March Blog 2025
Encounter God
In a recent trip to the library, one of my daughters chose a bunch of craft books to bring home instead of stories for a bit of a change. We sat down to read the other night before bed and she pulled one of these craft books out of her bag. We were flicking through pages of ballon racers, bottle rockets and the like when we landed on a page describing how to make your own periscope out of two juice cartons. She was fascinated to think that it allowed you to see above walls or round corners and was really interested in how it worked. After I explained to her how the two mirrors inside reflect the light from above into your eye, I had a thought that maybe worship is a bit like a periscope. Like all analogies, it only goes so far but there is certainly something about worship that involves aligning our own hearts with the heart of God. When we do that, we start to see things differently, from another perspective, from God’s perspective.
Encounter God was the title of the second session of the Worship Central course we went through as a worship team a while ago now. In a similar way, this second session talked about true worship being when we attain intimacy with God. To recognise Him as the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the creator of the universe but to also know Him as our Father. He is the God whose hands flung stars into space, whose words are so powerful, He spoke creation into existence and yet He knows you better than anyone else. He knows how you’re feeling, He knows what’s on your mind and He cares, deeply, about you. Intimacy involves both close affection and reverent awe (Hosea 11:10-11). Although the Lord roars like a lion and commands reverence and fear, that does not drive His children away, but He draws them towards Himself. Just like a periscope needs two perfectly aligned mirrors to function properly, we need to approach the Lord in worship with both a sense of awe and a sense of longing. This is the paradox of intimacy with God and it’s in this place of intimate encounter that true worship is found. Next time you come to the Lord in worship or prayer, gathered or alone, let me encourage you to do so holding awe and reverence in one hand but longing and affection in the other.
Back in October, I wrote about a picture we had of a wave heading away from the land and out towards the sea. At the time, we were going through a fair amount of change, and it didn’t always feel comfortable. I think we are finding our feet a little more now and learning to be comfortable riding that wave and I’d like to share with you a few things we have been trying since the start of the year. Firstly, it’s been agreed that the worship band will stay in the chancel after an extended trial which is great news. Secondly, we’ve had a rethink about how we use our practice time together and decided to try meeting twice a month instead of just once. At the same time, we’ve switched to focussing our practices on the songs we’ll be playing over the next couple of Sundays and already I think that’s had a positive impact, allowing us to try different things that we might not have had time for before and to grow in confidence as a worship team. You may have also noticed that we’re having a slightly longer time of worship at the start of our services on a Sunday as we try to move away from calling out a set number of songs and instead focus more on times of Spirit led sung worship.
Lastly, I’d like to remind you that all are welcome to our practice nights to come, sit and listen, be and worship with us as we work through new songs and what we’ll be playing over the next couple of weeks. So, as the evenings start getting a little lighter, please let me encourage you to join us on either the 2nd or 4th Mondays of the month anytime between 20:00-21:30. Reminders also go out in ReMarks. And if you can’t join us, or want to worship on your own throughout the week, we do regularly update our playlists which can be found on the website.
Thank you for continued prayer and support for the sung worship at St Mark’s and for riding that wave with us. Have a blessed and worshipful week and hope to see you at a practice soon!!
Andy