Tag: Worship Central conference

Worship Central: pithy quotes to ponder

This year’s Worship Central Conference was full of great times of worship, unsurprisingly, but also jam-packed with wisdom to take away and ponder. Here are some thought-provoking quotes taken from the weekend, which I have been spending time with ever since. Hopefully they will give you something to reflect and act upon too:

“Every great thing requires a great sacrifice.” Louie Giglio

“God has lots of children in the church today; I’m honestly not sure He has many friends.” Mike Pilavachi

“Life comes from death. To the degree that I can live in the death of Jesus – to that degree I can channel God’s life to others.” Louie Giglio

 “Worship starts with seeing something great and then reflecting it to the world. Let’s see God so we can reflect God.” Louie Giglio

 “My life is not about the set list, it is to be set apart.” Louie Giglio

 “Worship should be about united values instead of united styles.” Mark Underwood

 “Whatever your story, the world does not need to mould you.” Tim Hughes

 “As long as we are faking it we are just showing the world how to fake it – but they already are! They want to see us get real.” Louie Giglio

 “Invite failure into the process of song writing; allow yourself permission to fail. Rock bottom becomes your foundation on which to build. Have you reached rock bottom so you can know what matters to you – what God has put into you?” Nick Herbert

 “We don’t tend to focus on our creative processes but on the final outcome. We’ve lost the art of enjoying our creativity.” Rev Will van der Hart

 “Write songs which reflect God’s perspective and then you’ll see God move.” Jake Isaac

“Quit trying to do what I already know you can’t do and let Christ do what only He can through you.” Louie Giglio

 “Our culture doesn’t like being told what to do; that’s happening in the Church.” Mike Pilavachi

 “The Holy Spirit was not sent so we can have bless ups in our churches but so the world can be changed.” Mike Pilavachi

 “You have to get out of the boat so you can know the intimacy of walking with Jesus.” Mike Pilavachi

 “Greater intimacy leads to greater fruitfulness.” Rachel Hughes, quoting Heidi Baker

 “As Christians we can call self-health and compassion ‘self-indulgence’.” Rev Will van der Hart

 “Point to the creator, rather than to yourself.” Rev Will van der Hart

 “Are we going to lead safe lives, based on our past experiences or cling to the Lord and His promises?” Rachel Hughes

 

Are you God’s friend?

“God has lots of children in the church today; I’m honestly not sure He has many friends.”

So said Mike Pilavachi at last weekend’s Worship Central conference. I haven’t been able to get the quote out of my head ever since.

Mike was talking about how we can be more intimate with God. He commented that God wants His church to grow up – not to stop being His children, but to be His friends too.

Exploring the concept of friendship, Mike said that while he’s heard of “the five love languages” God has a sixth: obedience.

I have been pondering this subject for a while myself. As God’s people, what is it that sets us apart, which shows we belong to Him? Surely obedience to Him is a key indicator of that?

God never stands over us beating us into submission, and yet Jesus said that if we love Him we will obey His commands (John 14:15). The ultimate expression of love is doing things that we know will please the other person – and that basically boils down to obedience.

We can see that at work in the relationship Jesus describes in John 15, where He says that He loves because His Father has loved Him, and that He remains in God’s love by keeping His commands. He urges us to do the same, in order to enjoy that relationship of love and joy for ourselves too:

“If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.

“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” (vv10–11)

John expresses the same sentiment in 1 John 5:3: “In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome…”

So why do we find the whole idea of obedience difficult? Well, as Mike pointed out, as a society we don’t like to be told what to do; our culture is a very individualistic one in which I am in control of my destiny.

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