In addition to the questions listed in my last post, I'd like to spend time thinking about a greater mission God calls us to in musical worship.

My church has recently partnered with an organization in northern Ethiopia. Part of their mission is to train native church planters to care for widows and orphans by providing them with basic medical treatment and education. They also encourage better care for the environment and simple microenterprise for the natives to survive economically. In parts of Asia the same organization teaches farmers how to grow coffee so they won't have to sell their daughters for sixty or seventy dollars into prostitution, where a young girl will usually die within four years, before her eighteenth birthday. The organization's mission in northern India is to stop the spread of disease and death due to rodent infestation. The same rats, worshiped by the natives, are roaming the fields, eating the crops, and causing the sickness and starvation, and the people are unaware that the rats, their gods, are killing them.

When I think of young girls being sold as slaves, orphans with aids, and people dying of starvation and disease, when I ask God to give me His heart for these people, it makes it more difficult for me to "put on a performance" while leading musical worship. Rather, I am compelled to point people to the truth of Christ and His mission.

I have been trying to keep a global perspective while worshiping God in song. In doing so, my selfish and sinful desires in musical worship are being brought to light; How I consume, perform, and forget that people are dying. It becomes harder to sing songs that focus solely on how God is "mindful of me" and that "I am a friend of God" when I think of the greater mission. The truth is I call on God when I'm stuck in traffic as if He's mindful of my gas mileage, while some poor, innocent girl is suffering and wondering if there is a God who can deliver her. And what kind of friend of God am I to put all of my time into a Sunday service without considering the people worldwide who don't know Christ and of those laboring as His hands and feet?

The songs we sing can either aid or hinder us in this mission. Let's allow what we do on Sunday to point us to the greater mission, and while we are reaching people stateside, let's direct their attention to the mission and heart of compassion God has for the entire world, not just us.

Here is an iMix of the following songs that have a missional theme:

"Micah 6:8" by Charlie Hall
"God Of Justice" by Tim Hughes
"Sending" by Charlie Hall, Stuart Townend, Nathan Nockels
"Missions Flame" by Matt Redman
"All Over The World" by Matt Redman, Martin Smith
"Solution" by Matt Crocker, Joel Houston
"Tears Of The Saints" by Leeland Mooring, Jack Mooring
"Shine" by Matt Redman