Backward Praise

I've been leading kids' worship for almost eighteen years now--long enough that it has become incredibly natural and easy for me to do. Over the last five years, God has laid it on my heart to raise up youth to lead the younger kids in the same way. So I'm on the stage less and less, now directing from the floor more and more. As a result, I've had to learn all the motions backwards. (Yes, I'm in a very contemporary church where we do lots of ACTIVE hand motions and choreography to our songs).

Anyway, if I didn't do the motions backwards, the kids on the stage would be all confused, hands and flip-flops flying every which direction. The older I get, the more concentration it takes to be able to do the motions both ways. It takes extremely intentional thinking on my part. It may sound easy, but...NOT!

This emulates my 'daily living' worship as well. It is so easy for me to spend time in the Word, soaking it up, applying it, teaching it, writing it. It's quite another to mirror the Word to others. That takes extreme focus on my part, as well as intentional surrender to the Holy Spirit. Sounds so simple when I'm reading it and praying it, but...NOT!

James 1:22-25 (NIV) 

Do not merely listen to the Word, and so deceive yourselves. 

Do what is says. 

Anyone who listens to the Word but does not do what it says

 is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, 

after looking at himself, 

goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 

But the man who looks intently into the perfect Law 

that gives freedom, and continues to do this, 

not forgetting what he has heard but doing it-

-he will be blessed in what he does.