More Sure Than Ever (Praying the Kingdom of God)

Posted on May 21, 2009 by Mark Grosz

This is just a short post and there is newest version of the Matthew 5 document.

A few months ago, I started praying the Beatitudes.  At the very beginning was this sense that I desired all the be-attitudes to be alive and growing in me.  A few weeks after starting on this journey through Jesus’ sermon, our pastor started a series (which is still ongoing at the moment) on the same Scriptures.  Heidi Baker’s book, Compelled by LOVE, is her journey through the same Scripture.  The week before, at a conference, one of the speakers taught on the Kingdom of God.  Last Sunday, one of the other pastors at church spoke of the Kingdom of God being like coming to the table.  Last night, the speaker at a youth event spoke about the Kingdom of God.

In a very short time, the topic of the Kingdom of God seems to be all lit up.  My own revelation, that the Kingdom of God must be in us not only around us, seems to becoming clearer and clearer to me – if not louder and louder.  The Kingdom of God is not a specific cultural expression where we can feel more comfortable with people who dress, look and act like us.  God’s Kingdom is extremely diverse and inclusive.  The Kingdom of God is very close and indeed all around us, if we have eyes to see and ears to hear it.  Our question is, will it also be in us and through us personally?

As hard as we try, we can’t force others to embody the Kingdom of Heaven.  If we try to contain their behavior, it proves fruitless.  We can’t contain nature, even though man thinks he can.  In reality, we can only choose to receive and deeply desire the Kingdom of God in us.  When the Kingdom is alive in us, though, it changes everything around us.  So, I believe this is an important beginning.

Please join me in asking God for this very precious gift – the Kingdom of God alive in you.  The New Creation.

The Latest Version: Matthew 5 Prayer and Meditation v1.1

Blessings!

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Praying the Kingdom of God Project

Posted on May 1, 2009 by Mark Grosz

Praying the Kingdom of God

For about two months, for the most part, I have made it a daily practice to pray through the Beatitudes, in Matthew 5, asking the Lord for those qualities of attitude to become more and more the foundation of me.  I searched for ancient liturgy to help guide or give new perspective to the Scripture verses.  I needed some help for focused prayer, to dwell and meditate on them, and apply them to my life and character.  In lieu of finding a prayer liturgy for the Beatitudes, I felt moved to write one.  Some of the sections are not as fully expressed as others and I hope for and would invite collaboration from others.   Other people have walked through situations and may have specific wisdom in what to ask God for as it applies to these precious verses describing a person with Kingdom attitudes.

Hopefully, my headings for each section will be a good guide but even those are up for grabs if someone has better words.  The Scripture verses are the only thing that should remain the same, although maybe other translations may give an additional insight.  Please contribute to the document if you feel moved to do so.  You can post additions as comments and I will try to keep updating the document.

I could also see the meditation or personal liturgy turn into a guide for a worship service.  I’d appreciate song and Scripture suggestions if you would have them.  Even well grounded devotional writings would be welcomed.

If the Kingdom of God comes, as we cry out for, it will not only fall around us but it will surely come in us and through us as well.  We will be changed, too!  If we are asking for God’s Kingdom to come, then we must ask God for ourselves to be changed so the New Creation can also flow through us, into the world.

Personal Liturgy for Praying the Kingdom of God (PDF updated May 11th, 2009)

Blessings,

Mark

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Week 5 Reflections and Final Project Notes (Essentials Green)

Posted on April 24, 2009 by Mark Grosz

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Green Online Worship Values Coursewith Dan Wilt

The song for my Essentials Green Final Project is called Revealed.  You can listen to it on my Mighty River Music site.

Revealed

Chorus:

Come and know me, Lord

Know my deepest seas.

Holy Spirit search the heights of me

My heart’s secret doors,

Flung open wide,

I’m revealed, unveiled,

Unhidden for you, Lord.

Verse 1:

You showed Your love to me.

I was ashamed and afraid.

You offered up Yourself.

Reaching Your hand out for me.

Verse 2:

You birthed New Life in me.

Awakening love, pure and true.

I open up my arms.

And offer myself all to You

(c2009 Mark Grosz)

“Revealed” is about the worship value of intimacy.

God self reveals Himself to us by the Word and through the Holy Spirit.   He allows himself to become vulnerable to us, vulnerable to be rejected and hurt.  He reveals to us, how much He loves us and desires us to have relationship with Him, to be His bride and to be with Him forever.

God already knows everything about us.  He knit us together!   I believe it pleases Him when we consciously and willingly choose to unconceal ourselves to Him.  As He is self-revealing to us, we should be abandoned in unveiling ourselves to Him.  It makes us vulnerable and displays the trust of the Bride towards the Groom.  Nothing held back, a complete knowing of each other.  Intimacy is beholding each other, unveiled, unhidden, face to face.

Verse 1 speaks of the encounter with God.  He overcomes our fear and the effects of sin by offering up Himself on the cross, reaching His hands out on the cross and reaching to us.

Verse 2 talks of our awakening and receiving New LIfe because of Jesus’ work on the cross.  Our response to His love and His gift of new life is to receive Him with open arms, symbolizing both invitation and our willingness, as the Bride, to give ourselves for the Bridegroom.

The chorus is the invitation to the Lord, for Him to come know the depth and height of us, symbolizing both the breadth of who we are and also a sharing of our sadness and joy.  Our heart’s secret doors, where the real us is hidden, are flung open wide to God and nothing held back.  We are completely revealed, unveiled and unhidden before the Lord.  The chorus is also declaration of our complete trust in God.

Blessings!
Mark
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Week 4 Reflections (Essentials Green)

Posted on April 17, 2009 by Mark Grosz

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Green Online Worship Values Coursewith Dan Wilt

Discipleship

This week focused on our own spiritual development.  At first this seems to be for the purpose of our various work in ministry positions but we must realize we will all be growing in the Lord far beyond the time and season of a professional or volunteer position.  This is for life!

Seasons of Growth

By looking at tree rings, the past environment of the tree can be determined and it is plain to see the effects of good nutrients and plentiful water on the tree’s growth.  For our best spiritual growth, we must place ourselves in an environment most conducive for us to grow.  Sometimes we might not be able to plant ourselves in the most rich soil and in a place that the rain is abundantly falling.  The Lord may place us where we have to reach our roots deep to capture the nutrients and limited moisture.  I believe this is what St. John of the Cross was talking about in “Dark Night of the Soul”.  A deeply rooted tree will not blow over in the high winds of the storms in life.  While we might not be in a place for our optimum spiritual growth, don’t be frustrated or disappointed because the growth may be in some other spiritual way not obvious and as visable.

I was also thinking about the seasons of the vegetable plants on my grandfather’s farm.  First there is an invisible miracle that happens with the seed germinating and growing under the ground.  Following after is a rapid, very visible phase where the plant breaks the surface of the ground, heads skyward and increases in height and strength.  If started in a greenhouse or hothouse, as we used to call them, a plant needs to be separated (thinned out) and re-planted to where it will grow to maturity.  For some plants, the farmer will periodically trim the top off to deepen the roots and strengthen the main stalk so it support the fruit or vegetable.  The plant may flower and it’s foliage will grow thicker during the best part of the growing season.  The plant stores up energy and supply so it can produce the fruit or vegetable.  The fruit or vegetable is not only the reason the plant is grown but also contains the seed that will produce the next season’s plants.

Like the plants on my grandfather’s farm, we will have times of germination by the Holy Spirit that breaks us free of the ground.  At the same time, God invites us to reach down into the soil of Him to be nurtured and watered so we can grow up in Him.  Sometimes he transplants us to where we will have more room to grow or conditions will be better for us to produce the crop He intends for us to grow.  He may choose to trim our tops off so we can grow deeper and stronger!  There is a period of life where we develop a stride and a level of skill, where we there is a supply of skill and wisdom coming together with clarity of purpose to produce what our life is meant to produce – in that specific season anyway.  A new phase of life happens, a miracle, where we produce and grow up biological and spiritual children.  We pour out our resources to the point of giving ourselves away in order to see the next generation grow up in the Lord and Kingdom life.

That is my road travelled so far so I can’t tell more of the story right now.  In all of the seasons so far, we have an absolute need for the nourishment from God.  Discipleship and seeking after the Lord doesn’t stop in any particular season.  We may grow in different ways in different seasons, though.  We may have different opportunities or learn different ways of how to enrich our life and character out of the abundant provision from the Lord.  We may also have constraints and limitations placed on us and have to push and devote ourselves to spiritual growth.

From my 2006 journal:  ”Put your roots down into me, says the Lord.  There is life, there.  Come, put down into my rich soil.”

Blessings,

Mark



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Week 3 Reflections (Essentials Green)

Posted on April 11, 2009 by Mark Grosz

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Green Online Worship Values Coursewith Dan Wilt

Expecting the Kingdom of God

Around Christmas-time, it looked as if my son would have a chance to move back closer to home and family again.  He isn’t far away, just about two hours away.  Still, it is far enough away that we can’t usually do the small stuff together.  We were all looking forward to him being closer.  Then the economy really went south and the job to be posted got put on hold.

My wife and I started to include a request for the job to come back in our prayers.  That in itself says a couple of things.  One is that we believe that there is someone listening to our prayers.  It also says that God is able and will do something about the request.  Our faith isn’t blind.  We’ve seen God intercede in our lives before.  God has a proven track record with us.  We trust Him even when things don’t go as we were thinking they would.  He is our Father and we are His children and He loves us.  We can count on Him.

Last week, our son called to tell us the job was being posted again so we shall see how it turns out.  This is small stuff.  Parents who pray for their kids and God hears, and intercedes.  This is Kingdom of God come now.  He loves His children.

After our Good Friday service we gathered around our bass player, who was feeling sick (along with his wife and kids) and prayed for their healing and protection.  These prayers are not the ‘hope you feel better soon’ wishes but expressed heart desires to see our friend and his family healed of sickness.  Yes, there is a bit of risk in praying such a prayer.  You are extremely vulnerable to look foolish if nothing happens.  Yet, we have faith to pray for what our friends need, and we expect God to move in their lives.  As we exercise  our Kingdom expectation, God does respond and we believe for more.  Our friend didn’t feel much better when we were done but we are believing his (and their) healing has started, the bug turned back in their lives.

I invite you, my friends, to step out and trust God for the simple, small stuff as well as the large.  God will encourage us in our faith and hope.  As He does, the faith and hope we have in the Lord will spill out in a natural way into our worship.  Be expectant and watch for the Lord, not only during times of worship, but in every moment of life!

Blessings,

Mark

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Week 2 Reflections (Essentials Green)

Posted on April 3, 2009 by Mark Grosz

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Green Online Worship Values Coursewith Dan Wilt

I just finished watching a video of “Stand By Me”.  The video recording captured people singing and playing the same song from all over the world.  The producer then mixed it down into a beautiful song made up of many voices and instruments.  The engineer made room for all the singers and instrumentalists in the collage and the result was a wonderful expression of sound from people who never met each other.

Worship musicians do the same thing.  We provide the frame and space, and then we invite  people to come and express their worship to God and experience His closeness and presence.  We have the wonderful task of engineering and technically arranging the opportunity for people to come close to the Lord.

Considering the accessibility of our worship is one way we do this.  Accessibility seems to be speaking of the way we purposefully do things so that many others can join with us to worship God.  The presence of God is such a wonderful experience that one wants everyone to know it. Accessibility is like the farmer preparing his fields for the crops to come.  To the worshipper, this means using atmospheres where people can be relaxed and themselves, musical styles that appeal to a wide range of the people making up the local community and using songs that are inclusive and inviting to sing together.  It could also mean inviting other artists beside the musicians to take part in the service (painters, sculptors, dancers, actors).  These are some of the things we can think about ahead of time to make room for everyone to contribute.

I remember one Sunday where we brought in a bunch of stones, candles, ribbons, cloth, and decorations and had everyone come up and help build a small altar at the front.  We light the candles together and worshipped some more, enjoying the beauty of what we created together.  I think the Lord enjoyed the altar but He really liked watching His children building something together, with the purpose of worshipping and honoring Him.

Cultural Relevance is about having what you do make sense to the people you are leading in worship. Openness to one another’s culture and understanding invites the bloom of a diverse, vibrant community.  As worship leaders, we should lead out in that area.  We need to show respect for others and even thirst for experiencing other people’s cultural expression – to celebrate culture as the colors of a beautiful painting.  We need to lead out in that we can be one, together, yet still be unique and valued in our individual expression of who we are.  I believe cultural openness invites people to a safe place where they can fully express themselves to God and to each other, through who they authentically are.

As a worship musician, I might encourage others by using songs, instruments, or grooves and nuances that appeal to other people.  We should make a place where other people can ‘naturally’ worship out of who they are.  This doesn’t mean we lose our identity but rather we identify with other people in our community.  We honor and declare value to other’s culture and uniqueness when we include it in the styles, looks and sounds of worship.

We had a lady in our small church plant who was born in Italy.  I didn’t know what the meant to her until I sang a song with a bit of Portuguese in it.  The words were very close to Italian.  She had a great time with the Lord that morning and told me for the first time, she didn’t have to ‘think and translate’ in worship.  She could just sing her heart to the Lord.  The worship team opened a way that morning for my sister to worship God in a deep way.

Accessibility and cultural relevance.  Two things to consider and ponder as we prepare for worship and as we lead people during the worship time…

Blessings,

Mark

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Week 1 Reflections (Essentials Green)

Posted on March 27, 2009 by Mark Grosz

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Green Online Worship Values Course with Dan Wilt

So, I am not so good with dates.  I know our anniversary and my wife and kids birthdays plus a couple more.  All I can say is that about 15 years ago I made a fascinating discovery of the place of intimacy with God.  What happened on that morning was a conversation with God where I asked Him to teach me to worship Him.  Out of character, I sat in the front row, hungering for something I didn’t know but knew I had to.  In the midst of worship that morning, God self-revealed Himself to me.  First it was as One who accepted and loved me and then it was as my Lord and King, whom I needed to bow down and submit myself to.  I don’t think that morning was the beginning of God’s work in me.  It was just the point where I started to intentionally and passionately to respond to God’s invitation.

As I read through our course material and watched the videos, a simple thought caught my attention in various places.  Brian Doerksen called it an exchange.  Our online course text hints at it in the “What is Intimacy” section (1).  God reveals Himself to us but unless we then turn to Him, there is no relationship, no intimacy.  That lovely morning, I knew without a doubt God was real.  Who knows how many times before God had whispered my name.  This time I heard it and responded.

Before that time, I was a Christian, believing and depending on Jesus for life and salvation but there is so much more when we respond to His whisper and call to intimacy with Him.  It is incredible for the One who is above all things knows our name and calls us into intimate relationship with Him.  How good it that!

==================================

(1) Essentials Green Online Course Text, Dan Wilt, page 7

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Praying the Kingdom

Posted on March 12, 2009 by Mark Grosz

Both of my classes, Rockbridge Seminary New Testament Survey and Essentials Blue from ICEWS/SSU Essentials Course, are done and I am starting to decompress a bit.  It is important to put the information into practice and some kind of discipline so what was learned works in our transformation.  As God reveals to us, we need to move in response.

In the NT Survey class, insight into people of the first century opened up what Jesus was teaching in a new way.  There was a sense of Jesus being perfectly in control and guiding of the unfolding of history around him.  He wasn’t responding to the events.  Jesus was clearly the initiator of the events.  Then, reading N.T. Wright’s “Simply Christian” and re-reading Brian McLaren’s “The Secret Message of Jesus” set Matthew 5 into my heart as something I needed to look at more deeply.  Essentials Blue gave me a sense of goodness and a vision of the Kingdom of God now coming through me especially when I choose to move in agreement with it.

The words of Matthew 5 are Jesus’ teaching on the coming of the Kingdom of God, now.  Rather than a totally future event, I found it exhilarating to realize everything I do, say and think has potential to let the Kingdom come, in and through me.  The smallest kindness and smallest bit of holiness, echoing the character of Christ is the Kingdom of God, now.  Sometimes the BIG stuff taking extreme efforts or the character of famous Christians seems so impossible to reach for but I can reach for the small stuff, every day, day in and day out.  Once aware, we can consistently choose to be pathways for heaven to come to earth, a little bit at a time.

In both classes, the subject of the Kingdom of God and the New Creation were centric topics.   An important concept from Essentials Blue is there is no secular.  There is only sacred.  It all was created by God and it all belongs to Him.  Creation is sacred.  There are parts of the sacred that are broken and in need of restoration and reattachment.  That is something we can do every day.   I suspect God wants me to continue thinking deeply about His Kingdom.  At Christ Community Church, Pastor Dave started a series about Matthew 5.  The book I started to read, “Compelled by Love” by Heidi Baker and the latest Vineyard project, “the now and not yet” by Jeremy Riddle (along with the latest insideworship – Values in Action, are all about the Kingdom of God, now.  While I know there is a ‘fuller’ coming, I am excited by the notion my mission here is to bring it as much as I can, now.  That will take me through some changes as His Kingdom becomes more and more in me.

One practical thing I can do to move the Kingdom of God forward in me and through me is to ask God for it in prayer.  Here is part of the discipline.  After listening to a podcast about Matthew 5, I felt compelled to pray each of the verses.  This is a simple practical thing we can do. Read Heidi’s Baker’s book, “Compelled by Love” to gain an understanding of each of the verses in Matthew 5:1-11.  The other books mentioned are great ones to meditate on as well (Simply Christian, The Secret Message of Jesus).  I invite you to pray these verses with me in this season!  Ask for the character that is agreeable with the Kingdom of God becoming a visible reality in you and through you.

Blessings…

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Week 5 and Course Summary Reflections (Essentials Blue)

Posted on February 14, 2009 by Mark Grosz

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Class with Dan Wilt

MY ESSENTIALS BLUE FINAL PROJECT IS A COUPLE OF POSTS DOWN.  

Essentials Blue was a wonderful, life-changing, vista-expanding, deepening of my understanding of God and my relationship to Him, especially in the area of worship and worship ministry and artistry. 

Most of this week was spent working on the final project.  It was hard to choose just one small segment of the rich treasure we learned over the whole course and focus my thoughts on that.  Usually I have a couple musical ideas cooking at any time but not this time.  I really had to pray and ask for a musical idea and for the vision for the song.  Even when the song started to take shape musically and theologically, I wasn’t sure I wasn’t going down a wrong path.  Writing Creation’s Song was hard work for me!  Recording it was a lot of fun.  I was very unsure about what to do.  The song just bloomed as it went and it was very fun to record.  My son gave me some new perc toys for Christmas and I was able to use them and that made me very happy.  I was looking for something to go ‘ting’ and I happened to see the tin cup he gave me hanging off my backpack – voila, I had a nice ‘ting’ going! :)

The ideas from the 5 weeks of Essentials Blue that were most impactive were the closeness of heaven, the nature of God, the nature of humans and our likeness to God our Creator and that we are “good”.  I am much more aware of Christ’s saving work for us and so very, very, very grateful to God.  My worship was strongly impacted by the course, even to the point of other people sensing something different in my worship leading and participation.  I am much more aware of the artistry that goes into creating the worship space because of the the nature of worship we studied.  It was also very sweet to be in fellowship with people who care so much about serving God through worship ministry.   

Blessings,

Mark 


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A Theology of Worship Leadership (Essentials Blue)

Posted on February 14, 2009 by Mark Grosz

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Class with Dan Wilt

Worship is the place of individual and communal adoration of God.  We express our worship by our love and allegiance to Him in a myriad of different ways, as He reveals  His worth-ship over the journey of our lifetime.  In Romans 12, Paul says to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice to God.  As believers, we can do so in the smallest expressions of life as we choose to let the righteousness of the Kingdom of God be expressed in us and through us.  Worship is committing ourselves to the breaking in of the Kingdom of God into our now, through our almost limitless creativity, through our stewardship of creation and loving care for people, through inclusionary relationships by inviting others into the perechoresis (circular dance) with God and us, and through our work of restorative, redemptive and reconciliatory acts towards and in behalf of other people and all creation.  At the same time, as those created to stand between the heavenly and earthly realms, between the porch and altar, we gather up all the praises of His beautiful Creation and creatively offer them back to God, as we intercede and reflect the glory of His Creation back to Him again and again.

Music and creative works are a powerful expression of our worship to God as we articulate the praise of His Creation back to Him.  This is because His children can do it together, in community.  We are each given unique and valuable creative gifts specifically suited to our place in time and community.  Theology, the pondering of God, through creative works is penetrating and persistent in it’s work in people.  Good and correct theology needs to be expressed and shared in the Church.  Through music and creativity, the church, encourages people in their faith and we gain a common experience and shared theology.  

In worship, we creatively express the story of the Kingdom of God becoming.  We share the story of our loving Creator, who is at the center of the universe, who created everything that exists out of nothingness, for His own pleasure.  In Eden, where the brokenness entered into God’s good Creation, humans chose independence over relationship with our loving God.  Songs can sing of the sickness caused by our pulling away from God and our struggling against His loving embrace.  Paintings can depict the One who continually watched for us when we ran away and traded our inheritance on worthless idolatries.  Poems can recite to us about the One who passionately came to break the power of the death and evil holding us in bondage.  Dance can inspire us to see the majestic King who came from heaven, out of the perfect dance of the Trinity and into the extreme poverty of our broken humanity.  Writers can describe how King Jesus gave himself for us, for all of His Creation, and died on the cross as our bondage-breaker, redeemer and reconciler to God.  In worship we celebrate Christ’s resurrection, His sacrifice accepted and life approved so the Kingdom of God can now come into the world through us as His image-bearers and cherished children.  As our knowing is impacted by this Kingdom of God story we share, believers help move the Kingdom of God story forward, inch by inch, as we reflect God’s love, forgiveness, mercy, His strength, power, goodness, beauty and His just rule into His creation by our acts of New Creation.  

As worship leaders, we should reflect the character of God in our life and through our skillful artistry in service to God and our community.  We should tell the salvific story of God in the music we choose and we should seek to challenge ourselves by study and spiritual disciplines.  In doing so, we can tell God’s story in a theologically correct and clearly expressed manner.  We should also give evidence of the New Creation, in and through us, in the way we treat our brothers and sisters who serve us on our worship teams.

Blessings,

Mark

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