 Okay, good morning and welcome once again. Hey, can I request one of yours to please lead us in prayer? Anyone? Let's pray. Dear Heaven Father, we are really thankful to you this wonderful day. For some it's a morning, others it is a night and others it is day. Oh Lord, we are really thankful to you that you allow us to meet on this platform so that we can learn your Word. And learn on how to lead to do this work. Lord, now as we study this part, we pray that you will remind us your revelation that will be revealed to the real want us to do. And Lord, we also bring to you our teacher, for you are the greatest teacher. Therefore we pray that you will also put in him the message, the language, the action of the Holy Spirit that you will be able to do the work that shall be assigned to him for today. We praise you Lord that you are going to do this for the glory of your name and for our good in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you Charles. Right, okay, so let's continue with our course on worship ministry. In the last class, in chapter 6, we looked at the technology part, the importance of technology in ministry and in worship ministry as a context. And you know that we know that the lectures are all recorded and if you did have any confusion or didn't understand anything technical that was discussed last class, I hope you can always go back and look at the lectures online. And I'm more than happy and available to answer any of the questions that you can post it on the stream section and I'll be happy to respond. Okay, so that's what we discussed in the last class. Today we move into chapter 7. I want to club chapter 7 and chapter 8 as one whole chapter. Right, so let's look at that. Chapter 7 starts talking about developing a local community as a worshipping body, right? Developing a local community like a corporate setting, a congregation. How do we develop what are the importance of a congregational worship? So we look at a few pointers and let's see where we go. So corporate worship, is that important? Corporate worship, congregational worship, is that important? As coming together and in fellowship and in worship? Yeah, okay. So I have three people who agree with me. Okay, so why is it important? Why is corporate worship important? Why is corporate congregational worship important? If you are welcome to unmute and speak. Can I see something? Because I look at it as from the angle of prayer. I see the power of corporate prayer. You achieve, you achieve more because you are faced in different areas but now when you are together in worship and you are doing it corporately there is a song which says that when the praises go high the glory comes down. When you are many and you are doing it corporately the glory of God comes down. That's one of the points that I can bring up. Yeah, absolutely, yeah thanks Charles. I totally agree with you on that. Awesome, thank you. Anybody else? Why is corporate worship important? Because it makes us feel good. What else? Avni, what do you think? There is power and agreement and unity in the Lord. The minister to God first as his church, children serves as a congregation. Just a reminder of this beautiful psalm. Psalm 133, this talks about how wonderful and how beautiful it is when we come together in unity. And then it goes on to draw this beautiful imagery of it looks like a dew from Mount Hermann. And also oil dripping down Aaron's beard all the way down to his ropes. So there is some kind of an annoying thing that is released from heaven just comes over us and like Charles said the glory of God is coming down and the dew of heaven. And all of that is just makes it more beautiful when we come together in unity when we realize that we are gathered together in Jesus' name. That makes all the difference, isn't it? And you can think of a choir. Not sure if any of you have been part of a choir. And you know, they're like say you can have a 12 member choir or to 20 member to 50 member choir. And you know, there's one group. There are the Sopranos, there are the altos, the tenors, the basses, baritones sometime. All of them are singing the same song. And you know, one say the Sopranos are singing the melody and they're all these different harmonies. And they all sound to make it sound like one, isn't it? And so there is unity in diversity. So there's, you know, there are parts that are diverse and every individual in a church setting are different, right? Every individual are different. And so when we come together, when we choose, when we set aside, you know, when we set aside all our differences and come together in unity and say, Lord, we choose to bless you and there's power. And in the earlier chapters, in the first chapter, actually, we saw time and time again, they gathered together in unity. They lifted up their voice in one voice, isn't it? And so there is power to say the least in corporate worship, right? And this is author called Ralph Martin. He said that Christian church was born in a song, right? And another important characteristic of a New Testament corporate song is the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit. You know, once again, like as what Charles mentioned so. And we see that very clearly, isn't it? In Ephesians chapter 5 verse 17 to 19, we look at it in just a second, right? And this is how we begin to develop a local community of a worshiping body is by emphasizing and just simply teaching the importance of corporate worship. And then, you know, and then let them see the fruit of it, right? But there are two primary goals for corporate worship, right? Two primary goals, you can maybe write it down. I'll add these to the notes next year. And it's very simple, right? Can someone read Psalm 34 verse 3, please? Psalm 34 verse 3. Psalm 34 3 says, Oh, magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together. Right, you see that? Okay. So there is no explanation required there. So, oh, magnify the Lord with me. It's like a typical worship leader's line there. Come guys, let's just worship together, right? Magnify the Lord with me. And then the text kind of changes a little bit. Let us, right? Let us corporate. And it leads to the next part. Let us exalt his name together. So the first primary goal of a corporate worship or congregational worship is for us to come together to exalt him, to magnify him, to lift his name on high, to bless his name, right? And so that's the first primary goal. And the other one is, can someone read a second Chronicles 5, 13 to 14, please? Right, so the first goal of a corporate worship is for us to exalt God. And the second goal of corporate worship is to encounter God. Okay, so when someone's ready, please read Second Chronicles 5, 13 to 14. Second Chronicles 5, 13 to 14, by both sides, about 13, okay. And it was the duty of the Trumpeters and singers to make themselves heard in the unison in praise and in thanksgiving to the Lord. And when the song was raised with trumpets and cymbals and other musical instruments in praise to the Lord, for he is good, for he is steadfast in love and he was forever. And the house, the house, and the house of the Lord was filled with the cloud. So that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God. Amen. Amen, yeah, thank you. So, yeah, as you mentioned Charles, in this text we see that again, right? There are Trumpeters, there are singers, there are those who are playing the cymbals and in different kinds of instruments and they were all declaring. So there are differences and they're all coming together in unity and then that happens, heaven is unleashed, right? Heaven invades earth, isn't it? And so, and God encounters us in corporate worship. It's not that he encounters us only in our private times, he does that, right? And so in our personal worship, so we have to remember that one is not more important than the other. That is personal worship and corporate worship, right? They go hand in hand. Both are important, right, on par. You can't say that, okay, only personal worship is important and ignore corporate worship completely. If anything, there are two things that's happened during the COVID wave is we've learned, we've either learned the importance of corporate worship or two is we've become very comfortable with being with ourselves and watching services online. So one of these two has happened. Yeah, am I right or wrong? Maybe. Okay, so, you know, we felt the need to connect with people to just have that, you know, there was a time during the COVID wave, I think the first wave in 2020 and then we met like after six months or so just the worship team and then when we just shook hands or give each other high five, we realized, my gosh, we haven't had the touch of, you know, of our friends in so long and that was so special, isn't it? And so, yeah, us coming together is something beautiful and God encounters us the same way as he has encountered people, you know, before, right? And one of the tragic histories in the history of Israel is that when their temple was destroyed by the Babylonians, it was a common place, it was a common place where the people of Israel met in a sanctuary for corporate worship and just like what we read, God would show up and encounter them and that place was destroyed and so people were devastated and there's a song, very famous song that they sing during their exile by the rivers of Babylon. You know, how can we sing? You know, we don't have this common place. Everything what we have has been destroyed and taken away and so people were devastated. So that is the most tragic moment in the history of Israel and saddest moment and also another, the most joyous moment in the history of Israel is when they came together to rebuild the temple, a place where they could come together corporately in worship and if there's one thing that they understood is that the importance of corporate worship and in heaven, it's corporate worship all the way. Isn't it? Every tongue, every tribe, people from every nation, they're good luck getting privacy up there. So there is so much beauty in us coming together as his children and celebrating our Father. There's something so beautiful about it, so genuine and so authentic that it unleashes heaven on Earth. And suddenly I begin to see why Jesus starts off the prayer by saying our Father and all of us come and say that and it will be done on Earth as it is in heaven. It does something when we come together in unity. And so if you look at the notes, one of the first things what happens in congregational worship is that we minister to God. We read in 1 Peter chapter 2 and also in Revelation chapter 1 that we are now royal priesthood. We are priesthood. One of the primary responsibilities of the priests in the Old Testament in the tabernacle of David, Moses, and in the temple of Solomon was that the primary duty was to minister unto the Lord by making sure that there was bread on the table of showbread, by making sure that the golden lamp stand was burning and the altar of incense was always, you know, there was always incense being poured out in the altar of incense, making sure that the sacrifices and every other in all that they did, they were ministering unto the Lord. And so now that we in the new covenant as his priests, our primary responsibility is to minister to God. Okay, so as a congregation we minister to the Lord not with the ulterior motive of receiving a blessing, but rather with the motive of blessing him, whether he blesses us or not. Right? Can I hear an amen? Whether he blesses us or not, we choose to bless him. Amen? So that's the first point there. In congregational worship, we worship God. And corporate worship brings about a sense of unity within the church. Right? Think about all the different cultural backgrounds, ethnicities, tastes, languages. But the one thing that we have in common is that we have we are saved by God's grace, right? So we love him. Just this class for example, isn't it? We're not only from different backgrounds, we are also different individuals. We are 19 different individuals on this call. And most of us, all of us are from different geographical locations, isn't it? And let's say something about it. Right? You guys know what I'm talking about, right? When you meet a new person and say they introduce their name and the immediate follow-up question is very from. Yes, has that happened to anyone? Isn't it? Hey, especially Bible college when we have in-person classes, we have students coming in every year and they introduce themselves like, hey, I'm so and so. I am from so and so. I am from this land. Right? And then as that individual says that the person is from a certain land, geographical area, we try to think immediately what's popular in that area. Right? For example, say one person is from Hyderabad. We can't help but say, you know, oh, I love Hyderabad in Biryani. Isn't it? And so there's so much of richness and diverseness in every individual, the way we come from what our background is. But when we come together in unity, we are gathered together in the name of Jesus that makes it all, that makes all the difference. Isn't it? And suddenly, he is excited, God is excited to come and be among his children and there's so much of unity that takes place. And when unity happens there's nothing more powerful than unity in my opinion. Charles, I see your hands raised. All right. Thank you. I was talking about the unity of prayer rather of worship. I was doing ministry in the northern country of South Sudan. It's north of Uganda and we were doing a youth ministry there training them and we praised in Arabic and we were from Uganda. We didn't know Arabic but as they praised we were moved by the songs and then we joined in because we were hearing how they were praising and they had the same tune with the Ugandan one and we also joined, we were harming and man things became very nice and everybody got involved and we were unified because of the worship and everyone was like wow. Thank you Lord for doing this. So there is that unity for your worshiping and you are diverse from different cultures. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for sharing that. I've been in a couple of settings where they've been worshiping in their regional languages and you just being there even if you don't understand the language you know they are worshiping God and just say that amen to what they are saying it does something different. So yeah. Thanks for sharing that. Okay. And the third point in the notes that's mentioned is the songs we sing as a congregation enable us to learn, teach and reinforce spiritual truth. Right. Learn, teach and reinforce spiritual truth. Efficiency 519 says speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing and making melody in your hearts. Speak to one another. Colossians 316 let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another. So in Ephesians talking about sing to one another and then Colossians 316 is talking about teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. There is equipping that is happening as you're singing songs as you're singing songs to one another there is teaching that is being imparted in corporate setting and if you remember one of the videos that we saw earlier on during the course is how the worship in the synagogue happens, isn't it? One person is singing the psalm and everybody else is repeating the tune after the main the lead worship leader isn't it? It reminds us sometimes let's take the song Ten Thousand Reasons for example so we're coming together as a church as a congregation and we start singing you are rich in love and you are slow to anger your name is great and your heart is kind for all your goodness we will keep on singing Ten Thousand Reasons and forevermore you know you can we can we're all good at memorizing we can just memorize it and just blurt it out like it has no meaning and then when we begin to engage with those words when we begin to become one with those words saying you are rich in love I'm thinking about all the times that he's showered his love on me how his love sustained me how his love got me back keeping me alive how his love forgives me so he is rich in love he is slow to anger this just reminds me of his mercy and how he is slow slow to anger and he does not treat me like my sins deserve as the psalmist says your name is great and your heart is kind so all of this thing is being reinforced you're reminding yourself yeah you guys with me that's just one of the one song as an example that you can take any number of songs declare so if you remember Acts chapter 16 where Paul and Silas were in prison when they started to praise him praise God it was not just their cell that was broken it was not just Paul and Silas who were set free it was every other prisoners who were also set free right and so coming together in unity as a corporate you'll never know who is being set free by your praise could be the person next to you to your right or to the left who's never encountered God but they just hear you praising him saying you're rich in love and they are like convicted what is this who is this God about and they are set free yeah so all of that is happening and corporate worship prepares our hearts and provides the atmosphere for the preaching of the word it prepares our hearts corporate worship prepares our hearts and provides the atmosphere for the preaching of the word. Hosea 10 11 the latter part of that verse says plow right it's such a beautiful poetic language that you know Judah shall plow simply means praise Judah means praise and shall plow and plowing is what it's a farmers language where farmers is plowing the field and preparing the land for the rains to come and for it to bear fruit isn't it so praising God prepares our hearts to receive a word from God okay praising him worshipping him prepares our hearts to receive a word from God right do you remember 2 Chronicles chapter 20 about the king Jehoshaphat right it's a story where the land of Judah is being attacked by all these nations three nations from all around and alarmed Jehoshaphat he calls on for a fast for the entire nation people from every town and city came and they fasted and they prayed and they were reminded each other Jehoshaphat in the front in the middle of the assembly he says are you not the Lord God who brought us out of Egypt our fathers from Egypt are you not the one who did this are you not the one who did that are you not this you know are you not the God who sustained us so he's proclaiming declaring about God's faithfulness what it leads to is that then a prophet comes forward and says thus says the Lord that this battle belongs to him you will not fight you will only have to take up your position and see the deliverance that God provides isn't it so what's happening there is praise is preparing our hearts to receive a word from God right and that happens you guys with me yeah okay so and finally it facilitates us to express the feelings of our heart in an uninhabited worship you know Psalm 100 Psalm 95 come and shout for joy it's all an expression of praise isn't it shout for joy all the earth Psalm 95 says come and bow down to the king of kings and worship him so it's facilitates us to express the feelings of our heart in uninhabited worship it could be whichever you know like could be painting or dancing singing clapping of hands and what not so all of these beautiful things are happening in a congregational worship right so let's move on to the next section so how to develop a local congregation in a spontaneous worship how do we develop a local congregation in spontaneous worship or just worship for that matter so in order to bring about any change in a group of people especially in the body of Christ people need to receive a revelation right a revelation revealing and unveiling right that's what revelation is so another word for revelation is unveiling right so if a person is wearing a mask or if you take the middle eastern culture where you know they would cover their faces with a shawl of women mostly and you know what you would say can you unveil yourself and in the unveiling there's a revelation and so in our language in our context that could be teaching isn't it so teaching brings about revelation right when you hear something that you had that you did not hear before or know before and you would say oh wow okay I didn't know that before right that's a revelation isn't it and so the first step in creating a culture or developing a culture guys you know let me say that in your ministry or in your place wherever you are as a leader if you don't set a culture culture will be set for you by the people that you are leading it could be good or bad culture okay I mean if it's good we look at how it makes you know how we can make it better but if it's bad like you know you don't want to have a culture of gossip or a culture of complaining culture of whining culture of you know everything negative that you can think of right so as a leader you are immediately thinking how what kind of culture do I want to set right a kingdom culture or an earthly culture and then you press towards it right and the first step is teaching and I say this before as there is no such thing as too much communication especially when you're communicating with your team there is no such thing as over communication you keep emphasizing you keep communicating right if you come to APC there are a couple of announcements we make every Sunday every Sunday we we played the vision and the mission of APC we are the salt and light in the city of Bangalore the nation of India the nations right why do we do that we are emphasizing again and again who we are what is our vision right and there are so many things that we do on a regular basis repeatedly so there is no such thing as over communication so teach teach teach right if you want to set a culture of worship teach about worship and that brings about a revelation right as I as 6 verse 1 to 8 we all know the famous passage of scripture worship begins with the revelation of worship right so Isaiah sees the seraphim worshipping and then that brings about you know that it leads him to you know go on his knees you know into a posture of worship and that revelation eventually leads to conviction so the revelation of worship will bring about conviction which is something you believe strongly in that is okay I am convicted now I am moved and so revelation leads to conviction and because you are convicted you will respond to an auto call isn't it and that is the action right you are responding right so and there is God asks a question okay who will go for me and I send and then Isaiah is convicted and says here I am Lord send me and that eventually releases you to the destiny that God has prepared okay and so all of this is just setting a culture of worship so you are teaching your people and that teaching leads to conviction and action and then that releases them to their destiny the people in your congregation to the destiny that God has prepared for them right you guys with me any questions any thoughts we are with you pastor and I had about the corporate the importance of corporate worship about King Joseph that I had posted it in the in the chat so I agree with you and I know that the Lord deserves with us when we are working corporate yes there is power in unity yes thank you yeah thank you so we'll move on and like I said I just wanted to merge chapter 7 and chapter 8 as a continuation from one to another right and one of the huge differences you know I don't know about other countries in detail but look at India India is just vast confuses a lot of people with our diversity right it's just the cultures are so rich it's so different kids it's not even funny the differences I mean you go to north Bangalore they sound they talk in different languages they come to South Bangalore the way they're Canada sounds different and then that's just one city and then you have an entire state of Karnataka people from North Karnataka sound so different from people from South Karnataka or Mangalore and this is applicable to every state in India every city there are languages and the languages there are dialects it's just vast and rich and I'm pretty kind of sure it's it's kind of similar to the nations in Africa or other countries that I don't know of but when it comes to India right the con and I I've just seen this I'm sorry if I'm just using India as an example because that's what I've seen right so one of the greatest challenges Indian Christian church is it's western heritage right most mainline denominations follow a westernized liturgy and music in their worship because of the heritage right so when when missionaries came to India they translated the Bible and their own hymns to the local languages for use in worship but now even a century later churches still use same hymn and the translated book which is very common for prayer for worship right and a lot of translations of that main hymn liturgy did not happen or could not happen because again we are talking about translating an English liturgy into all the different languages in India I don't even know how many unofficial languages are there in India so I can and Bible happens to be the highly the most translated book in the world right and then when it came to see liturgies and prayers and songs it seems to be a challenge right and at APC we've just managed to translate two songs from English to Hindi and I have to tell you that it was quite a challenge okay because when you're translating a song you're not going to translate literally now if we translated shout for joy I think we translated shout for joy and better than life if we try translating it word for word literally from English to Hindi it would sound so funny in Hindi and so we have to think from a song writer's perspective you have to think like a musician okay you know what words are going to match what word makes sense right and so because of the linguistic limitations missionaries were not able to make a translation that fits well to the common use of the language right and so problems like mentioned in syllables or structures make it almost impossible for people to understand texts of many songs so these are all the challenges guys what I'm talking about is what we inherited right the Christian Indian Christian church because we've inherited a western heritage and the challenges been the language for the most part right and so I just want to emphasize the importance of as our churches worshipping him in our regional languages in our regional indigenous languages it's very very crucial it's very important right and so some of the practical tips that we can incorporate for congregational worship is that the church could have an additional service in that particular language if possible if this is not possible the songs could be bilingual the local language translation of the same song can be sung in addition to the English right so this is this was one of our main motives or intentions to translate you know some of our English songs to Hindi and we recently wrote a Tamil song that will be releasing so we we wrote the song in Tamil and then we translated it to Hindi so the Hindi song will be releasing this month and the Tamil song will be releasing next month and so we just took a short change in our direction because we wanted to we wanted to be able to reach out to the people of our land of our nation so that we can worship with our regional languages as well so that is in addition if a church can afford to have an additional service in its own language that's awesome not all songs have translation in the local languages so singing a few songs fully in the local language alone serves the purpose of opening up and drawing people to the Lord in worship ok and the singers must learn to pronounce the words correctly and in the right way I'm in that process of learning to pronounce some Hindi words correctly because Hindi has been my arch nemesis for for a long long time so me and Hindi didn't get along so some of the bible college students in person they know that and it irritates my wife when I try to speak in Hindi because I kind of butcher it so when I want to irritate her I know what to do but yeah just being able to pronounce the words correctly and all of that it goes a long way and also it would help if a worship leader knows the language and can transition into exhorting the congregation or praising and declaring the attributes of the Lord in that language so going back and forth I mean if you're leading if it's a combined service or a bilingual service where you're leading worship you're singing songs in English and your regional indigenous languages having a worship leader who can switch between languages is a luxury yeah that goes a long way so these are just some of the pointers you know and the importance just to re-emphasize the importance of having indigenous expression of worship in our churches okay any thoughts or anything else that you want to ask or add and I'm pretty sure I mean if you're a messenger of the gospel isn't it so if there's a message there is a messenger who's coming with the message and then there is the other person who's waiting to receive the message and if the messenger is not communicating in the language that is spoken by the person who's receiving the message then the whole point of the message is lost and so good news we have news and that is good we need to take it to the people who understands who will understand it in their own language instead of them having to expect them to understand what we have to say yeah so that goes a long way and that again is just building the kingdom of God here on earth alright so you're with me okay oh yeah okay awesome great so that kind of concludes our course content for this course on worship ministry I mean I hope you've been able to grasp and learn something in this journey I've had fun teaching you all the course content yeah I mean all the best if you have any questions please let me know anything about ministry or whatever okay what I'd like to do is we take this break and then we'll come back and there's a video that I want to play it's a good teaching on leadership and I thought it would be good for all of us to just listen to it okay so we'll take a break and we'll be back in 10 minutes alright cool thanks guys