worship

I think worship before the message and after the message is very important in the church. I know I always feel closer to the Lord after I praise him. Some people like a lot of instruments when praising him, but if you’re like my mom she only likes singing hymns in church. She feels that that if there is any type of beat we become more warped up in ourselves than God.  I do not believe that, I think that praising God can come in many different forms and Christians have different ways of worship. Just because someone sings hymns, in one church, or a have a full band in another doesn’t make any particular style of worship better than the other. The church I come form has a strong dislike for contemporary Christian music. They believe that it should praise God , not man. They cite these verses The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my SONG will I PRAISE him. Psalm 28:7,and Be thou exalted, LORD, in thine own strength: so will we SING and PRAISE thy power. Psalm 21:13. They believe just because Michael W. Smith adds some instruments to his music and doesn’t say Jesus name in every line, or just because people like it that it is wrong. I strongly disagree because I believe that you and reach people through music and that if you go to a high school and bring a Christian rapper or a Christian rock band that may reach souls for Christ. Music is one of the most influential things in our world today. It affects our thoughts, the way we talk, our lifestyle, everything. So if people have different style of worship, what matt4ers is that we are all Christians and will one day b3e in h4eacen together, and all the little stuff will no longer matter.

my testimony

At the age of eleven my mom sister and I began attending a church in Howell NJ. I always thought of God as a superior being, but I never thought about him much. I was much more interested in what my friends and peers thought than going to church. The church offered a teen retreat In Pennsylvania and after much persuasion I reluctantly went along. I began to realize that most of the other kids on the retreat seemed a lot happier than me and a lot more content with life, I also couldn’t understand why they were being so nice to me. I soon realized that they had something that I didn’t-Jesus. I realized that If I were to die tomorrow I would not go to heaven because I didn’t have a personal relationship with God. After realizing this, I became a Christian on the last day of the retreat. Since then there has been a huge change in my life because, my life is centered on not what others think of me but what God thinks. I also try to put others before myself because that is exactly what Christ did when he died on the cross to save the world from sin.