By Nate Powell
In the Summer of 2011, my family and I moved to Auburn, and I came on staff at ACC as the Associate Minister of Youth and Worship. There were many reasons we were excited to come to this church and be a part of this ministry, one of which was having a church family that invests in its students and their growth and development. So during that first Summer, we went to Joplin with students to help with Tornado Relief, and we took some of our worship students to Kansas City for the National Worship Leaders Conference, to invest in their development as musicians and future worship leaders.
While we were in Kansas City, we got to hear from some of the best worship leaders in the world: p
eople who are writing and recording worship songs that churches around the world sing every Sunday. One of those worship leaders who invested in us was Matt Redman (the guy in the middle in the picture above). I’ve always admired Matt as a songwriter. He’s written songs like The Heart of Worship, Blessed Be Your Name, Better is One Day, 10,000 Reasons, and many more. I also love Matt’s heart as a worship leader. He never comes across as the most talented musician in the room when he is leading; there are always much better singers than him at conferences like these. But Matt has a pastoral heart for the church, and he has a manner of coaxing the Christians gathered to focus singularly on the message they are singing and the One they are singing those lyrics to, and to do so loudly.
eople who are writing and recording worship songs that churches around the world sing every Sunday. One of those worship leaders who invested in us was Matt Redman (the guy in the middle in the picture above). I’ve always admired Matt as a songwriter. He’s written songs like The Heart of Worship, Blessed Be Your Name, Better is One Day, 10,000 Reasons, and many more. I also love Matt’s heart as a worship leader. He never comes across as the most talented musician in the room when he is leading; there are always much better singers than him at conferences like these. But Matt has a pastoral heart for the church, and he has a manner of coaxing the Christians gathered to focus singularly on the message they are singing and the One they are singing those lyrics to, and to do so loudly.When we got to sit in on Matt’s seminar, he talked about his view of worship: that it is all about breathing in and breathing out.
Worship is breathing in when we read the Word. Breathing in is the preaching of the word and us hearing it. Breathing in is meditating on the truth that God is speaking to us. Breathing in is coming to a greater understanding of the love or grace God has for us. When we take time to receive and think about God’s truth, we are breathing in.
Worship is also breathing out. We breathe out when we respond to the grace and truth we have been given by the Lord. We breathe out when we sing songs to God, when we pray, and when we live, love and serve as God wants us to.
One good example of this from the Bible is Psalm 136. There we continue to see a truth preached that we should breathe in: Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good (Ps. 136:1); give thanks to Him who does mighty miracles (v. 4); He brought Israel out of Egypt (v. 11). And after each of those breathing in lines, the church is urged to breath out together “His faithful love endures forever.” This is just one example of our worship being like breathing, and it is what our times of corporate worship should do and be: Lessons in breathing praise to God.