worship

in sept, i made the decision to lead the worship, for the 1st time, at today's service.

for a start, i have to choose a sunday where my Care Group can support me as musicians & back-up singers. actually, it's odd i just mentioned that, because in my CG, only i can play the guitar & another, the piano. since, i'm leading, i won't play, so it's just down to the piano. i wanted it solely to be the CG's effort.

after that, i needed to select the songs that i'm familiar with, because other than the pianist, the rest of us (myself included!) are largely tone-deaf!

then, there must be a time for all of us to avail ourselves for practice, which was narrowed down to yesterday afternoon.

so, why did i take it upon myself to go through these aggravations?

well, i've been asked to worship-lead several times before some years back, but each time, i've turned it down, giving various excuses. then when i re-read the gospel where the angel appeared before Mary to foretell the virgin birth of Christ, all she said was:

"I am the Lord's servant, may it be to me as you have said."  luke1:38

if she, though not yet married to Joseph, was willing to shoulder the heavy responsibility of carrying Jesus, i reasoned that leading worship would be also a responsibility a (true) servant of the Lord would not chicken out from refuse. for the record, it went much better than expected. was it because my prayer went like this...

"even though we may not sing with the voices of angels, we praise from our hearts & may it be a sweet, sweet sound to Your ear?" 

When you feel impelled to help fill a need, when you are inwardly driven to serve – listen to those thoughts. You don’t want to miss God’s call. (Cindy Hess Kasper)