The Heart of Worship

Last night, I had the great pleasure of attending a Casting Crowns concert at the Bismarck Civic Center. Casting Crowns is a contemporary Christian band made up mostly of youth workers. They have won many Dove awards, Christian music's highest honor. Of course, being a youth worker myself, I marvel at their ability to tour, write music, spend time with their families AND do youth ministry at their local churches. When I am in the midst of Holy Week, I am lucky some weeks that I keep my pets alive -- and I have lots of help with that!
I am a music lover and am very lucky to attend several concerts a year. My tastes are quite eclectic. In the last year I've seen Fernando Ortega, Michael W. Smith, Steven Curtis Chapman and Third Day. I also enjoy TobyMac, the Newsboys and Veggie Tales. For a couple of years, I got to Life Light, three days of outdoor Christian concerts in the middle of a corn field offered at no cost to those attending. It was amazing to worship with 250,000 people. However, after a weekend of late nights and no showers coupled with an eight hour trip to and from South Dakota, I have bid that Labor Day location farewell.
At the Crowns concert, all of the seating is assigned. All the better for a youth group, I say. No standing in line for two hours to get a good seat. We pulled up to the Civic Center 40 minutes before the concert and walked in to a moderate crowd.
Our first stop was the merchandise tables. Items available included the usual fare - t-shirts, sweatshirts, every CD ever recorded by the band, guitar picks, jewelry and the lead singer's latest book. After picking out an overpriced, but cute t-shirt as a sourvenir, we headed to our seats to await the show.
As we walked into the auditorium, there was a haze in the air. I have experienced that at past concertsand always wondered where the "smoke" came from. Was there an accident with one of the lights? Was the sound check so loud that someone spontaneously combusted? How hot are the nachos?!? This riddle was solved by a fellow concert goer. Apparently the use dry ice fog to enhance the effects of the laser lights. Chalk that up as something learned for today.
I attended the concert with twenty-three youth and adults from my church. We were a jovial crowd, every excited about seeing Casting Crowns again. We saw them last year at the State Fair and they were terrific! Of course, we had been in the hot sun all day, so it was a mellow crowd.
The lights went out, the music blared and then --- there they were! Getting us on our feet and worshipping together. They put up the lyrics on their cool screen so you can sing along. When you are lifting your voices and your hands in worship to our awesome God, you really bridge the gap between Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran, youth, adult, child, Dove winning recording artist and casual singer. We all come before God equally.
Mark Hall, the lead singer for Casting Crowns, gave a great testimony and gave the salvation invitation during the concert. He does such a great job of that. Where I fumble for words and worry about getting it right, he just lays it down there. Wow!
Music is one of the ways that I connect with God. As the concert went on, I felt like I was being renewed and refreshed to go back out into the world to witness to others about our amazing God.
When the encore had been sung and we headed toward the door, I thought back over my Sunday Sabbath. I sang in church with our other song leaders, which I love to do. We are leading some new songs and there is always strength in numbers. I have to say that we sounded pretty good from where I was standing. Maybe not "Dove award" caliber quite yet, but add some dry ice and you'd hardly know the difference. Our praises sound just as sweet to God. And He's the only one who matters.