January 20, 1999
Worship seminar gives hands-on experience
___By Dan Martin
___Texas Baptist Communications
___FORT WORTH--During a breakout training session on worship, a worship service kept breaking out.
___Dennis Jernigan, who led music at the Monday evening session of last week's Texas Baptist Evangelism Conference, was scheduled to lead a breakout session on "Why Do I Worship?"
___It proved to be more of a worship experience than a seminar. Jernigan effortlessly ministered to the several hundred people gathered in the ballroom at the Fort Worth Radisson Hotel.
___As he began, he started to sing a composition about "liftingour hands on high" to praise God. "Don't be intimidated by the song," Jernigan said. He explained he once had trouble lifting his hands in praise, but that changed when his own children came to him and "lifted their hands up to me in surrender and total trust."
___As he lifts his hands in praise, he said, "I surrender to his lordship." Worship, he said, is "entering into a relationship with God."
___As he started the song, a few of the audience lifted their hands, and as it went on, more were holding their hands aloft as they sang, "With my hands lifted high, to the sky, when the world wonders why, we will just tell them we are loving our king ...."
___He told worship leaders he asks two questions as he prepares to lead worship: "Lord, what are the needs of your people?" and "Lord, what are your thoughts toward your people right now?"
___He moved from teaching about worship to leading worship again as he told of a friend who was born of a union between a Korean prostitute and an American GI. She was abandoned on the street corner to die but was picked up by a Southern Baptist missionary. Though adopted by a Baptist family, she always struggled with whether she was wanted.
___Jernigan asked everyone to stand who has struggled with the question, "Lord, did you want me or am I an accident?" As they stood in the ballroom, he said he wanted to sing over them: "I wanted you ... there are no mistakes ... I wanted you and I still do."Frontpage / Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!