I was raised Southern Baptist, okay?! I’m not sure why I felt obligated to say that up front or why this topic makes me so tense. I’m a worshiper,  in fact, it was listening to “worship” music that I remembered from more than 20 years prior that was partially responsible for the end of my lengthy prodigal run. God intervened directly in my life — that was unmistakable — but I was left with this question: Which God intervened directly in my life? Bad experiences in Christian church buildings had contributed to my disenchantment with God so I was prejudiced against this God being that God, the Christian God.

I made a CD of some old Christian songs that I remembered, mostly simple choruses and hymns, and noticed that ;my heart would soar listening to them. Now I knew that it was that God after all. I would listen to this music when I was driving alone and often raised my available right hand. This was noteworthy because I was not a hand raiser in my youth.

When I finally worked up the nerve to walk into a church building again, I walked into a building full of hand raisers. I did not want to conform at any level because I still held some bitterness toward Christian congregations, I, of course would not raise my hands. I assumed that anyone who did desperately needed attention and I despised them.

I had a dilemma, I found that raising my hands was a spontaneous expression of worship for me but I did not want to appear to be “one of those”, whatever “those” are. I sought seats at the rear of the congregation so I could raise my hands at will and yet make it clear to everyone else that I did not need attention. This felt disingenuous — I use that word because it sounds much better than “fraud-like” or its dreaded twin “hypocritical”. I’m not sure why I was surprised that holding strong resentment toward Christians in general and hand raisers in particular impeded my worship. It took me months to unravel this truth while I repeatedly tried to reconcile the difference between the spontaneous, unfettered Richard and the uptight, contemptuous one.

Now I raise my hands when I feel it and don’t when I don’t. I most often raise just my right hand, bending it at the elbow over and over in celebratory praise. Of course, if you are new to our local congregation, this appears a great deal like a really big guy angrily shaking his fist at God. I’ll call this “cognitive dissonance” because it sounds more Christian than “frightening the children”.

I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. \o/

Psalm 63:4

1. Revelation Song -- Kari Jobe
2. Agnus Dei -- Michael W. Smith
3. Worthy is the Lamb -- Miriam Webster
4. Here I Am to Worship -- Hillsong
5. God With Us -- MercyMe
6. The Potter’s Hand -- Hillsong
7. Jesus Messiah -- Chris Tomlin
8. You’re Beautiful -- Phil Wickham
9. On My Cross -- FFH
10. Mighty to Save -- Hillsong

Sit back and listen to the Top 10 Worship Songs/Videos of All Time playlist — hear all 10 songs, watch all 10 videos uninterrupted.

This list was first played on Twitter for Tworship at 9pm EST on May 14, 2010 \o/

The greatest moment of all time in any worship video is exactly 4:31 into #3 Worthy is the Lamb, when the Korean Dance Group comes charging forward. Whatever your trials are, this one moment will lift you right out of your chair.

1. What is the book about? While the book’s title puts it in the praise and worship section in book stores, the book is more about the total life of the believer. Nehemiah10:39 is the core scripture for the book’s teachings. Nehemiah had gone to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls and also rebuilt the temple, restoring worship to the people. Worship was centered around sacrifice. I use the different groups pictured in Nehemiah to talk about fundamental areas of the believers life. The scripture says they would not forsake the temple of God. We have forsaken the house of God today. We are so busy with our agendas, we have left the true reason for worship. God is looking for something real from our lives, not just our words.
2. Why Enter to Worship and Exit to Serve? The life of the believer comes from our life in God. We bring to Him a sacrifice of our monies, our gifts, our fruit and lay it at His feet. The premise for most Christians today is what can God do for them instead of how can I worship God with all that is within me. The scriptures teach us that everyone has something to offer. When we worship in the fullness of our lives, God then fills us to be able to affect our world. We then exit to serve God through proclaiming His Word, serving those around us and exalting His name in all the earth. Everything we do in church is to help us fulfill God’s calling on our lives in the world.
3. Why do you talk about money? The very first thing that was brought into the temple was an offering of grain or corn. This is symbolic of money. I go to Kenya every year and they trade their corn for other items such as meat, oil, etc. God is interested in our money. He speaks of money more than He does either prayer or heaven. I think there has been a lot of negative about money and there has been a lot of error through the years. I hope that what I teach in the book is balanced. Many pastors have said this teaching has helped their churches understand the truth about tithes, first fruits and seed offerings.


Ronald K. Gray

4. What do you think is the most important chapter of the book? In over 35 years of full time ministry, I have never heard anyone else teach about porters. In Nehemiah 10:39 it lists porters between priest and singers. I thought that was very interesting and researched porters. It is basically a janitor. So between priests and porters are janitors. Servants that do the basics. People who do ordinary things to keep ministries going. God wants servants. That is a concept that is lost in the big time world of church ministries today. Jesus came to serve. I believe that we can make a difference in our community, our neighborhoods, and our world if we are willing to lay our lives down to serve God.
5. What do you hope to accomplish with your book? I hope that ordinary believers will recognize they have something to offer. We can bring our monies and touch the nations. We can bring our gifts and see the power of God touch people and their needs. We can offer our fruit and not wait for the pastors or elders, but be instruments to bring life to those around us who are seeking a relevant relationship with Jesus. The five fold ministries of Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor and Teacher were never supposed to do everything in the church. The church is supposed to be equipped for ministry. Everyone should be able to proclaim the message and everyone should have praise for the God we serve. That should not happen just on Sunday mornings between 10 a.m. and 12 noon. We should be able to give God praise in our homes and throughout the week. I truly believe this can be the church’s finest hour.
6. Where are these resources available to purchase? You can obtain this book and many other resources on my web site at RonaldGrayMinistries.org.
7. Are there other available resources connected with this book? Yes, I taught my book at a conference and had it professionally recorded on video and audio. These sessions are great for small groups and Bible studies. There is a Study Guide to help the leader go through the sessions. The book and the video provide different insights that will help people to grow into maturity.




This interview is posted here as part of a blog tour promoting the book. I was supplied a free copy of Enter to Worship – Exit to Serve in exchange for posting this interview.

According to John Piper, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, worship is the one thing that Christians can do hedonistically (Desiring God). We can indulge and overindulge ourselves in worship. I do this at every opportunity and can be seen on Twitter and Facebook every week night at 9pm Eastern leading Tworship. Why? I know God’s in it because I cannot NOT do it, it’s not in me to stop. I surround myself with worshipful YouTube videos and some of my favorite worshiping friends and we listen together to the same video started at the same time. All participants comment online to the lyrics of the song as inspired and sometimes just make comments like “I love this song.”

What EXACTLY must you do to participate in Tworship?

1. Watch for the Tworship songs to be tweeted. Generally two YouTube worship video links are tweeted 30 minutes before Tworship begins; Tworship begins Monday-Friday at 9pm Eastern, 8pm Central, 6pm Pacific. We tweet the songs early for those who need to listen early or late due to schedule conflicts and to build some anticipation for those who will participate live. Another tip off that we’re nearing a start is you’ll see me tweeting Bible verses about worship followed by prayer about worship.

2. Start the first video on the hour exactly or wait for a tweet from myself or co-leader Marie @spreadingJoy that says “GO!!!” followed by the song name and artist. Either way you are off to a successful start.

3. Wait for our “GO!!!” tweet for song 2. Both “GO!!!” tweets include the link of the song everyone is doing next.

4. Praise away … make any comments that seem appropriate … let the Spirit lead you to worship.

5. Be encouraged by reading the tweets of the other Tworship participants. We use the hashtag (words on Twitter preceded by a #) #Tworship in our tweets. This means that you can click on that and open a column just for Tworship in Tweetdeck. This makes it easy to watch and you can interact at will.

6. Watch the thank you’s done by me and/or @spreadingJoy when the two songs are over. Follow the tweeps in this list and you will find yourself surrounded by an amazing group .

Click to enlarge

Tworship began by accident. I had a habit of rallying tweeps to pray for people in crisis, nothing unusual there, but I would synchronize the prayers by telling them to begin their prayer at a certain time. One night I was discussing worship music with fellow worship music-lover Marie Wikle @SpreadingJoy and she suggested that I listen to How Great is Our God by Chris Tomlin. I suggested that we could listen to it together by beginning it at exactly 9pm Eastern. There was a flood of comments and retweets due to the popularity of the song and the idea that we could worship together by synchronizing the start time, so we did it again … and again and Tworship was born. Marie @spreadingJoy of Spreading Joy Corporation, continues to co-lead this with me; we are joined each night by 50-150 worshipful spirits from Facebook and Twitter for each of the two songs. These loyal worshipers click on the two links between 500 and 1,000 times per night and represent a total reach of more than 71,000 tweeps (per TweetReach), all building a throne of praise for our Lord, one praise at a time.

I not surprised that God would use Twitter, Facebook and Tworship in this way. God appears to be completely comfortable with technology. He’s waiting for us to catch up!

I was recently interviewed by The Worship Journals, read that interview here.

Richard Mayhan
Tworship
Pastoral Counsel, The Potter’s Workshop
ProdigalReturns.com

If you’d like to follow me or the Tworship YouTube Channel, use the Follow Me button to the far right.