After Battling cancer for a while, Gospel music Minister
Darlene Zschech speaks of what she has been Praying
for according to the leading she has been having…
I’ve been really praying about this topic: worship and
mission. These two words are like fire in my belly;
they daily give me my purpose and reason. They are
not entirely separate from each other; they are almost
like a bride and groom—hard to have a wedding with
just one of them.
Yet mission will always be trumped by worship for
worship abides forever. As we continue to create
God’s throne room here among us, building his
glorious throne of praise and going deeper in our
understanding and experience, we will realize the
passion God has for the lost and broken, that everyone
needs to hear, see, and know the goodness of the
gospel.
Revelation
I continually find myself in John 4, seeing and hearing
the scene where “true worship” is discussed by Jesus
and the Samaritan woman. Seeing once more that
when Christ’s Lordship is established, living waters
are our promise, our inheritance, our radical need, and
God’s even more radical provision.
As we continue to reveal Jesus in every area of our
lives, I see God’s throne being established among us
in our churches, in our communities, in our families, in
our new experiences and in our traditions. For
wherever He is enthroned, there you’ll find hearts that
are open and thirsty for the one thing none of us can
acquire elsewhere, only from relationship with Jesus:
Living Water.
How can truthful and authentic worship be anything
but missional? In genuine worship we are constantly
declaring God’s goodness, always announcing and
declaring that he is with us, always being filled with
joy in his presence, always announcing freedom,
always dependent on the Holy Spirit to fill us, change
us, lead us, and turn our sorrows into joy, our
mourning into dancing.
More Than a Song
To worship with our life means that it is not just in
the singing of songs that we find our hearts
emblazoned with mission, but it is the result of a
worshipful life where mission finds its expression in
the going, the sending, and the daily expression of our
faith in the ordinary. As Christ followers, all that we
are should be somehow resulting in bringing the love
and light of Christ to our world. Is this mission? Yes.
Is this worship? Yes.
Limitless Connection
I’ll never forget sitting in the South African dirt with a
beautiful four-year-old boy in an orphanage in
Johannesburg. It seemed nothing could reach his
lonely little heart, no toys or games, not even the
crazy young musicians traveling along with us could
find a way to connect with him. His eyes were glazed
over; I cannot bear to think about what he had
endured at such a young age. So in the dirt, into his
gorgeous, perfectly formed little ears, I started to sing,
“Jesus loves me.” It only took moments for his
stunning tear-filled eyes to look up, and it was like
our hearts connected right there and then. Building
Jesus a throne in the middle of the dirt. As we drew
near, he drew near to us (Jas 4:8). That’s the
promise.
There is no other name like the name of Jesus to heal
our wounds, calm our fears, walk with us through
suffering, and to even hold an aching four-year-old
heart tenderly in his hands. This little boy’s heart was
opened to the love of Jesus, and he experienced what
it was like to draw from a well that could never be
taken from him, and certainly never run dry.
I may not have been leading lots of worship through
music over the last 12 months, but the mission of my
life, as a worshiper, has not changed one bit. As I’ve
sat in doctors’ waiting rooms and laid in bed for many
months, that call to take Jesus to every sacred place
burns in me just like leading people to his glorious
courts through praise does. Living our lives poured
out … in response to his great love for us…
That the world may know!
Darlene Zschech is the former worship pastor at
Hillsong Church. She is now a popular Christian singer
and songwriter.
