Creating an Atmosphere of Worship
When we go to church there are usually a number of people responsible for “creating the atmosphere of worship…”
When we go to a conference there are usually lots of people that are responsible for “creating an atmosphere of worship…”
When we are at home…??
The 15 Degrees NE Vision
Part of the vision for this website and the reason for creating this community of people is to help with this very question. I find that when we go to BIG corporate events and gather with others to worship, the atmosphere and the environment is such that we can not only experience God, but genuine life change can happen. It’s in these moments where we have amazing encounters with His spirit and begin the process of transforming our hearts and minds to be more like His. The problem begins when we get home…
As a worship pastor and a Sunday morning architect, my main concern is the atmosphere. I know that if the atmosphere of worship and the worship environment are right the engagement level will be high. In the corporate worship setting when people are engaged, it provides more atmosphere, which produces more engagement and on and on…Open hearts provide access for God to connect with people and pour out his spirit. This is God inhabiting the praises of his people. He moves the atmosphere in the room increases and more people open their hearts. Its the way it works. Spirit engaged and heart open to receive from him, our true selves before our God and King. John 4:24 – God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in Spirit and in truth.”
Discipline of Atmosphere
It may not be in the be attitudes…although I can find it and will explain that in another post…but a continual atmosphere of worship is something that we need to not only create but maintain and fight for. How many times have you been at a conference, summer camp or some retreat and made significant steps forward in your relationship with Jesus only to retreat from those steps in the weeks and months to come. We all have the story where we have had an encounter with God and then find ourselves right back where we started a little while later wondering what happened.
I have found a number of keys that will help with this. Of course, you can read every post on this website as it will have something in it to spur you along. I have however found a number of main categories that these fall into.
- His Majesty.
- Find new ways of seeing God. Find out things about Him that you did not know. One such example is in the post a fascination with the smell. God designed our brains to respond a certain way to things when we smell them. We attach emotion and memory to them before we know what the smell actually is. The smell of something will produce emotion and memory. So he attached the memory of being in his presence to incense so that when people burned incense at home they would remember God, and feel His love. A simple application of this would be to have things in your home that create a better smell, therefore creating a better atmosphere. This is just a simple thought, but profound. The more you look for His majesty in your life the more you will find it, and the more it will connect you to Him every day.
- Your Biology.
- Much like the thought above, the way that God made you is so that you can be in a relationship with him and respond to what he is doing in your life. He even put a song inside your DNA so that you always have something to worship Him with. The more I found out about science and biology the more I find Jesus, because after all … He made it.
- The other side of this idea is that you need to figure out what makes your body tick. When is the best time during the day for you to intentionally connect with Jesus? Yes, we should look for Him all day, but taking intentional moments to connect with Him is critical. It’s not about when do you have time, it’s about when is the best time for your focus, attention and engagement.
- The atmosphere that you create profoundly impacts how you feel. And how you feel profoundly impacts the depth of worship…good or bad our emotions play a big part in our worship life. Worship is still a choice, but if we can help our emotions by creating a great atmosphere of worship in our home…the experience will be so much richer.
- Rest.
- This is a big topic and one that I will be posting a lot over the coming months. You can find my first thought about it here. We were created with rest and sleep as an assumption, meaning that it was not part of the maybe…it was part of the always. Even God rested, every seven days…why do we think we can have some other way of doing life. When you are stressed and busy, it’s really hard to connect relationally to anyone let alone God, and this is our main downfall after a big corporate event or breakthrough. We come home with lists of changes, only to be complete of course within weeks. Adding in new pieces to our routines or ways of life is awesome, but we must also add inadequate rest to ensure that we can maximize our effectiveness.
- Space.
- You need a space, or a trigger…something that will elicit an emotional and spiritual response. We sit down on the couch with the mess of life right in front of us (kids toys, papers, remote control, dishes…etc) and expect to be undistracted and connect with God. This will not work, you need something better than this. preparation is
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