Playlist: Worship Songs — Monday


Psalm 84:2
My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. (NIV)


Over 20 years ago, in the late 1990s, Matt Redman was a worship leader at his home church in Watford, England. His church was on the forefront of modern worship, but the pastor sensed that in all the excellence of craft, there was a heart of praise missing from their gathered worship.

“The pastor of our church, Mike, did a brave thing,” Redman recalls. “We took away the sound system and projectors, packed away our instruments for a while, and gathered in an adjoining room with nothing but our voices and Bibles—and, of course, our hearts. This led us into a whole new season. We stripped away anything associated with style, preference, or performance, and there was a real sense of discovering the heart of worship again.”

Redman’s song “The Heart of Worship” was born out of that time, and its lyrics are familiar now all over the world: 

When the music fades, all is stripped away, and I simply come,
Longing just to bring something that’s of worth, that will bless your heart.
I’ll bring you more than a song, for a song in itself is not what you have required.
I’m coming back to the heart of worship, and it’s all about You, Jesus.

After a while, the band and the sound system reappeared, but now it was different. In his book The Unquenchable Worshipper, Redman writes, “The songs of our hearts had caught up with the songs of our lips. We’d gained a new perspective that worship is all about Jesus. It reminded us to be producers in worship, not just consumers, and to see our worship as our offering to God.”

Why do we need songs like that? I don’t know if you’re like me, but I can quickly lose sight of what worship songs are all about. I get distracted. I go through the motions. I get caught in a sense of consumerism with song preferences and styles that, when I’m honest, are way more about me. 

This week as we continue to talk about worship songs, my prayer is that we would return to the heart of worship—that a theme of reverence, mystery, and wonder in worship would grow in our church family.


Monday’s Reflection

Yesterday when you were at church singing worship songs, was your heart totally into it? Was it all about Jesus? If it wasn’t, try to identify why. Ask God to help you see worship as an offering to God.


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Playlist: Worship Songs — Tuesday

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Playlist: Sad Songs — Friday