Next Level Worship

Here is a powerful dramatic and responsive reading that works great for a Fourth of July Celebration Service. It  is excerpted from the House of Representatives Resolution 397 (111TH CONGRESS, 1ST SESSION). It highlights in chronological order many evidences of how the United States of America was founded on God and why therefore it should continue to be a Christian nation.

This Dramatic Reading needs 4 people and takes 9 minutes to read. We encourage you to play a building rendition of Battle Hymn of the Republic or a similar patriotic song to accompany the reading.

Click on the words, Read more (in blue), for an excerpt from the Reading and to download the FREE complete script : Read more…

Special thanks to the folks at Rick Warren’s Ministry Toolbox for including Dwayne’s article this week. This is the 14th article the Toolbox has used by Dwayne. Go here to read this article titled: Developing Your Ministry Team to Be Ministers through Music. (The bi-weekly Ministry Toolbox is sent to some 180,000 people around the world.)

The following article by Dwayne will be featured this fall in Lifeway’s cirriculum called YOU. YOU, LifeWay’s newest adult Sunday School curriculum, is biblically-based with culturally relevant lessons to help Christians connect, grow, serve, and ultimately be engaged in impacting the world for God. YOU is unprecedented, because it is intentionally focused on urban/multicultural believers. We are honored to contribute to this incredible new cirriculum by Lifeway, which will focus this fall on worship.

Worship in Three Directions, Part 3

So what does “three-directional worship” look like in everyday life? Is it really possible to worship God when you’re at home or school or work? How can even your simplest and most common tasks bring honor and worship to God? As you go through each day this week, determine to worship your Lord in all three directions of your life. Below are some simple and practical ideas you might try.

Ways to Worship God…
Inwardly:
• Invest time reading God’s Word and praying during a daily Quiet Time
• Check your attitudes, motives, and private actions to be sure they honor God
Outwardly:
• Give a smile and some words of encouragement to someone you meet
• Share your faith in Christ with a neighbor or co-worker
Upwardly:
• Choose to praise God every day through singing, shouting, clapping, kneeling, dancing, lifting hands, playing an instrument, or testifying
• Make a list of things you are thankful for and then verbally thank God for each

CLICK HERE to READ PART 1 of this article.

Written by Dwayne Moore. Copyright 2009. Dwayne is author of the highly acclaimed book, Pure Praise: A Heart-focused Bible Study on Worship. (Group, 2009)

The following article by Dwayne will be featured this fall in Lifeway’s cirriculum called YOU. YOU, LifeWay’s newest adult Sunday School curriculum, is biblically-based with culturally relevant lessons to help Christians connect, grow, serve, and ultimately be engaged in impacting the world for God. YOU is unprecedented, because it is intentionally focused on urban/multicultural believers. We are honored to contribute to this incredible new cirriculum by Lifeway, which will focus this fall on worship.

Worship in Three Directions, Part 2

Now let’s consider the outward direction of worship. There are actually four distinct outward ways we can bring glory to our Lord, and they all have to do with our relationships with other people.First of all, God is worshipped when we share our faith with someone or in some way play a part in a person’s coming to know Christ. In Romans 15:16, Paul says God gave him the “priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel…so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God.” What a privilege to take part in such an offering! Once we’ve helped someone become eternally transformed, we’ll be hooked on sharing our faith for life!

Second, we worship God when we help others. These days, old-fashioned neighborly help can be hard to find. And if we’re really honest, most of us are OK with that trend. We often lack the motivation to lend a hand. We build privacy fences so we don’t see our neighbors, and then we fill up our schedules so we don’t have time to notice if they need our help. But as followers of Jesus, we can’t afford not to be the good Samaritans he has called us to be (Luke 10:33). Jesus clearly taught us to give “a cup of cold water” in his name (Matthew 10:42).

In Philippians 4:18, Paul described the Philippians’ gifts as “a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God.” Giving financial aid to those in need is a third wonderful way to express our love for God. However, it’s imperative that we be cheerful when we give, not grudging, because that represents the real motives of our hearts (2 Corinthians 9:7). Once again, God considers our willing and compassionate hearts as the source of true worship.

The fourth way we worship God outwardly is by being sensitive to our weaker brothers and sisters. The entirety of Romans 14 focuses on strong and weak Christians. According to verse 13, we are to “live in such a way that you will not cause another believer to stumble and fall” (NLT). Verse 18 shows God’s view of this: “If you serve Christ with this attitude, you will please God” (NLT).

For some reason, my father (who was not a Christian) didn’t think Christian women should wear shorts. Thus, when I was growing up, I never saw our next door neighbor wearing shorts. She chose not to wear them in front of my dad because she didn’t want to offend him. That’s the kind of selfless sensitivity God honors in us-and is honored in.

CLICK HERE to READ PART 1 of this article

Written by Dwayne Moore. Copyright 2009. Dwayne is author of the highly acclaimed book, Pure Praise: A Heart-focused Bible Study on Worship. (Group, 2009)

In one week, America has lost 3 iconic figures in the entertainment world: Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson. Millions of people around the world are mourning these deaths — and thinking a lot about death themselves.

That means this is a great time to share our faith about eternal LIFE in Jesus Christ.

Look for an opportunity to witness to someone today. Simply bring up the subject of any one of these famous people’s passing — then say “I’m glad I know where I am going when I die. What about you?”

The following article by Dwayne will be featured this fall in Lifeway’s cirriculum called YOU. YOU, LifeWay’s newest adult Sunday School curriculum, is biblically-based with culturally relevant lessons to help Christians connect, grow, serve, and ultimately be engaged in impacting the world for God. YOU is unprecedented, because it is intentionally focused on urban/multicultural believers. We are honored to contribute to this incredible new cirriculum by Lifeway, which will focus this fall on worship.

Worship in Three Directions, Part 1

by Dwayne Moore

At some point in your life, you may have been as I was (and so many in our pews still are!). Anytime you heard the word worship, you assumed that word mostly referred to singing, clapping, and talking to God. However, worship is not just something we do on Sundays at church. And it’s certainly more than singing or attending a service, although those are included. Worship is a lifestyle. It involves everything we do and think and are. In 1 Corinthians 10:31 Paul wrote, “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” Paul chose the examples of eating and drinking to illustrate how our most common and everyday activities can and should bring glory and honor to Christ.

In his book The Ultimate Priority, John MacArthur Jr. explains that for our worship to be “whole-life” it must include three aspects or directions. Most certainly, we worship God when we focus directly on him, pointing our worship upward (as we normally think of worship). However, we should also worship God inwardly. The third direction we should worship him is outwardly, to those around us.

You might think of three-directional worship like this: Imagine you say to your boss, “You are the greatest boss to ever walk the face of the earth. Furthermore, this is the best job I’ve ever had or ever will have. In fact, I practically worship at your feet for just letting me do this job every day.” (Am I laying it on thick enough yet?) OK, having said such a mouthful upwardly toward your boss, how should you behave when no one’s looking? If you really meant what you said, you’ll talk well of your boss and your job when your boss isn’t around, and you’ll work hard and enthusiastically for him or her even when no one’s watching you. Why? Because inwardly you really do love your boss and you want to please him or her.

Now let’s take this idea a step further. Let’s say you’re in the service industry, and your job involves assisting other people. Every time you cheerfully seek to help someone, every time you go out of your way to meet someone’s needs, you are outwardly honoring your employer and saying by your actions how much you appreciate working for him or her. In much the same way, our God is honored-or worshipped-not only by what we say to him, but also by how much we love him on the inside and by how we respond to those he died for.

The inward direction of our worship refers to who I am when no one is looking. It’s not really difficult to lift up praises to God when we’re at church or around other Christians. In those environments we’re encouraged, even expected, to do so. But what about when we’re in the privacy of our own homes, browsing the Internet, or glancing through a magazine on the newsstands? Are we being careful to please God with our private thoughts, with the things we see, with the places we visit? (Ouch!)

Worshipping inwardly by being good is perhaps the litmus test for all of worship. If our hearts’ desire is to please God, we can no longer enjoy our former sins. Second Corinthians 5:17 says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” This refers to a change inside of us. According to Psalm 51:16-17, God wants a broken and contrite heart more than our outward sacrifices. He knows that if our hearts are purely devoted to him, that can’t help but affect our outward behavior.

CLICK HERE to READ PART 2 of this article.

Written by Dwayne Moore. Copyright 2009. Dwayne is author of the highly acclaimed book, Pure Praise: A Heart-focused Bible Study on Worship. (Group, 2009)

We are thankful and excited that Neue Quarterly, Issue 3, features Dwayne’s article, titled “The Sound of Ministry.” The article explains in detail how to develop your worship team members to become ministers through music. It also recommends some great discipleship resources for your praise teams and choir.

The Neue Quarterly is published by Relevant Magazine and features leading pastors, authors, and other church ”experts” on practical ministry topics.

Click here to download and read the article.

Our friends at Saddleback Church emailed us to ask us to help them get the word out about their worship conference. We are honored to help!

Don’t miss this incredible conference! Guests include Rick Warren, Rick Muchow, Israel Houghton, Paul Baloche, Francis Chan, Sarah Kelly, Tim Hughes, Brenton Brown, and many more! The dates are Tuesday, June 23 through Friday, June 26. Click here to register and for more information.

There is still time to register for the Next Level Worship Conference just outside Columbus, OH! See why worship teams, praise bands, and choirs are traveling hundreds of miles for these events! Don’t miss this incredible opportunity to grow deeper in your understanding and experiencing of true, Biblical worship!

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Come hear author and worship teacher, Dwayne Moore!

3 general sessions taught by Dwayne!

Plus over 9 different workshops to choose from!

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What Others Are Saying…

“If you feel like God has left the building, your life, or both, hold that thought. Because Dwayne Moore is going to teach you how God wants to saturate every nook and cranny, every nano-second of your existence.”
~ Sally Morgenthaler, Author of Worship Evangelism

“Dwayne Moore’s heart is for worship. He has a desire to see the Body of Christ truly understand what it means to honor God with our worship and let our lifesongs sing to Him in spirit and in truth.”
~ Mark Hall, lead singer and songwriter for Casting Crowns

CLICK HERE for more information and to register online.

Or call 1-877-2614303

Dwayne recently had the opportunity to sit down with Charlie Hall and his entire band backstage of a conference where they were leading worship. Charlie Hall is best known as a songwriter and Passion artist. Enjoy!

Charlie Hall Interview

The Center for Worship at Liberty University is using Dwayne’s devotional study, Pure Praise, in their new, redesigned course, The Role of the Worship Leader. They usually have between 40 and 60 students in the class every 8 weeks. It is a Masters level class in Worship Studies. The class is taught by Dr. Vernon Whaley, director of the Center for Worship.

We are honored that Pure Praise can make an impact on future worship leaders and pastors during their incredibly important formative years of ministry development.

To order Pure Praise, go here.

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We are excited to announce a great new resource for worshipers and worship leaders! We have just uploaded several teaching videos and music videos by Dwayne Moore on YouTube. Go to http://www.youtube.com/user/dwaynemoore39 to view Dwayne’s YouTube page!

Videos include:

• Dwayne’s interview with Skillet’s lead singer, John Cooper
• original songs sung by Dwayne on Canadian TV
• the stories behind how Dwayne wrote the songs
• Dwayne’s interview on 100 Huntley Street, Canada’s premiere Christian TV talkshow
• Dwayne’s interview on American Family Radio’s Today’s Issues
• Introduction video on Week 1 of Pure Praise on understanding worship
• Introduction video of Week 8 of Pure Praise on the 5 goals for lead worshipers
• and more!

ATTN: All who love great praise and preaching!!

We just got the following email from our dear friend, Charles Billingsley. (As many of you know, Charles wrote the Foreword for Dwayne’s devotional study, Pure Praise.) Don’t miss this great opportunity tomorrow (Saturday, June 6) night!

Tomorrow night, Saturday, June 6 at 6:00 PM Eastern Time, the Trinity Broadcasting Network will air a special, one-hour edition of “Praise The Lord” from Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, VA. The featured speaker is A.R. Bernard and I will lead the congregation in powerful praise and worship with several of the songs from my new, soon to be released CD, God of The Ages.

Please don’t miss the opportunity to join us for this awesome service, Saturday, June 6 at 6:00 PM. I know your heart will be blessed.

Author Dwayne Moore’s interview on American Family Radio’s premiere talkshow, Today’s Issues with Tim Wildmon and Ray Prichard. Dwayne was recently interviewed about his book, Pure Praise: A Heart-focused Bible Study on Worship. To order, go to PurePraiseWorshipStudy.com.

YouTube NLW

As many of you know, we have been asking prayer  for Tucker Beam on this site over the past couple years. Tucker’s story of 3 cancers in his 9 short years has gripped our entire community and made ripples around the world.

Sunday morning, May 31, 2009, Tucker Beam won his final battle with Leukemia. He went home to be with Jesus around 1:00 AM. His amazing story of faith and courage has been chronicled at his Caring Bridge site. Go here to read his life-changing story.

His Homecoming Service will be Wednesday morning at 10AM Central at The Freshman Campus of Hoover High School in Birmingham, AL. His viewing will be Tuesday evening from 5PM until 8PM at The Freshman Campus of Hoover High School. Click here for the link.

His Caring Bridge site has had over 350,000 hits. So needless to say that hundreds, perhaps thousands, are expected to attend the viewing and funeral of this little man who has forever left his legacy on our hearts and lives.