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Worship, as God desires it, brings us into His presence. We experience Him in communion with us. As Christians, we need to experience both private and communal worship. However, both expressions of worship must be personal. I believe that worship is a participatory event. Our role in leading worship is to help our brothers and sisters experience the presence of God. This experience must be set in an environment that is not threatening but rather comforting to worshipers. We must be personal but not casual. This distinction is critical. I understand the “Great Commission” found in Matthew 28:19-20 to be the calling of all Christians to lead others into a personal faith in God and to help them with their ongoing personal growth process. This vision of spiritual growth should be a part of the worship ministry. I feel called, not only to the work of music ministry, but to encourage others to develop their gifts in this area as well. My long-term goal is to impact others and share my personal faith and visions for music and worship with others, that will in time move them into similar leadership areas of ministry. Through the awesome power of the Eucharist, this chain of events helps nourish the Mystical Body of Christ and ultimately enrich the Kingdom of God. Since the Scriptures say so much about music in particular, I see the ministry of music as one of the primary means for us to worship God. Music is important in its own right – not just because it supplements nicely with other forms of ministry to produce a desired feeling or end result. In I Chronicles 16 we see that God calls specific people to lead on behalf of all the people by playing instruments and singing in choirs. II Chronicles 5 exhibits how the true ministry of music can make God’s presence known in a powerful way. It says that the singers and musicians played with thanksgiving and praise to the Lord. The glory of the Lord filled the house. It was so great that the priests could not even stand to minister. Music is one of God’s means to make known to us the manifestation of the His Glory. Lethargic, dull and unimaginative music is one of the greatest obstacles to true communal worship of God. This is not the experience into which God intended us to enter. One of the greatest strengths of our liturgical style of worship is that almost all of our time together is spent speaking to or listening to God in the Mass, not talking to and with one another. Our experience of worshiping God should always be that way, even in non-liturgical worship. We, as human persons, are emotional creatures and thus are moved by and through emotional experiences. Music can minister to our own spirits in a significant way at times when the written or spoken word does not seem to reach us. The Scriptures have many commands to praise God with music and we, the worshiping Catholic Church, can be confident that we will meet God in these times of worship. |
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