go potty in her PINK PRINCESS POTTY chair.
Nothing else.
House of a family member?
Princess chair! Church service? Princess chair! Camping? Princess chair!
That’s it. You provide the
pink princess potty chair or she won’t go. And yes, she will actually hold it
for as long as it took (sometimes hours) to get to her pink princess potty
chair.
But that’s not the
bewildering part. The crazy twist in all this is that she’s 19. Yes, 19 years
old!
Just kidding. She’s not
19. (The look on your face was priceless!) She’s really only 2 and that
explains her fascination with the chair, right?
She loves pink. She loves
princesses and it was the chair she learned to potty on. It makes sense. Plus
she’s 2 so no need to be alarmed because she’ll eventually outgrow it.
Ok Jamal, got it. So what
does this have to do with LOVE?
Everything!
Well, that’s a tad
dramatic. More like ‘some’ things. Here’s what I mean…
You see, most of us approach
worship (the musical part of it) like my friend and her pink princess potty
chair.
I can
only worship (singing etc.) to this kind of music.
I hope they play my favorite song because that really gets me in the mood.
They did hymns today. Hymns!? Really? What is this, 1926?
I’m sorry but I just can’t worship to “I am a friend of God”. I just
can’t.
Well Jamal, not sure who you’re hanging out with but I don’t say any of
that kind of stuff.
Fine. Cool. Great.
But let me ask you a
question. And be honest…
How much of your worship
experience is determined by the atmosphere? The band? The song choice? Your
favorite leader vs. that other guy? The lighting? You know…the way YOUR church
does it.
I, like most people, love
certain songs more than others and I prefer certain styles and ‘atmospheres’
when it comes to worship. But worshipping when the atmosphere is right is
like saying “Hey God, I love YOU but
I’m not in love with YOU enough to
see YOU and praise YOU for everything YOU have done for me because the atmosphere isn’t ‘exactly right’ for me.”
I have to be honest, it’s been difficult to
be on the race because no one knows Marvin Sapp, Donald Lawrence, or Youthful Praise. They’ve all been substituted with Gungor, Jesus Culture, and John Piper sermons (all of whom I’ve NEVER heard of until the race).
I don’t think there’s
anything wrong with that.
In fact, I appreciate the
diversity in worship. So I’m all on board.
But at the end of the day,
understand this…worship is about Jesus.
Sure your experience is
part of it but it’s not the end of it and unless we remember that worship is so
much bigger than us, we become the worship equivalent of a 19 year-old who can
only go potty in her pink princess potty chair.
What if we could
ultimately worship Jesus and “get into it” regardless of style, song,
leader, etc.?
What if we were so locked
into Jesus that we are able to do away with our “pink princess potty
chair” during worship?
I don’t know about you but I want to be that kind of worshipper. I want to be THAT GUY.
I want to be able to give Him my all
regardless to whether I’m ducking CRAZY FLAG LADY,
or starting revival with the CUPID SHUFFLE.
So, here’s the challenge.
Next time we worship… I want us to have a different answer to the question
“how was worship?”
If you have a pink
princess potty chair attitude towards worship, your goal is to walk away
from worship thinking…
“Man,
I loved that. I was so blessed. I had a blast. What a
great service”
But if you have ditched
the chair, your goal is to walk away thinking…
“Man,
Jesus must have loved that. Jesus was blessed by that. Jesus
must have had a great time. What a great service.”
Be honest, what style of worship are you
most comfortable with? (In other words, what’s your pink princess potty chair
when it comes to worship?)
Also, tell us of a time when you had a hard
time fully engaging in musical worship.
