What is in it for me..

What’s in it for me?



We live in a “ME” first culture. We are told to have things “Our way” and people sing songs like “I did it my way” and we clap our hands and applaud them for doing it! Everything has become personalized and custom made. Still, this is what goes on outside of the church walls right? Wrong! Let’s take a look: Tell me if you have ever heard these comments…1. Well, that is just not what I am gifted in. 2. I don’t like this music because it is not what I was raised on. Those other people should like it and sing it because it is what brought me to Jesus. 3. Those new people are sitting in my pew! 4. It is 11:30…doesn’t the pastor know that I have to be home by noon? 5. Well, that is just the way we have done it! Anything sound familiar? There are a lot of I’s and Me’s in those comments. Lately, I have been questioning myself as to why I like more contemporary music and want to have it more in our church. If I were to just look at the other side and say that they just wanted it there way and didn’t look at myself that would be very hypocritical. So I started to question why I wanted that and seemed to NEED that in my life. Was it because I just liked it more? Was it because the other music just seemed too boring and didn’t do anything for me? I have found an answer. It came last Friday night at our District Lock-Out during the worship time.
The answer is: No. I don’t just like it better. It is not just a preference. It is just not entertaining to me. The reason that I love the choruses and the more lively music is quite simple. It makes me think of heaven. I find that contemporary praise, as opposed to hymns, helps me to focus on God and the things of God. The spirit is different. The atmosphere changes and moves from a “I feel like traveling on” to a “Here I am to worship” scene. I may be wrong. I may just have a preference like everyone else. I just know that I NEED this kind of worship. If I don’t get it, I feel like I am drying up spiritually and emotionally. I need corporate worship that is God-seeking and God-sensitive rather than self-seeking and self-sensitive. We worry so much about the congregation “liking” the worship that we forget that it is not for them. They are not the audience but so many times we treat it that way. The church is not their church, it is not my church, it is not the Wesleyan denominations church. It is God’s church and Jesus said that he would build “His” church through the disciples. Not that they would go and build their own. Often, we treat our churches like they are our own family heirlooms and antiques and they must stay the same to preserve their “glory”. However, I feel that the true glory the very presence of God has to fight his way through all of our orders of worship and plans to have the church truly be what he intended it to be.