Here goes something...

I've toyed with the idea of writing a blog for quite some time; and, I'm not all that sure what has prompted me to start now or even how often I will post. Worse still, I'm not sure if anyone will even want to read anything I have to say. There are a lot of intelligent and creative people in the blogosphere that have huge followings because people do want to read what they have to say and in many cases are even edified by it. Trust me... I read blogs written by such people every day. Because I want to. And they edify me. 

So, I am going to begin by simply explaining how I arrived at the title "Every day, ordinary worship." I struggled with this because I'm sure that I have "theological thinker" friends or "worship leader" friends who might argue, "There is no such thing as 'ordinary' when referring to the worship of God." And they would be correct. Still, there is something that comforts me in the idea that there can be something "every day" and "ordinary" about little me and the great BIG God that I seek to give my heart in worship and serve in the world with my hands and feet.

Eugene Peterson paraphrased Romans 12:1-2 this way in The MESSAGE: 

"So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."

And there you have it. The inspiration for the title of my blog, "Every day, ordinary worship." I believe that God wants us to worship him with our very lives. So, in a way, I guess that makes me an "every day, ordinary worshipper." I'm an every day, ordinary husband, father, son, grandson, brother, uncle, nephew, (insert familial relationship I've failed to mention), friend, worship leader, youth minister, seminary student, candidate for ordained ministry, you get the idea because the list goes on... Beyond these roles, I'm simply a man who deeply loves God for his extraordinary mercy and grace and wants to reflect God in every aspect of my life.

I've been guilty of becoming so well-adjusted to the culture around me that I've fit into it without any thought at all. I'm also guilty of being a slow learner... in my opinion it took me a little too long to fully realize that my life is not my own and that there is nothing the culture around me has to offer that will ever satisfy because life worth living flows from God.  I pray this blog helps keep me close to God and that life worth living.  It would be alright with me, too, if maybe just once in a while someone reads what I've written and feels edified.  That would be something.