It’s been a pretty full-on couple of months for me helping out with the Converge organising committee. Never in my life would I have thought that I’d be trying to bring in worship teams from all over the city for the one purpose of exalting the name of Jesus over our City.
There have been times when I have wondered whether we could ever get teams from different churches to lead worship from morning to night, but I am glad to say that between Wendy Yapp, Shaw, Judy and myself and a good deal of help from the Lord, we’ve finally gotten there!
Last week, I was still looking for an African team. I tried calling one guy but never got any response. Then out of the blue, Stephanie Truscott called me and said that Arlene Gregory (who was experienced in leading African worship) really wanted to participate. Within minutes of hanging up the phone on Stephanie, Arlene called me and asked if she could bring a team! I didn’t even need to do anything, but God orchestrated it all!
The idea of bringing worship teams together from different churches in the city is spiritually significant.
Romans 15:5-7 (NIV) says:
May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.
Check out the Message version:
May our dependably steady and warmly personal God develop maturity in you so that you get along with each other as well as Jesus gets along with us all. Then we’ll be a choir—not our voices only, but our very lives singing in harmony in a stunning anthem to the God and Father of our Master Jesus!
So reach out and welcome one another to God’s glory. Jesus did it; now you do it!
This is why we are calling the Converge Day of Worship on 26 May 2012 “One Heart, One Voice”. As I have said before in previous posts, throughout history, the Church has found reason to divide itself over worship styles and theologies. And yet, Jesus was determined that His church would be one to glorify the Father. As Paul puts it, may we be as “one heart and one voice” to glorify God.
In this sense, God is not just exalted in the songs we sing and the words we say. He is also exalted (and moreso) when the body of Christ can look past their differences and unite, for no other sake than for the sake of unity and the glory of His name.
So my prayer for Converge 2012, and for the Day of Worship, is that the church may join together as one big choir, not just our voices only, but our very lives singing in harmony in a stunning anthem to God.
Check out the program that’s just about to be released (the fruit of the labour of many people on the organising committee over the last couple of months)
We’ve got an African team led by Arlene Gregory, Flame Ministries, an Indigenous Team led by Eric Wynne, Salvation Army, Stephanie Truscott and the Garments of Praise doing American Gospel, Without Walls, Indonesian Worship led by Aflame Community Church and two inter-church teams as well! It’ll be an awesome day!
