferior. Accountability matters, and its purpose should include helping people move toward repentance and restoration.
We are not walking this walk alone.
Christ’s Sacrifice Gives Us Confidence to Draw Near
Our confidence before God rests on Jesus Christ. He offered Himself for our sins once for all, and through Him we can draw near with sincere hearts and the assurance of faith (Hebrews 10:10–14, 19–22).
Prayer and Bible reading nourish our faith, but they cannot earn redemption or make us superior to others. We receive salvation through Christ and respond to His mercy with obedience.
Romans 12:1 describes that response as offering ourselves as living sacrifices. Christ’s sacrifice redeems us; we offer our lives to Him in gratitude.
As we pray, we can bring both our own need for renewal and the needs of those around us. Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal where surrender is needed and bring someone to mind who needs prayer.
Who needs encouragement? Who needs restoration? What practical act of care can follow your prayer?
Honest worship brings our whole lives before God. Intercession brings our community with us.
Leadership is often tested in two very different situations: how we respond when people criticize us and how we respond when people need us. While reading Harold Myra and Marshall Shelley’s The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham, these two areas stood out to me because they connect directly with what I am learning in my present leadership roles.
Billy Graham’s example reminds me that leadership is not simply about having influence. It is about developing the character necessary to handle that influence well.
Learning to Love Harsh Critics
One statement from the book especially challenged me:
“When criticism is a threat, a leader becomes defensive, but when it is viewed as a natural occurrence and a challenge, it can become a source of constructive energy.”
Criticism is unavoidable in leadership. The question is not whether people will criticize us, but what we will allow criticism to produce within us.
Throughout my ministerial journey, I have experienced criticism concerning my abilities, leadership, calling, and even character. I have learned that criticism does not have to determine my identity, but it can contribute to my development.
There have been people who did not believe I could go further in my calling. Instead of allowing those opinions to stop me, I have used them as motivation to pursue God more deeply and allow Him to have the final say concerning where He wants me to go.
Criticism concerning character requires an even different response. Rather than immediately becoming defensive, I have learned the importance of having conversations, listening to the concerns of others, and evaluating whether there are areas in my life that genuinely need improvement.
That does not mean every criticism is correct.
It means I want to be secure enough that criticism does not control me while remaining humble enough to learn when there is truth within it.
A growing leader should be able to take criticism seriously without taking every criticism personally.
Leading Through Love
Another lesson that resonated with me was Graham’s emphasis on leading through love. Myra and Shelley write:
“Sometimes love is shown by a thoughtful word, by willingness to help an employee in trouble or by refusal to retaliate when attacked; other times love is shown by simply showing up.”
This challenged me to think about leadership beyond positions, titles, and responsibilities.
Sometimes leadership is simply showing up.
In my current role working for a nonprofit youth organization, I have opportunities to mentor young people, but leadership also happens behind the scenes. I try to help with administrative responsibilities, complete smaller tasks that need attention, and assist my team when deadlines are approaching.
These actions may seem insignificant, but service can influence culture.
As I continued helping in these areas, my manager eventually began implementing rotations that encouraged other staff members to contribute in similar ways. What began as simply trying to help became an opportunity to influence how our team serves one another.
That experience reminded me that leadership culture is not shaped only through instructions. Sometimes culture is shaped through example.
Leadership Without Recognition
There is also an important distinction between serving others and using service as a way of gaining recognition.
Christian leadership cannot simply ask, What will make me look like a good leader?
Instead, we should ask, How can I genuinely help the people God has placed around me?
Jesus modeled leadership through service. Leadership rooted in love does not always need acknowledgment. Sometimes it means completing the unnoticed task, encouraging someone who is struggling, helping a coworker, mentoring a young person, or simply being present when someone needs support.
Our actions can communicate love before our leadership position ever does.
Becoming the Leader God Is Forming
These two lessons from Billy Graham complement each other.
Criticism develops something within the leader, while love expresses something through the leader.
Criticism can develop humility, self-awareness, perseverance, and maturity. Love then allows those qualities to become visible through service toward others.
I am continuing to learn that leadership development is not merely about becoming more influential. It is about becoming the kind of person who can steward influence faithfully.
I want to become a leader who can receive criticism without immediately becoming defensive, evaluate myself honestly, continue pursuing God’s calling despite opposition, and serve people without needing recognition.
Ultimately, leadership is not only about where we lead people.
It is also about who we are becoming while we lead them.
Worship is easy to associate with what happens inside the church. We sing, pray, hear Scripture, give, and gather with other believers. Yet biblical worship consistently challenges us to consider what happens after we leave the sanctuary.
Does our worship change how we treat people?
Does our relationship with God shape how we respond to injustice?
And when people are overwhelmed by sin and guilt, are we willing to stand in the gap and pray for them?
The books of Amos and Ezra approach these questions from different circumstances, but together they reveal something important: worship should move us toward both people and God. We act with compassion toward others while interceding before God on their behalf.
When Worship and Justice Become Separated
During the time of Amos, Israel continued practicing religious rituals while injustice and oppression remained present within society. Their problem was not simply that they had abandoned religious activity. In many ways, they were still religious.
The problem was the separation between their worship and their treatment of others.
R. Alan Fuhr describes how Israel practiced the ritual worship required by the Mosaic law while simultaneously participating in social oppression and societal neglect. Their outward worship continued, but something was deeply wrong with the life surrounding it.
Israel could not separate devotion to God from righteous treatment of others.
That same principle should challenge Christians today.
We often emphasize having a “personal relationship with God,” and that relationship is essential. We also recognize our relationship with the Body of Christ. But biblical worship pushes us beyond ourselves. If we worship a God who is righteous, compassionate, merciful, and just, those characteristics should increasingly shape how we interact with the people around us.
Our worship should have consequences outside the sanctuary.
More Than Choosing a Side
When injustice or oppression becomes visible, our first instinct can sometimes be to determine which “side” we are supposed to support.
But Christian faithfulness requires something deeper.
Our response cannot be reduced simply to voting, political affiliation, or participation in cultural arguments. Before asking which group we belong to, we should be asking what faithfulness to Christ requires of us.
Who is hurting?
Who is being overlooked?
Where is truth being ignored?
How can we love our neighbor while remaining faithful to God?
Speaking against oppression does not require abandoning truth, and speaking truth does not require abandoning love. Biblical worship should form believers who are capable of doing both.
If our lips declare the goodness of God on Sunday, our actions throughout the week should reflect the character of the God we worship.
When Guilt Builds Walls
Ezra introduces another dimension of worship: intercession.
After Israel survived exile, the people continued struggling with compromise and sin. Ezra felt the spiritual weight of what was happening among God’s people and responded through prayer.
Donna Petter makes an important observation about Ezra’s prayer: it calls upon God’s mercy to act.
There is an important tension here.
The people still needed to respond through repentance. Ezra’s prayer did not eliminate human responsibility. Yet Israel could not manufacture divine forgiveness for itself either. They needed the mercy and grace of God.
This has significant implications for pastoral ministry.
I have seen people become stuck in their faith because of their past. Even after change begins and forgiveness has been offered, guilt can remain.
The question becomes:
“Does God really love me even though I have sinned?”
When that question goes unanswered, guilt can slowly build walls.
When an Encounter Turns Into Guilt
I have seen a version of this in youth ministry.
A young person may come to church and genuinely encounter God. Then they disappear for several weeks. Eventually, the longer they stay away, the harder returning becomes.
What began as an encounter with God can become overshadowed by guilt.
They may think they have disappointed God. They may feel embarrassed about returning. They may convince themselves that they need to “get right” before coming back.
Those are moments when pastoral ministry requires more than asking, “Where have you been?”
Sometimes we need to stand in the gap.
Ezra reminds me of the importance of praying on behalf of the people God has entrusted to us. I have had opportunities to pray over young people and ask God to extend His mercy, restore their hearts, and help them experience the freedom they have in Christ.
Sometimes the person struggling to pray needs someone else praying for them.
That is part of the beauty of intercession.
Worship Moves in Two Directions
Amos and Ezra ultimately challenge me in complementary ways.
Amos pushes worship outward.
If I worship God, I should care about my neighbor. I should notice suffering, confront injustice with truth and love, and refuse to allow my Christianity to become merely ritualistic.
Ezra pushes worship upward.
When I see brokenness, sin, guilt, and spiritual struggle around me, I should bring those people before God. I cannot transform another person’s heart, but I can intercede for them and trust the mercy of God.
Together, these perspectives create a powerful picture of worship:
We move toward people in love, and we move toward God in prayer.
That challenges me personally because life does not become less busy as ministry responsibilities increase. If anything, busyness makes intentional intercession more difficult.
But perhaps that is exactly why it must become a discipline.
The more people God places around me, the greater my responsibility to remember that ministry is not only what I say to people. Ministry also includes what I say to God about them.
From Ritual to a Life of Worship
The challenge of Amos remains relevant: worship cannot become something we perform while ignoring the world around us.
The example of Ezra adds another dimension: when we encounter the brokenness of that world, our response should include intercession.
Biblical worship therefore refuses to remain confined to a service.
It enters our relationships.
It shapes our response to injustice.
It brings other people’s burdens into our prayers.
It calls us toward repentance.
And it continually brings us back to the mercy of God.
Perhaps one of the questions every worshiper should regularly ask is not simply, “Did I worship God today?”
Instead, we might ask:
“What is my worship producing in the way I love people, respond to brokenness, and pray for those God has placed around me?”
When worship begins transforming those areas of our lives, it moves beyond ritual and becomes a way of life.
Reflections on Eugene Peterson’s Follow the Leader series
What does it mean to be a successful Christian leader? Is success measured by the number of people attending our churches, the ministries we establish, the positions we hold, or the influence we develop? Or is there a deeper measurement that challenges our understanding of leadership altogether?
As I listened to Eugene Peterson’s Follow the Leader series, I found myself wrestling with these questions. Peterson examines the leadership of Jesus in its historical context, contrasting his approach with influential figures such as Herod, Caiaphas, and Josephus. Through these comparisons, he challenges the assumptions we often bring into Christian leadership, particularly our understanding of power, success, relationships, and personal ambition.
One of the greatest insights I gained from this series is that Jesus did not simply provide a model for becoming an effective leader. He invited us to become faithful followers.
This distinction challenges not only how I approach ministry but also how I understand my calling, my ambitions, and the importance of remaining faithful wherever God has placed me.
The challenge of following before leading
Early in the third part of his series, Peterson emphasizes a distinction that caught my attention: Jesus said, “Follow me,” not “lead like me.”
Peterson explains that following is often more difficult than leading because it requires greater attention and moral energy. This challenges the tendency to focus on developing leadership abilities without giving equal attention to our relationship with Jesus.
Leadership requires skills, knowledge, experience, and preparation. However, Christian leadership must begin with something deeper: a life of prayer, obedience, and dependence upon Christ.
Before I can lead others faithfully, I must examine whether I am faithfully following Jesus myself.
This insight brought me back to my experience as a new believer in high school. At the time, I had a strong desire to become a leader on my campus and establish a Christian club. My passion for ministry was present, but my preparation was still developing.
I wanted to lead, yet I lacked the biblical knowledge and training necessary for the responsibility I desired. I also had not fully recognized the importance of receiving guidance from the leaders God had placed in my life.
Nevertheless, that Christian club had value. We served our campus, built community, and sought to demonstrate what it meant to follow Jesus.
Looking back, I recognize that even though my preaching and teaching abilities were limited, following Jesus involved more than standing in front of people and delivering a message. It involved obedience, service, relationships, and learning to live according to his example.
That experience helped me recognize that our desire to lead must never become more important than our commitment to follow.
Prayer before personal ambition
One of the ways Peterson’s teaching challenges my current approach to leadership is by encouraging me to reflect on prayer more often than goal setting.
I enjoy establishing goals, developing plans, and pursuing opportunities. These activities have value, particularly when we are responsible for leading others. However, they also present an important spiritual question.
Am I submitting my plans to Jesus, or am I simply asking him to bless the direction I have already chosen?
Peterson emphasizes that prayer is essential to following Jesus. In the third part of his series, he discusses how prayer forms us into followers from the inside out.
This means that following Jesus is not merely about outward activities. We can participate in ministry, develop leadership abilities, and accomplish organizational goals while neglecting the spiritual formation necessary to sustain faithful discipleship.
Prayer invites us to examine our motives and surrender our direction to Christ.
As I continue developing as a minister, I want to become increasingly intentional about seeking God’s direction rather than relying exclusively on my abilities, expectations, or understanding of what should happen next.
The challenge is not to stop planning. It is to allow my plans to be influenced by Jesus.
When success becomes a distraction
Another aspect of Peterson’s teaching that challenged me was his discussion of success and failure.
Throughout his series, Peterson contrasts Jesus with influential leaders of the first century. Herod demonstrated considerable political and organizational influence, while Caiaphas exercised authority within the religious establishment.
Yet Jesus did not organize his ministry around the conventional measurements of success represented by these leaders.
In the second part of the series, Peterson explains that Jesus’ life can appear unsuccessful when evaluated according to society’s expectations. He also observes that faithful individuals can become invisible because their lives do not conform to what society values.
This challenges how we understand success within contemporary Christianity.
Our Christian communities exist in a culture shaped by music, entertainment, celebrity, social media, and numerical exposure. As individuals gain influence, they may experience increasing pressure to maintain their recognition and status.
The danger arises when preserving influence becomes more important than faithfully following Jesus.
This is especially challenging for me because I desire to serve in a pastoral ministry position in the future.
As an ordained minister currently serving without a pastoral staff position, I have wrestled with the relationship between my calling, my credentials, and the opportunities I hope to pursue.
At times, it can be tempting to view a position as validation of my ministerial identity. Yet Peterson’s teaching challenges me to examine whether I am pursuing opportunities primarily to serve others or to become somebody in the eyes of others.
A pastoral position can provide meaningful opportunities to lead, teach, disciple, and develop ministries. However, it should not determine the value of my present service or become the ultimate measurement of my faithfulness.
I am learning that being faithful where God has placed me matters just as much as preparing for wherever he may lead me next.
This gives me a desire to continue praying and trusting his direction, even when the outcome of my ministry pursuits remains unknown.
The difference between ambition and energy
One of the most helpful distinctions Peterson makes is between ambition and energy.
In the first part of his series, he discusses how ambition can become connected to personal importance, recognition, and achieving our own goals. He contrasts this with the energy, obedience, and discipline necessary for faithful service.
This distinction is particularly meaningful when pursuing leadership opportunities.
It is possible to work diligently, develop skills, establish goals, and pursue opportunities without allowing personal ambition to become the driving force behind our decisions.
The question is what motivates our pursuit.
Do I want to lead because I desire recognition, or because I see an opportunity to serve? Am I pursuing a particular position because it will make me feel successful, or because I believe I can faithfully contribute to the ministry God has entrusted to me?
These are questions I want to continue asking throughout my ministerial journey.
My desire is not to lose the energy and passion I have for ministry. Rather, I want those qualities to be shaped by prayer, obedience, and a willingness to follow Jesus wherever he leads.
A PERSONAL REFLECTION
The goal is not to abandon our passion for leadership, but to surrender the ambition that places ourselves at the center of it.
Building a church culture centered on followership
Peterson’s philosophy also raises an important question about the culture we establish within our churches.
What would happen if Christ-centered leaders prioritized faithful followership over recognition, status, and conventional measurements of success?
I believe this approach could transform how we understand discipleship, prayer, and servant-hearted leadership.
1. Discipleship would become more relational
Peterson explains that Jesus used stories to invite people into relationships and personal encounters.
Rather than organizing his ministry around buildings, crowds, or prominent individuals, Jesus invested in people and invited them to participate in the life of God’s kingdom.
This challenges churches to examine how they measure their effectiveness.
Attendance, volunteer participation, and numerical growth can provide valuable information. However, these measurements do not tell the complete story of what God is doing in people’s lives.
A church may have impressive attendance while struggling to develop meaningful relationships and mature disciples. Conversely, a smaller congregation may be making a significant spiritual impact through personal mentorship, service, and discipleship.
If we implement Peterson’s philosophy, I believe our churches can develop a deeper commitment to knowing people rather than merely counting them.
The goal is not simply to attract individuals into a building. It is to help people encounter Jesus and become faithful followers of him.
2. Prayer would shape our leadership culture
A second outcome would be a greater dependence on prayer.
Following Jesus requires more than developing strategies and implementing programs. It requires leaders who continually seek his direction.
This dependence should not remain confined to the church building or formal ministry activities. It should influence how we live, work, serve our communities, and interact with others wherever God has placed us.
A prayerful leadership culture would encourage us to examine our decisions, surrender our expectations, and remain attentive to God’s direction amid uncertain circumstances.
We can still establish goals and develop organizational plans. However, we must recognize that our plans are ultimately subject to God’s purposes.
Prayer reminds us that we are followers before we are leaders.
3. Servant-hearted leadership would replace the pursuit of status
A third outcome would be a leadership culture that emphasizes service rather than personal recognition.
When leaders understand the difference between ambition and energy, ministry opportunities become responsibilities to steward rather than positions through which to establish personal importance.
This could influence how churches develop leaders, empower volunteers, and distribute ministry responsibilities.
Instead of concentrating attention on prominent individuals, churches could cultivate environments where people are equipped to serve according to their gifts, abilities, and spiritual maturity.
Leadership development would involve more than teaching organizational skills. It would include helping people develop their character, examine their motives, and grow in their relationship with Jesus.
Ultimately, this approach would encourage the Body of Christ to pursue opportunities with a servant’s heart.
Following the Master wherever he leads
Peterson’s Follow the Leader series has challenged me to reconsider what it means to pursue leadership faithfully.
I still desire to grow as a minister, develop my abilities, pursue future opportunities, and serve in pastoral ministry. However, I increasingly recognize that none of these aspirations should become more important than following Jesus.
My calling is not validated by a position, and my faithfulness cannot be measured exclusively by visible accomplishments.
I want to remain faithful where God has placed me while continuing to prepare for wherever he may guide me.
This requires prayer, obedience, humility, and a willingness to examine my motives continually.
As Christian leaders, we must remember that our responsibility is not simply to become more influential. It is to allow Jesus to shape how we exercise whatever influence he has entrusted to us.
Before we ask how we can become better leaders, perhaps we should begin with a more important question:
How are we becoming better followers of Jesus?
This reflection is based on Eugene Peterson’s three-part Follow the Leader series, particularly his discussions of followership, relational leadership, prayer, success, and the distinction between ambition and energy.
For most of my life, I participated in liturgy before I really understood what liturgy was.
When I heard the word liturgy, my mind naturally leaned toward traditional forms of worship, the kind of structured worship I experienced growing up Catholic. Yet as I have studied worship more intentionally, I have begun recognizing something important: liturgy is not limited to churches with robes, candles, sacraments, or ancient traditions.
Every church has patterns.
Every congregation develops practices that shape how people approach God.
And sometimes, we participate in those patterns for years before realizing how deeply they are forming us.
Growing Up in a World of Reverence
My earliest experiences with Christian worship came through Catholicism.
The worship environment emphasized reverence and order. Scripture was read. Prayers were offered. Music accompanied the congregation. The Eucharist occupied an important place in worship. Symbols, movements, candles, holy water, and other practices communicated that worship was something sacred.
There was an order to what happened.
Even the physical movements within the service communicated something. The priest’s movement toward the altar, the participation of those assisting him, congregational responses, and the celebration of the Eucharist all contributed to the experience of worship.
As a child, I wasn’t analyzing these things theologically.
I was simply experiencing them.
Looking back, however, I can see that these practices were teaching me something about reverence, community, sacredness, and the importance of approaching God intentionally.
Then my Christian journey entered a very different worship world.
Encountering Pentecostal Worship
During my high school years, I moved from my Catholic upbringing into Christianity within a Pentecostal environment, particularly the Assemblies of God.
The transition was significant.
Suddenly, I encountered people lifting their hands in worship. I saw people bowing at altars. I heard speaking in tongues. Music was contemporary and production-oriented. Worship seemed to allow significantly more freedom of expression than what I had experienced growing up.
At first, these differences were striking.
Yet something I now recognize is that Pentecostal worship still had an order.
There was worship. There was giving. There was preaching. There were opportunities to respond to the gospel. Communion was practiced. The service was structured, but within that structure there was room for freedom and personal response.
That realization has challenged one of the assumptions I previously carried about liturgy.
Structure and freedom do not necessarily have to oppose one another.
A worship service can have an intentional order while still creating room for people to respond personally to God.
When Music Becomes More Than Music
Music also became an important difference between these worship experiences.
I had experienced congregational music within Catholic worship, but Pentecostal worship introduced me to another dimension of how music could function within a service.
Music wasn’t simply something happening before the sermon.
The words being sung could help direct the congregation’s attention toward God. Worship leaders could help prepare people to reflect, respond, pray, and become more aware of God’s presence.
That has helped me think differently about the role of music in worship.
Music can participate in the spiritual formation of a congregation.
What we repeatedly sing about God can influence how we understand Him. What we sing about surrender, grace, holiness, salvation, and faith can eventually become part of the theological vocabulary through which we understand our relationship with God.
Worship music, therefore, is not merely preparation for something more important.
It is itself part of the worshiping life of the Church.
Where I Worship Today
Today, I worship and serve at Mission City Church, a contemporary non-denominational church whose worship environment has many similarities to my Pentecostal roots.
Our services normally include worship, prayer, giving, preaching, and altar ministry. We celebrate communion monthly. There are also occasions when people experiencing sickness or medical difficulties are prayed for through laying on of hands and anointing with oil.
What I particularly appreciate is the personal dimension of these practices.
There is something meaningful about praying for another person rather than merely acknowledging that prayer matters. There is something meaningful about creating moments where people can reflect on what God may be doing in their lives.
These practices connect worship with the mission of the church.
If our mission involves helping people encounter Jesus, then the way we worship should participate in that mission.
Prayer matters.
Preaching matters.
Music matters.
Communion matters.
The opportunity to respond matters.
They are not simply pieces of a Sunday schedule. Together, they help shape how a congregation encounters God and understands what it means to follow Him.
A Journey Between Two Worlds
Looking back, I can appreciate aspects of both worship worlds that have shaped me.
My Catholic upbringing exposed me to reverence, order, symbolism, Scripture, sacrament, prayer, and communal participation.
My Pentecostal formation introduced me to expressive worship, altar response, spiritual gifts, contemporary worship music, and an expectation that people could actively encounter God during congregational worship.
My present church experience continues to shape how I understand these things.
I no longer think the most important question is simply whether worship is traditional or contemporary.
A deeper question is:
What are our worship practices teaching people about God?
Every repeated practice communicates something.
The songs we sing communicate something.
The way we pray communicates something.
The way we preach communicates something.
The way we approach Communion communicates something.
Even the way we invite people to respond communicates something about what we believe God is doing among His people.
Learning the Language for What I Already Experienced
I am still learning about liturgy.
In fact, one of the most valuable realizations from studying worship has been recognizing how much I have experienced without necessarily having the theological vocabulary to explain it.
I knew what it was like to experience structured worship.
I knew what it was like to experience expressive worship.
I knew Eucharist and Communion.
I knew congregational singing.
I knew preaching.
I knew prayer.
I knew altar calls.
I knew what it was like to watch people seek an encounter with God.
What I didn’t always recognize was how all these practices fit together and shape the worshiping life of a congregation.
Perhaps that is one of the gifts of theological education.
Sometimes theological study introduces us to something completely new.
Other times, it finally gives us words for something God has allowed us to experience for years.
You may participate in liturgy long before you learn to call it liturgy.
When we hear the word liturgy, many of us immediately think about a formal church service. We might picture a particular order of worship, prayers, Scripture readings, Communion, or traditions practiced within certain denominations.
But what if liturgy is bigger than what happens during a Sunday service?
What if our lives are being shaped by liturgies every day?
While studying biblical worship, I have been challenged to think about worship not simply as something Christians attend but as a way of life formed through repeated rhythms. The things we continually give our time, attention, and energy to eventually shape what we value.
That realization raises an important question: What rhythms are shaping my worship?
More Than Attending Church
There was a season when I wanted to become more involved in my local church, but my schedule made that increasingly difficult. Between work, academics, ministry responsibilities, and everything else happening in life, there simply was not much margin.
During that season, I remember telling my pastor something that has continued to shape the way I think about church:
My goal is not simply to attend church. I want to participate in the life of the church.
There is a difference.
Church attendance certainly matters. Gathering with other believers is an important part of Christian discipleship. But the Christian life cannot be reduced to occupying a seat for a couple of hours each week.
The church is a community in which we worship together, serve together, pray together, grow together, encourage one another, and participate in God’s mission together.
That requires rhythm.
Our schedules reveal what repeatedly receives our attention. Work has a rhythm. School has a rhythm. Entertainment has a rhythm. Relationships have rhythms. Even our phones create rhythms through notifications, scrolling, and constant communication.
None of these things are automatically wrong. However, they can become competing liturgies when they consistently shape our lives more powerfully than our devotion to God and participation in Christian community.
I eventually had to examine what was preventing me from participating more fully in the life of the church and make adjustments. Those changes created greater space for spiritual growth, ministry involvement, and Christian community.
Sometimes spiritual growth requires examining not only what we believe, but also how we have structured our lives around what we believe.
Israel’s Worship Was Built Around Remembrance
This connection between worship and rhythm is not something invented by the modern church.
We see it throughout Scripture.
Leviticus 23 describes appointed times when Israel gathered to observe feasts and sacred occasions before the Lord. These celebrations created recurring rhythms within the life of God’s people.
Israel was repeatedly called to remember.
Remember God’s deliverance.
Remember God’s provision.
Remember God’s covenant.
Remember who they were because of what God had done.
Their calendar itself became a tool for spiritual formation.
God’s people were not simply learning theological information about Him. Their lives were structured around practices that continually brought God’s faithfulness back into view.
That principle remains valuable for Christians today.
Worship Looks Back So Faith Can Move Forward
Biblical remembrance is more than nostalgia.
We do not remember God’s faithfulness because we want to remain trapped in yesterday. We remember because yesterday’s faithfulness strengthens today’s trust.
There are moments when we need to look backward so that we have the faith to continue moving forward.
Think about what happens when someone shares a testimony.
A testimony declares:
This is where I was.
This is what God did.
This is where I am now.
That remembrance becomes worship because the focus ultimately moves from our circumstances to God’s faithfulness.
Baptism provides another powerful picture of remembrance and testimony. It publicly identifies the believer with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ while declaring the reality of a transformed life.
Our personal practices can also create rhythms of remembrance.
Journaling prayers, for example, allows us to return months or even years later and recognize prayers God answered, situations God carried us through, and moments when His faithfulness became evident in ways we might otherwise have forgotten.
Sometimes we need written reminders that say, in effect:
God met me there.
And when another difficult season comes, those memories can strengthen our confidence that the same God remains faithful.
Churches Need Memory Too
Remembrance should not only happen individually.
Churches have stories.
Congregations experience seasons of growth, difficulty, transition, revival, loss, provision, and transformation. Remembering those moments can teach future generations about God’s faithfulness.
This is especially important in a culture constantly searching for what is new.
There is value in asking:
Where has God brought us from?
What prayers has He answered?
What difficult seasons did He carry this congregation through?
What can the next generation learn from those who came before them?
When those stories are preserved and shared, church history becomes more than information about the past. It becomes testimony.
One generation can tell another generation, “This is what we saw God do.”
And the next generation can respond with faith for what God may do again.
What Is Shaping Your Life?
Thinking about worship as liturgy ultimately forces us to examine our rhythms.
Everyone has them.
The question is not whether our lives contain liturgies. The question is which liturgies are forming us.
What consistently receives our time?
What repeatedly receives our attention?
What communities are shaping our identity?
What practices help us remember God’s faithfulness?
And perhaps one of the most important questions:
Are we merely attending church, or are we participating in the life of the church?
Worship extends far beyond the songs we sing on Sunday morning. It involves forming a life that repeatedly turns our attention toward God, remembers His faithfulness, participates in His people, and responds to what He has done.
We remember what God has done.
We worship Him in the present.
And because we remember His faithfulness, we move into the future with hope.
Worship has a way of revealing what is happening within the human heart.
When we think about sin, words such as shame, guilt, condemnation, and separation often come to mind. Scripture certainly takes sin seriously. Yet for the believer, awareness of sin should not simply drive us into shame. Instead, through Christ, conviction can become an invitation to repentance, restoration, and deeper worship.
This raises an important question for the church: Can we truly understand worship without confronting the reality of sin?
Worship Requires an Awareness of God’s Holiness
One of the most powerful biblical pictures of worship appears in Isaiah 6. Isaiah encounters the holiness and majesty of God and immediately becomes aware of his own condition:
“Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips.” — Isaiah 6:5
Isaiah’s response demonstrates something important about worship. The closer he becomes to the revelation of God’s holiness, the more aware he becomes of his own need for cleansing.
John Oswalt emphasizes this relationship between sin and worship by arguing that genuine worship requires an awareness of our uncleanness before a holy God. Worship is not merely celebration. It is also confrontation.
We encounter God as He is, and that encounter reveals areas of our lives that need to be surrendered to Him.
Yet Isaiah’s story does not end with his uncleanness.
God provides cleansing.
That distinction matters tremendously for the church. Conviction points us toward restoration, while condemnation leaves us believing there is no way forward.
Healthy Christian worship should therefore create room for both realities: the seriousness of sin and the transforming grace of God.
What Would a Culture of Surrender Look Like?
This challenges us to consider how our churches address sin within worship.
Do our worship gatherings provide opportunities for people to examine their hearts before God? Do we teach believers how to distinguish conviction from condemnation? Do we allow moments of reverence, repentance, prayer, and surrender alongside moments of celebration?
Sometimes surrender can even become physically expressed.
A believer may kneel.
Someone may bow at an altar.
Another person may quietly pray while members of the congregation surround them in prayer.
These actions are not what make repentance genuine. Nevertheless, physical expressions can communicate an inward reality: “Lord, I surrender myself to You.”
There is something beautiful about this within the gathered church. Repentance does not necessarily happen in isolation. A believer can encounter God personally while simultaneously being surrounded by a community that prays, encourages, and walks alongside them.
Worship therefore becomes both personal and communal.
Idolatry Is Still a Worship Problem
Sin is not the only issue that confronts our worship. Scripture repeatedly warns God’s people about idolatry.
When reading the accounts surrounding Jeremiah and Ezekiel, we encounter a people whose worship had become corrupted by competing allegiances. Idolatry was not merely an unfortunate spiritual habit. It represented misplaced worship.
Although our modern idols may look different, the underlying problem remains.
Timothy Keller famously described counterfeit gods as things that become so central to our identity and security that losing them can make life feel almost unbearable.
That definition should cause us to examine ourselves.
Our idols may not be statues.
They may be careers.
Relationships.
Money.
Recognition.
Education.
Influence.
Political causes.
Even our talents and opportunities can become dangerous when they begin providing the identity, security, or significance that ultimately belongs to God.
The question is therefore not merely, “What am I pursuing?”
A deeper question is:
“Why am I pursuing it?”
When Good Things Become Ultimate Things
This became particularly challenging for me because Ecclesiastes has also shaped my thinking about ambition and purpose.
Ecclesiastes repeatedly confronts humanity’s attempt to find ultimate meaning through earthly pursuits. Wealth, accomplishment, pleasure, wisdom, and labor cannot carry the weight of ultimate significance apart from God. They become a chasing after the wind.
That does not mean ambition, education, ministry, relationships, careers, or personal development are inherently wrong.
The issue is what place they occupy within our hearts.
I have increasingly found myself asking:
Do I trust my own gifting and abilities, or do I trust the God who gave them to me?
There is an important difference.
God can provide opportunities, abilities, relationships, and influence that genuinely glorify Him. Yet even gifts from God can become idols when the gift becomes more important than the Giver.
Christian surrender therefore involves more than abandoning obviously sinful behavior. Sometimes surrender means placing our greatest dreams before God and saying:
“Lord, even this belongs to You.”
Worship Reorders the Heart
Perhaps this is one of the greatest purposes of worship.
Worship reminds us who God is.
And when we understand who God is, we begin to understand everything else differently.
Our sins are confronted by His holiness.
Our shame encounters His grace.
Our idols are exposed by His worthiness.
Our ambitions become surrendered to His purposes.
Our gifts become instruments for His glory rather than monuments to ourselves.
True worship does not simply produce an emotional experience on Sunday morning. True worship continually reorders the heart around God.
That leaves me with several questions worth continuing to explore:
How can churches teach and model repentance without creating cultures of condemnation?
How can our worship gatherings cultivate reverence and surrender alongside joy and celebration?
How can Christians recognize when something good has quietly become an idol?
And perhaps the most personal question:
If God removed the things I depend upon for identity, significance, and security, would God Himself still be enough?
When we read the Gospel of Luke, we primarily encounter Jesus as our Lord and Savior: the Son of God who came to seek and save the lost. Yet as we follow His ministry, we also discover something about the way Jesus led people.
Jesus had a mission. He developed disciples. He gave others responsibility. He confronted issues of character and commitment. And when the pressure surrounding His mission intensified, He remained dependent upon the Father.
Reading Luke through the lens of leadership challenged me to think beyond leadership as simply having a title or position. Jesus demonstrates a form of leadership centered on mission, development, empowerment, character, and spiritual dependence.
Here are five leadership principles that stood out to me.
1. Stay Faithful to the Mission When Rejection Comes
Luke 4:18–29
Early in His ministry, Jesus entered the synagogue in Nazareth and read from the prophet Isaiah. He announced that the Scripture was being fulfilled in their hearing.
Yet the response eventually became hostile.
The people questioned Jesus because they knew Him as Joseph’s son. As the encounter continued, their skepticism turned into anger and rejection.
Still, rejection did not redefine Jesus’ mission.
That presents an important challenge for leaders: How much does the approval of others determine whether we believe we are successful?
Leadership inevitably brings different opinions. Some people will understand the mission, while others may question it. There will even be moments when rejection makes us question ourselves.
Jesus reminds us that faithfulness cannot ultimately be built upon approval. Christian leaders must continually return to what God has called them to accomplish.
That doesn’t mean leaders should refuse correction or ignore wise counsel. Rather, it means opposition by itself does not determine whether the mission is worth pursuing.
Our foundation must remain deeper than applause.
2. Develop People Intentionally
Luke 6:12–19
One of the most interesting things about Jesus’ leadership is the size of the group He chose to develop closely.
Jesus ministered to crowds, but He invested deeply in a smaller group of disciples. Before selecting the Twelve, Luke tells us that Jesus spent the night in prayer.
Jesus was intentional about who He would develop.
This challenged my thinking about mentorship. Leaders sometimes feel responsible for personally developing everyone around them. Depending on the size of the organization, that can quickly become unrealistic.
Jesus demonstrates another approach: invest deeply in people who can eventually influence others.
I see this principle even while working with students. When managing a group of more than fifteen students, every student brings different personalities, perspectives, attitudes, and needs. Trying to personally lead every student at exactly the same depth can become overwhelming.
But what happens when a leader begins developing a smaller group of student leaders?
Those students can begin influencing the culture around them.
Leadership development then becomes multiplication.
3. Give People Responsibility and the Authority to Carry It Out
Luke 9:1–10
Jesus didn’t keep His disciples beside Him forever.
Eventually, He sent them.
Luke records that Jesus gathered the Twelve, gave them power and authority, provided instructions, and sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and heal the sick. Later, they returned and reported what they had done.
Notice the progression:
Jesus called them.
Jesus developed them.
Jesus empowered them.
Jesus sent them.
Jesus received their report.
Jesus understood something every leader eventually has to learn: the mission becomes limited when everything depends upon one person.
Healthy leadership requires delegation, but biblical delegation involves more than handing someone a task.
People need preparation.
They need responsibility.
They need appropriate authority.
They need opportunities to practice.
And they need feedback afterward.
Churches sometimes become so focused on filling volunteer positions that we forget the importance of developing the person filling the position.
Imagine someone responsible for displaying lyrics during worship. It may seem like a simple responsibility, but that person needs to understand the software, lyrics, timing, pace, and transitions. Without preparation, mistakes can distract the congregation from participating in worship.
Giving someone a position is not the same as developing them for the position.
Jesus didn’t simply need workers. He developed disciples who could participate in His mission.
4. Character Matters More Than Charisma
Luke 18:18–23
When a ruler approached Jesus asking about eternal life, Jesus eventually confronted something deeper than outward obedience.
“You still lack one thing.”
Jesus identified something that challenged the man’s commitment. His wealth had become a barrier he was unwilling to surrender.
The encounter reminds us that leadership development sometimes requires uncomfortable conversations.
Someone can be passionate and still need development.
Someone can be gifted and still need accountability.
Someone can desire influence without being prepared for the sacrifice accompanying it.
This is especially important in ministry.
It can be easy to desire opportunities to preach, stand on a platform, lead worship, hold a title, or receive recognition. But what happens when discipleship involves correction? What happens when leadership requires serving somewhere nobody notices? What happens when someone identifies an area of our character that needs to change?
Charisma can attract attention, but character sustains leadership.
Healthy leadership cultures therefore cannot merely identify people’s gifts. They must also create environments where people can be discipled, corrected, challenged, and developed.
5. Leadership Requires Dependence Upon God
Luke 22:39–46
Eventually, Luke brings us to one of the most vulnerable moments of Jesus’ ministry: Gethsemane.
Jesus knew what was approaching.
He experienced tremendous anguish. Yet rather than pretending the situation was easy, Jesus prayed.
His prayer included the words:
“Yet not my will, but yours be done.”
There is something deeply important here for Christian leadership.
Jesus does not model leadership as emotional invulnerability. He does not pretend pressure doesn’t exist. Instead, He brings His anguish before the Father and remains obedient to God’s purposes.
Leadership will bring moments of pressure.
There may be misunderstanding, disappointment, difficult decisions, rejection, or even betrayal. Those moments expose the limits of leadership techniques.
Sometimes we don’t need another strategy.
We need God’s strength.
Prayer therefore isn’t an accessory to Christian leadership. Dependence upon God must remain at its center.
A Pattern of Leadership in Luke
When I put these passages together, I noticed that they form something of a progression:
1.) Mission
2.) Development
3.) Empowerment
4.) Character
5.) Perseverance
Jesus knew the mission.
He selected people to develop.
He entrusted those people with responsibility and authority.
He confronted issues that could hinder genuine commitment.
And through suffering and pressure, He remained dependent upon the Father and faithful to His mission.
That gives us a powerful picture of leadership.
Leadership isn’t merely about starting something.
It’s about knowing the mission well enough to remain faithful when rejection comes.
It’s about developing people instead of doing everything ourselves.
It’s about trusting others with meaningful responsibility.
It’s about caring enough about people to confront character issues.
And ultimately, it’s about recognizing that we cannot fulfill God’s purposes through our own strength.
The Gospel of Luke reminds me that Jesus didn’t merely accomplish a mission.
He developed people who could participate in it.
Perhaps that is one of the greatest questions every Christian leader should ask:
Am I simply accomplishing the work in front of me, or am I developing people who can carry the mission forward?
When we think about worship, we often think about celebration.
We think about singing praises, declaring God’s goodness, thanking Him for answered prayers, and celebrating what He has done. These are beautiful and necessary expressions of worship. Yet Scripture reveals another dimension of worship that can sometimes make Christians uncomfortable:
Lament.
Lament reminds us that God is not afraid of the condition of our hearts. He receives our praises, but He also receives our questions, disappointments, fears, and cries for help.
Biblical worship does not require us to pretend everything is okay before approaching God.
Lament Is More Than Complaining
There is an important difference between lamenting and simply complaining.
Complaining can become focused entirely on the problem. Biblical lament brings the problem into the presence of God.
In Biblical Worship: Theology for God’s Glory, Erika Moore distinguishes biblical lament from contemporary ideas of psychological complaint. That distinction matters because lament has a theological direction.
Lament says:
“God, this hurts, but I am bringing this pain to You.”
The purpose is not simply to describe everything that has gone wrong. Lament creates a bridge between our suffering and our trust in God.
Throughout biblical lament, we find movements such as addressing God, presenting our concerns, asking Him to intervene, remembering His character, expressing confidence in Him, and continuing to worship.
This means faith does not require emotional dishonesty.
Sometimes one of the greatest expressions of faith is being willing to tell God exactly where we are while continuing to believe He is listening.
What Happens When God Seems Silent?
Psalm 88 provides an especially challenging picture of lament.
Many biblical passages eventually move toward an obvious declaration of hope or praise. Psalm 88 is different. The psalmist cries out to God while experiencing darkness, loneliness, and what feels like divine absence.
There is no neat resolution.
There is no immediate testimony at the end explaining how everything worked out.
And perhaps that is exactly why Christians need Psalm 88.
We often want prayer to produce a clear answer.
Yes.
No.
Go.
Stop.
This is what I am doing.
But what happens when the answer seems to be silence?
Dickson Ngama observes that sometimes believers must wait patiently even while making impatient demands of God, and that waiting itself requires faith.
That changes how we understand unanswered prayer.
Waiting is not necessarily evidence that God has abandoned us.
Waiting may become one of the places where faith is formed.
Faith in the Waiting
We live in a culture built around speed.
We can receive food quickly, communicate instantly, order products and have them delivered rapidly, and access enormous amounts of information within seconds.
Then we pray.
And sometimes God says:
Wait.
Waiting can expose things within us that immediate answers never would.
It confronts our fears.
It exposes our desire for control.
It challenges our expectations.
It forces us to ask whether our confidence rests in receiving the outcome we want or in the character of the God to whom we prayed.
There are situations in my own life where I would love for God to provide an immediate answer. Yet discipleship means learning that God’s timing does not operate according to my preferred schedule.
Sometimes faith means moving.
Sometimes faith means stopping.
And sometimes faith means remaining exactly where God has placed us until greater clarity comes.
Making a quick decision simply because waiting feels uncomfortable can easily become an attempt to manufacture our own answer.
Biblical lament teaches another possibility:
We can remain before God even when the answer has not arrived.
When Prayer Becomes Gossip
Lament also has implications for how churches respond to the suffering of others.
Church communities can become messy because churches consist of imperfect people being transformed by the grace of God.
Unfortunately, there are moments when Christians can disguise gossip as spiritual concern.
We have probably heard some variation of:
“I’m not gossiping. I’m telling you so we can pray for them.”
Yet simply attaching prayer language to someone’s personal situation does not automatically make the conversation healthy.
Biblical lament should draw us toward compassionate presence rather than curiosity about another person’s problems.
Instead of asking, “What happened to them?”
Perhaps the church should become better at asking:
“How can we stand with them?”
There are times when suffering people do not need another theological explanation.
They need someone willing to sit beside them.
Pray with them.
Cry with them.
Listen to them.
Carry burdens with them.
And continue believing with them when they are struggling to believe for themselves.
Can the Church Become a House of Lament?
This raises an important question for contemporary worship:
Does our worship make room for people who are suffering?
Churches should absolutely celebrate God’s goodness.
We should sing about His victory.
We should testify about answered prayer.
We should celebrate healing, restoration, salvation, deliverance, and transformation.
But what about the person whose prayer has not yet been answered?
What about the family experiencing grief?
What about the believer asking God for direction and hearing nothing?
What about someone faithfully praying for healing while continuing to suffer?
If our worship only gives language to victory, suffering Christians may begin wondering whether something is wrong with their faith.
Scripture gives them another vocabulary.
Lament.
Perhaps our churches need intentional moments where believers can acknowledge suffering together.
That could happen through congregational prayer, Scripture readings, pastoral prayer, testimony, small groups, prayer gatherings, or even carefully selected songs that acknowledge suffering while directing people toward God.
A church can be both a house of praise and a house of lament.
Those realities do not contradict one another.
They belong together.
Worshiping Before the Answer Comes
One of the deepest lessons of lament is that worship does not have to wait until the testimony is finished.
We can worship while waiting.
We can pray while confused.
We can trust while hurting.
We can remain faithful while still asking questions.
And sometimes our greatest declaration of faith is not:
“God answered exactly how I expected.”
Sometimes it is:
“I still trust God even though I do not understand what He is doing.”
Psalm 88 reminds us that Scripture has room for prayers that end without resolution.
That means the church should have room for people whose stories are still unfinished.
Perhaps mature worship is not only praising God after the breakthrough.
Perhaps mature worship is learning to remain in His presence before the answer comes.
Inspired by reflections from Biblical Worship: Theology for God’s Glory by Benjamin K. Forrest, Walter C. Kaiser Jr., Vernon M. Whaley, David M. Wheeler, John W. Cartwright, and C. Randall Bradley (Kregel Academic, 2021).
There is a significant difference between wanting God and wanting God to fix our circumstances.
While reading Biblical Worship: Theology for God’s Glory, I was challenged by the discussion of Israel’s pattern of crying out to God during times of distress. Israel repeatedly experienced the consequences of pursuing other gods, only to turn toward the Lord when those pursuits failed.
This raises an uncomfortable question for believers today:
Do we seek God because we desire Him, or because we desire what He can do for us?
A Conversion of Convenience
Benjamin K. Forrest describes one of Israel’s responses as a “conversion of convenience.” Israel acknowledged its sin and removed its idols, but the larger biblical pattern demonstrates how easily people can turn toward God because circumstances have become unbearable rather than because their hearts genuinely desire Him.
We can encounter the same temptation today.
Sometimes God becomes our last resort rather than our first pursuit.
Prayer becomes urgent when the diagnosis comes. We seek God when the relationship begins falling apart. We suddenly become interested in His direction when our own plans stop working. We ask for deliverance when consequences finally reach us.
There is nothing wrong with crying out to God during suffering. Scripture repeatedly invites us to do exactly that. The deeper question concerns the posture of our hearts.
Are we seeking deliverance from our circumstances, or are we surrendering ourselves to God?
Authentic repentance is more than wanting circumstances to change. It involves allowing God to change us.
Prayer Is an Act of Worship
This challenged me to reconsider prayer as more than simply presenting requests before God.
Prayer is worship.
If worship involves recognizing who God is and responding appropriately to Him, then our prayer lives reveal something about our understanding of God.
When God becomes someone we primarily approach during emergencies, our relationship with Him can slowly become transactional:
God, I have a problem. Please solve it.
But a life of worship develops another posture:
God, whether I am experiencing peace or difficulty, I belong to You. Lead me.
Developing a consistent life of prayer prepares us for the storms that eventually come. Instead of discovering God only when everything collapses, we learn to walk with Him before, during, and after the storm.
Crisis does not create our relationship with God; it reveals the relationship we have been cultivating.
Rediscovering Confession
Another aspect of worship that deserves greater attention is confession.
I was raised Catholic, so confession was familiar to me from an early age. My understanding of confession has changed significantly since then, but studying worship has caused me to reconsider something important: perhaps Christians from nonliturgical traditions can learn from traditions that intentionally create space for confession.
In many evangelical and Pentecostal settings, we commonly emphasize confessing our sins directly to God—and rightly so.
But Scripture also gives confession a communal dimension.
James 5:16 instructs believers to “confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.”
That challenges an exclusively individualistic understanding of repentance.
There are sins that need to be brought before God privately. Yet there are also moments when healing requires trusted Christian community, pastoral care, accountability, prayer, and confession to another believer.
Sin thrives in secrecy.
Healthy Christian community brings what has been hidden into the light.
What Could Confession Look Like in the Church?
This does not necessarily mean standing before an entire congregation and publicly describing every sin we have committed.
Healthy confession requires wisdom, appropriate relationships, pastoral safeguards, and discernment.
But what would happen if our churches became places where Christians were less afraid to admit that they were struggling?
What if small groups became places where people could say, “I need prayer because I am struggling with this,” without immediately fearing rejection?
What if mature believers intentionally mentored younger believers through repentance and restoration?
What if pastors and ministry leaders modeled a Christianity in which spiritual maturity did not mean pretending to have no struggles?
Perhaps confession should become more visible within our understanding of discipleship.
The church should not become a place where sin is celebrated or minimized. Neither should it become a place where people become so afraid of judgment that they learn to hide their sin successfully.
The goal is restoration.
From Convenient Christianity to Genuine Discipleship
This brings me back to Israel.
A “conversion of convenience” seeks God when God becomes useful.
Discipleship seeks God because He is Lord.
That distinction forces me to examine my own spiritual life. I do not want prayer to become something I suddenly rediscover when circumstances become difficult. I want prayer, repentance, and confession to become ordinary rhythms of worship.
And perhaps our churches need the same examination.
Are we creating disciples who know how to ask God for help, or disciples who know how to surrender their lives to Him?
Are we creating communities where Christians hide their struggles, or communities where repentance leads toward healing and restoration?
Most importantly:
Do we want God’s intervention, or do we want God Himself?
True worship cannot merely be a conversion of convenience.
It is a life continually surrendered to the One who is worthy of our worship—in seasons of blessing, seasons of suffering, and everything in between.
Scripture for Reflection
James 5:16 — “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.”
Further Reading
Forrest, Benjamin K., Walter C. Kaiser Jr., Vernon M. Whaley, David M. Wheeler, John W. Cartwright, and C. Randall Bradley. Biblical Worship: Theology for God’s Glory. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2021.
