Excerpt Chapter 10: Personally Bigger—Slingshot

< 10: Personally Bigger—Slingshot

So, where do we go from here?

After having spent some time at 30,000 feet,

what does it look like to come back down and

walk around on the ground?

Are we any different for our efforts in

sizing up a smaller worship

and attempting to

draw a picture of what bigger might look like?

Or is it just that: another definition of worship 

to add on top of countless others?

The realization of where we don’t want to go is healthy and eye-opening. An attempt to paint a bigger picture is helpful. But those first brush-strokes, as important as they were, need to begin to spill over now onto the broader canvas of our lives. A new model of worship to consider is a necessary first step. We’ve done well to seriously engage this line of reflection. The time and attention you’ve given to God in this process of discovery is a sacrifice, an offering. You’ve honored (worshiped) Him with your heart’s desire to know and magnify Him more. That’s fantastic. What lies around the corner then, is the rest of the journey.

And it’s glorious.

Early on we painted the spectrum above as our aim; to move away from the left end where time and grip are severely limiting factors, and toward the right end where we live quite differently. The arrow toward the right in our image indicates an open-ended pursuit. There is no finish line (other than eternity) for a bigger worship. It’s an open, endless pursuit of God’s glory, our wholeness, and unfettered Gospel proclamation in our local settings and throughout the world.

This expansive road ahead is very much the path of spiritual formation, involving time, effort, and the sanctifying work of the Spirit in us. It doesn’t happen quickly and it doesn’t come cheap. But, this call to growth should not be seen only for its required focus and commitments. Remember, in “going big” we also “go home”. In a very real sense we are being invited into an ever-deepening fellowship with our Father. A fellowship established by the finished work of Christ, confirmed by the presence of the Spirit of God in us. One that will continue to expand, shape, and beautify everything we are. It’s an abiding and satisfaction in God, framed up in the amazing offer of Psalm 81:

“Hear me, my people, and I will warn you—

if you would only listen to me, Israel!

You shall have no foreign god among you;

you shall not worship any god other than me.

I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt.

Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.” (vs.8-10)

Worship is the primary call of right honor (for God) and deep satisfaction (for us). God says, look to me only— in every way—at all times, and I will be what you want, what you need. So, while there’s a long road ahead of this thing called a bigger worship, at every step of the way toward it, we gain more of what we really need: Jesus. Go big and go home is both the call and the promise we’re pursuing together. Thanks be to God Almighty that He is in the business of renewing lives. God is not the god of the status quo. He is the God of the living, the changing; the God of those being transformed. He is lovingly and always molding us more and more into the life of His Son, the perfected Adam (Rom. 8:29; 1 Cor. 15:45-49; Col. 3:10). This is our hope, firm and sure: that His Spirit in us is always calling us to something better. Something bigger.

To that end, we’ll step now into some possibilities of what personally bigger might look like. In the same way we claimed no exclusivity for our model of a bigger worship, we’ll say the same here regarding these suggestions. These next steps are simply some ways to get started, to see a possible path forward. In the heart of actually heading somewhere bigger, we’ll offer them now for consideration.