Worship

For almost a year now, worship has been a pretty popular word in my vocabulary. Being that my dad is our church's worship leader, and my brother is the youth group's, I had a pretty good idea of what worship was... or so I thought. My definition of Worship last year was "the musical stuff that happens before Pastor Matt speaks and we all scurry off to youth group."

I began to hear the term used in a way I hadn't heard it though. Elders would come up on stage to give the announcements talking about having a "heart of worship" while coming out to serve on a church work day. That confused me. Wait are we singing and working? Thoughts like that ran through my head.

So, I went online to Bible Gateway and used the keyword search (can't beat that) to find verses relating to worship. I found that about half of them were from Psalms. Psalms, for those who don't know was written by David, a dude who lived in the wilderness by himself, apparently with a harp.

This confused me even more. Everything was wrong now. Worship was no longer a safe thing we did in church with guitars, drums, and piano, it was now a wild, working, act of adoration for God. And that is truly what worship is.

I went to a summer camp last year where our counselor, Chris, sort of "taught" me to worship. He was more of an example. The worship at the camp was really good, so you could easily slip into the state where you realize that a whole body of believers is singing to the creator of the universe. But I watched him as he threw his hands up in surrender to God during a worship song, and reflected Christ through his honestly and conduct.

So then, I knew what it was to worship. Living your life could be a praise song to God if you let it. However, I still got distracted when it came to making a choice whether to worship God or do something else.

On the way back from a prayer seminar at Calvary Chapel San Jose, my youth pastor, Justin, was talking about worship and prayer. He said, "I have to ask myself 'Would I rather (insert an activity here) than worship the creator of the universe?' and when I do, it makes me realize how stupid what I want to do is, compared to worshipping God."

That hit home. I knew I was guilty of that. So from then on, when I was faced with that choice, I would ask myself that very question and realize that God is far more important than my little problems. If he can control how the ocean works, he can fix my problems, so I can just worship him without worry.

update: Book

I found out I had been going about my nook the wrong way, so now I'm starting over and making it more of a youth version of Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz. It's not going to copy it, it's just going to be organized in a similar way, topic by topic instead of chronologically. Thats it for now.

Update: Book

I have currently written about one page of my book. Its harder than it seems, but there's sooo much to talk about. I didn't realize how much my views changed since last year. Welp, I'll keep you posted.

The school year is closing

I thought i'd do an 'end of the year' post. I just finished my final, so i thought i could work on this. I sit recalling all the events of the past year and my mind is exploding. Yes. seriously. So, i thought i would write a short book on my thoughts of the past year. It will be titled "Thoughts of a teenage Christian." Profound? Completely.
Julia, who currently sits next to me, will be my proofreader. I hope. I haven't asked her yet, but i think she will. she'll laugh at anything my brother or I will say, so she'll probably be entertained.
Along with that, I will continue to update my blog over the summer, so you few followers can 1) check the progress of the book and 2) Possibly be inspired to think a little more deeply about your life. Yeah, i know that sounds cliche, but it'll have to do. (Insert a 'are you trying to tell me that I don't think deeply about my life?' statement right here) So yeah, this is my re-intro to blogging I guess. See ya. (I don't really know how to close a blog post).