Even Joyful Noise is Music to Me...

Today was a blessing in several different ways. First of all, the sun came out bright and beaming today - and no I am not making a reference to the newest American Idol! God had a beautiful day awaiting us when we stepped out of Praise Team practice and boy were we excited to see that yes the sky is in fact blue, not gray! Practice went really well and we even had a new member show up. She is one half of a new couple in our church, Jon and Jona (pronounced "Yon" and "Yona"). They are a great young couple who are so excited to be involved in the church and to get to new us. This is unusual for a Czech but I love it because this is what I am accustomed to. Plus, it is great to see a family so excited for Christ and ready to step into different ministries.
So Jona practiced with us and we learned several new songs. Of course, every song is new to me but I am getting better at pronouncing the words. And today, as a part of my blessings, Petr told us what the songs meant. That helped so much because it added depth to what we were going to be singing and it allowed us to really worship. I didn't remember everything but I remembered the basic point of the song. Worship to me is not just singing a song - at home at Southside, for example, I get lost in our worship time. It excites me and I sing louder than you can imagine while I forget about everyone around me and for a few moments I am singing praises to my God. Just me and Him and no one else around as I am able to freely express, in beautiful prose, just how amazing He is. I don't lead worship at home and it is safe to say that singing is not one of my God given talents. But there was a need and for the time I am filling it. So, being on the other side of the congregation is already a challenge for me - and then when you add another language to sing in it becomes even less of a worship time to me. I am so focused on saying the words right, it is all I can concentrate on. And most times I have no idea what the song is saying. Yes, I know it is about God and a praise to Him but does it really mean anything when you don't know what you are saying? But when Petr told us what they meant I was able to focus not as much on singing it the right way but on really singing to God. The first few weeks, I so missed our English worship and you cannot realize how vital it is to your moral until you have to do without it. Even fifteen minutes of having to stand and sing in church is an amazing blessing to missionaries all over the world who have a hard time being fed themselves in their regions. Looking around Sunday, I saw that I was not the only one starting to lose myself in the worship. For the first time, I saw Czechs truly worshiping the Lord. Though just a few, it showed me that our work here is not in vain. Even with an out of tune American leading worship, they were starting to get the picture. They were starting to understand what we are on this earth to do.


We actually sing several songs that are English praise and worship that were translated to Czech. I think you might recognize this one:

Pojd´, ted´ je ten cˇas jej chválit,

pojd´, své srdce můžeš Králi dát.

Pojd´, ted´ je ten cˇas jej chválit,

pojd´, před Králem svým ted´ můžeš stat,

pojd´.

Jednou každý jazyk vyzná, že jsi Pán,

každý jednou se pokloní,

navždý slavný poklad zůstává nám,

kdo tê milují!