Posts by Jimi Williams
Is it Scriptural to Sing “Jesus, You’re All I Need”?
There are a bevy of popular worship songs that use a variation of the phrase “Jesus, You’re all I need”. I’ve even led some of these songs in worship. But is this a true Biblical statement to sing?
In Matthew 6, Jesus exhorts us to not be anxious (or not to worry) about what we will eat or what we will wear. He finishes with this encouragement, “For the gentiles (or pagans) seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.”
Jesus didn’t say, “Don’t worry about those things. All you need is me.” The point of his lesson was not to discount our human needs, but to shift our anxiety for the things we need to trust in a loving and providing Father.
Jesus, in his humanity, understood that as long as we are alive on earth we will have needs. So when we sing “all I need is You, Lord”, we are not really making a true statement. We need food, shelter and clothing. We need love. We need encouragement. We need Christian community. Many people need a car.
So let’s stop lying to ourselves and everyone else about not needing anything but God; and let’s start singing about the God who meets all our needs and satisfies all our longings.
Here’s our set list from last Sunday with links to the songs if you want to listen to the original:
-Jesus Saves
-All To Us
-Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)
Jimi Williams
Worship Pastor, The Bridge
Corporate Worship Series: Encouragement
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When we think of corporate worship, things like singing, clapping and lifting hands come to mind. But did you know that encouragement is one of the most important elements of corporate worship?
In the first century church, things were a bit different than our culture today. Christians were under intense persecution. As Jews were accepting Christ as Savior, they were being alienated from their families, fired from their jobs and afraid for their lives. As new believers huddled together in house churches, I would expect encouragement to be one of the things desired most.
Today, the church in America is not under persecution. We don’t have to fear losing our jobs because of our faith, but the need for encouragement has never been greater. In a culture that rates us against one another and points out all our deficiencies, it is easy to become discouraged.
Unfortunately, discouragement and not encouragement comes from within the church as well. And what we desire and need desperately from one other is lacking. An encouraging word from a brother or sister in Christ is like water to the soul. A few weeks ago, someone at the Bridge came up to me after the worship gathering and thanked me for speaking with him the previous week. I barely remembered it, but it made a big difference in his life. He was feeling discouraged and our short conversation really encouraged him.
When we encourage one another, we not only build each other up, but we please the heart of God. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, “encourage one another and build each other up”. Let us make the house of God a place of healing for the hurting! The world does a good job at tearing us down. Let’s be counter-cultural and build one another up.
Jimi Williams
Worship Pastor, The Bridge
Corporate Worship Series: Raising Hands
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I grew up in the Church of Christ. It was a conservative congregation so the only hands in the air were to flag down family members who showed up late. I encountered my first worshiping “hand raisers” after Jennifer and I got married and we started attending a Spirit-filled little Nazarene church. But even then, it was rare and usually only one hand raised just above the shoulder.
Later, after attending some worship events and some other churches, I noticed that some people even raised both hands in worship. This seemed strange and exciting. I remember the first time I decided to lift my hands while singing. I felt like every eye in the place was on me. I hated that feeling, but for me, lifting my hands was a sign of inward surrender and humility. After all that God had done for me, He deserved my lifted hands even if I felt like a dork doing it.
In the Old Testament, we find various examples of lifting hands during corporate worship. Some would say, “Body posture is not what’s important. It is what is in the heart that counts.” There is truth to this. The Bible says that we make judgments based on outward appearances, but God looks at the heart.
But there are too many accounts of lifting of hands in the Bible to ignore them. Here are some Biblical examples of where the people of God lifted their hands to God:
- In Response: Nehemiah records, “Ezra praised the LORD, the great God; and all the people lifted their hands and responded, “Amen! Amen!” Then they bowed down and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground.” Worship happens when there is revelation. God reveals Himself to us, we respond in worship, which in turn causes God to reveal more of Himself. Lifting our hands is a proper and Biblical response to God’s revelation.
- A Cry For Help: Psalms 28:2 records this encouraging cry for help, “Hear my cry for mercy as I call to you for help, as I lift up my hands toward your Most Holy Place.” Like a child reaching for their parent when they are scared or hurt, we too can lift our hands to God for is love and deliverance.
- In Prayer: Paul exhorts Timothy in 1 Tim 2:8 “Therefore I want the men everywhere to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or disputing.” I’m not sure why, but I’ve found that praying with lifted hands adds a measure of intensity to my prayers. It’s like a spiritual exclamation point – not for God’s sake, but for mine.
Your personality may be quiet and reserved. Lifting even one hand in worship would make you extremely uncomfortable. For me, that was precisely why I needed to do it. I needed to lay down my pride and give Him the glory! Nehemiah reminds us that “all the people lifted their hands”. When we join together as a church singing, praying and lifting our hands together, there’s power in our unity.
Church, let’s join together with one voice and one heart, lifting our hands together to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords!
Jimi Williams
Worship Pastor, The Bridge
Corporate Worship Series: Clapping
“Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy”. Psalm 47:1.
With as much clapping as we do in church now days you would think that clapping in worship was mandated by the Lord. Not so. In fact, there are only 2 references in the NASB for clapping during worship celebration and one of them involves rivers and not people! Psalm 47:1 (shown above) and Psalm 98:8 that says “Let the rivers clap their hands, let the mountains sing together for joy.”
Compare this to over 70 references for singing just in the Psalms and we begin to see how little clapping has to do with our biblical worship.
We should, however, pay attention to Psalm 47:1. Especially since it was written specifically for the music director. The Message paraphrase says “Applause, everyone. Bravo, bravissimo! Shout God-songs at the top of your lungs!”
But I believe worship leaders today (me included) over-emphasize clapping for several reasons:
- Clapping creates a nice segue at the end of a song. No worship leader wants awkward “dead space” after a song while switching song keys or putting on a guitar capo. So we encourage clapping as a segue instead of a true expression of worship.
- Clapping gives a false sense of the Holy Spirit moving in a worship gathering. Often, worship leaders misinterpret lively clapping as evidence of the Holy Spirit. This is not true and can be a stumbling block when the congregation does not clap along.
- Clever clapping entertains the congregation. Some songs incorporate a clever clap pattern that’s fun. Anyone remember “We wanna see (clap, clap, clap), we wanna see (clap, clap, clap) we wanna see Jesus lifted high”? Everyone is so focused on clapping on time that the words and meaning of the song go unnoticed.
The best kind of clapping is the natural applause that occurs when the congregation is overwhelmed by God’s grace and wants to show thankfulness.
For more on clapping, check out this hilarious post from Stuff Christians Like. It’s sure to make you smile and think twice about why we clap http://tinyurl.com/46l873f.
Corporate Worship Series: Singing
Over the next few weeks, we will be taking a look at several different aspects of corporate worship, or worshipping together as a group. There are certainly times for personal and private worship with great Biblical examples, but we Christians seem to struggle more with our worship together than by ourselves.
This is a huge topic with many different meanings for different people. For example, if you are from a charismatic background, you might equate corporate worship with energetic singing and dancing. If you are from a mainline church background, you might equate corporate worship with a well planned liturgy of music, silence, Scripture and responsive reading.
This week, we will take a look at Scriptural activities in corporate worship. The Old Testament is loaded with some of Israel’s most extravagant worship celebrations with a bunch of different expressions of worship happening. It is important for us to not dismiss the Biblical expressions of worship as “cultural” and not relevant to the church today. It is also important for us to remember when Jesus said loving God and loving your neighbor are the two greatest commandments. So any expression of worship music come under the authority of those two commands.
This week we’ll take a look at singing. The greatest instrument ever created for praising God is the human voice. Ever wonder why God gave us the ability to shorten and length our vocal chords to create different pitches? It surely would have been easier to create the human voice as monotone, like the robot voices we hear in old movies.
How awesome that God created us with the ability to sing! I’m often amazed at the number of folks in church who don’t sing. Maybe they think their voice isn’t very good or that someone will hear them. It doesn’t matter if you can’t carry a tune in a bucket, God wants you to sing.
King David commanded all Israel to “Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wondrous acts.” 1 Chron 16:9. There were some who were “gifted” in singing who were instructed to lead the others, but David’s exhortation to sing was for all of Israel, not just the musicians.
I grew up in the Church of Christ denomination. They were not Scriptural on the prohibition of instruments in worship, but I tell you, those people would sing! Not a timid little mumbling “Savior, He can move the mountains…” but a deep-chested belting of “Jesus Saves, Jesus Saves”!
Brothers and sisters, let us not be timid in our praise. We all agree that He is worthy. Now let’s “sing to the Lord, all the earth; proclaim His salvation day after day.” 1 Chron. 16:23
Jimi Williams
Worship Pastor, The Bridge
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