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October 2, 2007

Worship - "I want to be a dog"

I attended the Abandoned, Worship As Life seminar this weekend at MBU. It was an amazing event to kick off our new Worship Arts major. We were blessed to hear from our very own Brad Andrews, '00, on the false and real dangers to true worship. Joel Lindsey, the worship pastor at The Journey talked about being a missional church and world reknown author, Sally Morgenthaler, spoke about how worship is effected when the church puts mission first.

However, my favorite session of the day was from singer/songwriter, Shaun Groves. Shaun talked about how we usually think of music when we think of worship. He showed how the Greek word "Proskuneo" is used in the Bible to signify worship as used in John 4:23 - "Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks."

He talked of how this word means "to kiss the hand out of reverance or submission." He told of how we usually think of this as a servant approaching a king to "kiss the ring." He suggested a picture that might better fit where we live today as that of a dog coming to lick the hand of its master. This is a beautiful picture of love and submission. My dog greets me every night when I get home from work by coming up to "kiss" my hand. She does this whether I take the time to drop everything and pet her or not. She does not greet me because I have a treat or something to give her, she does so because she loves and respects me, her master.

This got me to thinking about how God uses His creation to teach us "simple" human beings. He has given me this beautiful and plain illustration about how I am to approach Him. It's not about what He does for me (even though He does a lot), it's about me loving and adoring Him for who He is regardless of what I get out of it. The beauty of it is this, becuase He loves me so, he has given me everything I will ever need.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, "I just want to be a dog."

Posted by Rob Cornwell at October 2, 2007 3:52 PM