Preparing for Worship - Step 2

​How is de-cluttering your mind before worship going?  Have you been able to successfully quiet your mind and heart before the Lord?  Or as a worship leader, have you been able to create an effective call to worship?  If you have, then you will already be set for step two in preparing our hearts for worship.

​Step 2:  focus on the Lord.
 
Once we’ve reached a place of quietness before the Lord, this will be a natural next step.  For if we have truly emptied our minds of mundane thoughts then we will have room to think and meditate on the goodness and glory of God.  In some ways, quieting our minds and focusing on the Lord could be considered one step in two parts.  That’s how closely related they are. 
 
However, it is crucial that we don’t miss this step.  Because if we only empty our minds of busyness and don’t focus on the Lord, we will tread dangerously close to the Zen state of meditation found in Eastern mysticism.  Therefore, quieting our minds AND focusing on God is vital to healthy worship.
 
Now it’s time for the practical part.  How do we do this?  This is where the worship leader comes in.  So far, the worship leader has created a call to worship and hopefully helped to bring us to a place of quietness before God.  Now, it’s time for their second step.
 
Worship Leader Step 2:  declare the greatness of God.
 
Declaring the greatness of God is how we get our minds to focus on the Lord.  This can be in the form of a song, responsive reading, or Scripture quotation.  However, whatever way you choose to do it, the song, reading, or Scripture must have something in it that declares and proclaims attributes of our holy God.  (Remember, you are a worship leader at least for yourself so this applies to you as well as to those on stage Sunday mornings.) 
 
As a worship leader, I like to combine my call to worship and declaration of God’s greatness.  I try to use one song to cover both steps in preparing for worship.  And this one song will always be the first song in my set.  A great worship song that does this is “Come Now is the Time to Worship” by Brian Doerksen.  This past Sunday, I started worship with this great declaration. 
 
But whether you’re the worship leader for Sunday morning or the worshipper focusing on the Lord, this is an important step to entering into true and meaningful worship.  Next week, we’ll talk about step three in our “Preparing for Worship” mini-series.  In the meantime, here’s a song to kick-off your worship.