On Genuine Worship-Guest Post

     My first guest post today from my friend, keyboard player, and token Jesus Hippie MacKenzie McKay. He's a huge part of my worship team and he's got a real heart to grow as a musician and closer to the Lord. When you're a member of the worship team week in and week out like he is you can get jaded and comfortable in your worship and your leading. He wrote this about staying genuinely connected with the Father and the effect it has on your worship leading.

     "So the other day someone made the comment to me that my piano playing has really improved in the last couple of weeks. My immediate response is that I had finally become a little more comfortable and relaxed while playing. I was sitting there thinking and that really wasn't the answer. I have been playing piano for years in front of large groups of people. My anxieties and worries about messing up died a long time ago, hundreds if not thousand of mistakes before. So I looked a little at myself in that moment. Why had my playing become noticably better within the last couple of weeks?

     I began thinking, and after I had put aside the idea that I had significantly grown as a piano player, I made a realization. I remember during times of worship that I wasn't playing the music or "for the set" anymore. I remember thinking during those times that I hoped God liked my playing. I wanted to make my playing an offering to Him. I still care about how it sounds and whether it fits, but I care about that less in the forefront and more in the background. My goal while playing is that, while worshiping, is that I might be able to get a smile from God, an eyes closed moment. Where maybe, just maybe, I can come up with something new and creative as a gift back to Him who has given me so much.

     I got this picture in my mind last year at camp that worship to God is like when a little girl goes up to her Dad and starts singing the "I Love You Song." The amelodious, out of key song, that to any other person for any other reason would seem mildly screeching and cacophonic, but to that Dad at that moment in time it becomes one of the sweetest sounds he has ever heard in his life and it draws him to pick up his child and wrap her in his arms just to show how much that moment meant and will mean to him. That's genuine worship. A sound that to any other may mean nothing, but to our Father it is the sweetest sound because he knows that we mean it from the bottom of our heart."